№ 3 - 2002
Demidov A.I.
“Political Life” Category as an Instrument to Visualize Politics in a Human Dimension

The author makes an attempt to prove that the category of “political life” is an effective methodological instrument for the measurement of the “human component” of politics, a means to “catalogue” all the irrational in the sphere of politics. He starts with postulating his point of view that political life, far from allowing its being “divided” into separate mutually independent elements, contains phenomena as if “tying up” its main features. He then curtly characterizes these phenomena. In his vision, they include, for example: normativity and non-normativity; a role played, and “coming out” of it, or disengagement; institutions and extra-institutional phenomena, values; order and a state of non-orderliness; concern and sympathy, solidarity; traditions, etc.