Part of the Politics series
Elections
Basic types By-election Corporate Direct / Indirect Fixed-term General Local Mid-term Plurality Primary Partisan Nonpartisan Proportional Recall Snap Sortition Two-round system
Terminology Anonymous elector Apportionment Audits Competition Boundary delimitation Crossover voting Electoral college Election law Election silence Gerrymandering Initiative Psephology Secret ballot Suffrage Right to stand for election
Subseries Administration Political party Voting Electoral systems
Lists Elections by country Close elections Most recent Next general elections National and local elections in 2025
Related Election security Electoral fraud Referendum (by country) Electoral reform Election science Paper candidate
Politics portal

Politics is the process and conduct of decision-making for groups. This notion predates human society. Although it is usually applied to governments, political behavior is also observed in corporate, academic, religious, and other institutions.

Political science is the field devoted to studying political behavior and examining the acquisition and application of power, or the ability to impose one's will on another. Its practitioners are known as political scientists. Political scientists look at elections, public opinion, institutional activities (how legislatures act, the relative importance of various sources of political power), the ideologies behind various politicians and interest groups, how politicians achieve and wield their influence, and so on.

Subfields of political science include international relations, comparative politics, public law, and political theory. Each subfield tends to overlap with other academic disciplines, such as history, philosophy, law, sociology, and anthropology.

Individual political ideologies can be found under the sub-category Political theories.

See also the List of politics-related topics.

• English terms on the Portuguese Wiktionary