politics

/ˈpɑlətɪks/

/ˈpɒlɪtɪks/

Your friend who's obsessed with watching Congressional debates and listening to experts discuss the bills being voted on in the Senate has a keen interest in politics, or the details of governing or managing a state or a country.

While politics usually refers to the government of a city, state, or country — or the relationship between countries — it can also be used to talk about the way people use their positions in a company or organization to gain power or authority. This is often called office politics. Another similar phrase is playing politics, which means doing something in order to become more powerful rather than doing what's right.

Definitions of politics

1. noun

   the activities and affairs involved in managing a state or a government
   “unemployment dominated the politics of the inter-war years”

   “government agencies multiplied beyond the control of representative politics”

   type of:

   activity

   any specific behavior

   affairs

   transactions of professional or public interest
2. noun

   the profession devoted to governing and to political affairs
   type of:

   profession

   an occupation requiring special education (especially in the liberal arts or sciences)
3. noun

   social relations involving intrigue to gain authority or power
   “office politics is often counterproductive”

   synonyms: political relation

   type of:

   social relation

   a relation between living organisms (especially between people)
4. noun

   the opinion you hold with respect to political questions
   synonyms: political sympathies

   type of:

   opinion, persuasion, reckoning, sentiment, thought, view

   a personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty
5. noun

   the study of government of states and other political units
   synonyms: government, political science

   types:

   geopolitics

   the study of the effects of economic geography on the powers of the state

   practical politics, realpolitik

   politics based on practical rather than moral or ideological considerations

   geostrategy

   government and military planning as it relates to land, climate, and natural resources and the ways that people interact with them

   type of:

   social science

   the branch of science that studies society and the relationships of individual within a society