Mechanism of Politics

by Lee, Chang Hoo

Chapter 0 Contents of this book

(1) Political Phenomenon's Scope and Explanation Method

In this book, I will not explain everything about politics, nor will I go into depth about anything outside of politics. What I want to explain is political phenomenon. Then, what is considered political phenomenon? Where does it start and where does it end?

On January 1st, 1959, the underground organization following Castro took complete control of the capital, Havana. When the frontal assault of the guerrilla squad started on August 21st, 1958, with only 800 soldiers, they were numerically inferior and weak compared to the government army, but they fought fiercely and received strong support from the Cuban people. Eventually, they conquered the Cuban government. This belongs to political phenomenon. What about the following events? Are they political events?

In June 2016, Venezuela showed severe income inequality. According to a report by The Washington Post, "Starving Venezuelans eat fruit from the trees or catch animals such as dogs and cats, birds. Bread shops and supermarkets are frequently robbed." On the other hand, "Well-off Venezuelans are purchasing household items directly through American online sites or receiving deliveries through family members living in the United States." Is this a political event? On the other hand, in the 14th century in Joseon, Confucian scholars wrote famous Buddhist criticism works such as "Bulsijapbyeon (ÝÖä«íÚÜ©; Buddhistic Miscellaneous Debates)". Is this also a political event?

The wealth gap in Venezuela is essentially an economic event, and the writings of Buddhist critics are fundamentally academic or religious events. However, there is also a political aspect to this. Venezuela's extreme wealth gap holds the power to trigger changes in the regime, and the publication of Buddhist critics in Korea helped restrict the political participation of Buddhist priests and promote the politics of Neo-Conficianism. As seen in the case, where the trade deficit with China has become a political issue in the United States or Pope Urban II had an impact on the Investiture Controversy and the First Crusade through his theories regarding the papacy, this is a universal phenomenon.

Then, what exactly is the "political aspect"? As most political scientists agree, it is about having influence on power. As will be mentioned again, political phenomena are directly related to power phenomena. Focusing on power phenomena, the scope of political phenomena can be described as follows.

IIn this paragraph, two points are focused on for understanding the power phenomenon: ¨ç the 'power structure' and ¨è its 'change'. The power structure refers to an organization of people's cooperative relations and is also called a "political regime." Its change is determined by environmental factors (internal and external) and members' demands (cooperation).

Explaining the operating principle of the political phenomenon with spatial-temporal universality of East and West, past and present, and the macro?micro-level universality in large and small areas requires a significant level of abstractness in and of itself. Instead, the value of scientific study can be obtained there.

This book expresses very new ideas. I have organized the content of this book into a simple structure and used all concepts with the most consistent meaning. Furthermore, I am explaining by repeatedly applying the simplified concept system to multiple parts. So, I thought many people would easily understand the contents of this book, but to my surprise, that was not often the case. The reason is one and only one: it is very different from the existing political science theory.

New ideas are always difficult to understand. When seen from experience, when something is said to be "easy to understand," it means that at least 80% of what it means is familiar to oneself. To overcome this problem as much as possible, I will make use of many diagrams and tables in this book to easily convey its systematic and clear thoughts.

Through tables and diagrams, you can often see at a glance what I mean by what I say. Especially in this book, the content explains complex phenomena by repetitively applying simple concepts. Even if the reality is actually very simple, it can be difficult to understand. In this case, showing the relationships between each concept with tables and diagrams seems to be effective. Once you understand the contents of this book, I wonder if the contents will still be summarized just by looking at the tables and figures included in this book.

The important statements that penetrate the entire book, together with tables and figures, are collected in the appendix at the end of the book for this reason.