Politics, PolicyandPoliceyas Concepts in English and Continental Languages: An Attempt to Explain Divergences

1 January 1986

journal article
research article
Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in The Review of Politics

Vol. 48 (1) , 3-30
https://doi.org/10.1017/s0034670500037499

Abstract

This article explores the problem of why most Continental languages lack a term which distinguishes the concept ofpolicy, and to what extent political scientists writing in them are handicapped. It employs a diachronic approach to explore historical shifts of meaning within the “polis-family of words” in English and German, with reference also to French and other languages. The analysis is related to the manner in which the concept and term for state flourished m these languages over time, and explores why a convergence in usages of the Englishpolicyand the ContinentalPoliceywas aborted in the early nineteenth century. The bureaucratic and ideological roots of the broad Continentalpoliceconcept are traced. Then synchronic analysis is used to explore how in the contemporary setting the presence or absence of a policy term effects communication and conceptualization.

Keywords

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