What is (de)politicization and what is wrong with it?

Abstract

This article attempts to clarify the meaning of (de)politicization. Politicization sometimes refers to the inappropriate intrusion of partisan loyalties in nonpolitical social domains ( affective politicization ). Politicization can also constitute an ideal of civic agency and energy ( contestatory politicization ). In other contexts, politicization is meant as a kind of institutional corruption, in which government decisions are made for the sake of sectional advantage ( patrimonial politicization ). It can also refer to the imposition of controversial values judgments by ostensibly neutral institutions like the courts and bureaucracy ( values politicization ). These concepts raise divergent normative considerations of varying weightiness. This article motivates the potency of a fifth concept of politicization, which centers on the category of authoritative rule ( archic politicization ). It offers an ideal–typical contrast between political rule and depoliticized power, and it treats the distinct justifications for and objections to the substitution of depoliticized, impersonal reason for authoritative, political will.