A Monarchy with Two Faces / Politics is Like Janus
Sadegh Vafaee: Maurice Duverger, the French author of the book “Principles of Political Science,” says that politics is like Janus and has two faces. Janus was the first legendary king of Latium in modern-day Italy, and according to legend, God granted him such foresight that he became aware of both the past and the future. His past-seeing and future-gazing abilities led him to be depicted with two faces. He was also depicted with two faces on ancient Roman currency.
Littré’s Dictionary in 1870 defined politics as “the science of governing nations.” Robert’s Dictionary in 1962 offered this definition for politics: “the art and practice of governing human societies.” It is interesting that these two definitions were presented a century apart. Both focused on governance as the subject of politics, but today, governing other human societies is considered a concept close to governing nations. Thus, the term “governance” in all societies refers to organized power and commanding and coercive organizations.
Maurice Duverger believed that writing the principles of political science was easy in the 18th century. Such a task was very difficult in the Western world in 1964, but easy in the Soviet Union, because in the West at that time, unlike the encyclopedists of 18th century Europe and unlike the communist world, there was no comprehensive theory of politics that was generally accepted. Therefore, writing such principles had the characteristics of a personal endeavor. This endeavor has also been a common feature of many contemporary sociologists.
The book “Introduction to Politics” was translated into Persian by Abolfazl Ghazi under the title “Principles of Political Science” and published. This book is among the old works in the Iranian publishing market, first printed in 1970 (1349 Solar Hijri) and its eighth edition was released by Amirkabir Publications in 1989 (1368 Solar Hijri). This publisher has recently, in recent days, offered the twelfth print editions of this translation.
The themes of the mentioned book had been taught at the University of Paris for several decades, and students of political science, economics, sociology, and law studied it. This book is an example of a scientific and academic figure’s understanding of politics, and the author’s simple writing style allowed non-academic figures and enthusiasts to study it as well. Duverger was born in Angoulême in 1917, and when his book was being translated in Iran, he was active as a professor of political sociology at the Faculty of Law and Economic Sciences in Paris, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a writer for Le Monde newspaper and the weekly Nouvel Observateur. He passed away in 2014.
“Principles of Political Science” was the second book by this author to be translated into Persian, following “Political Regimes.” To examine Maurice Duverger’s writing style, we turn to a passage from this book:
“Unequal population distribution creates political conflicts. Low population density in some areas, which makes economic life difficult, causes frustrations that may manifest as revolts to resist tax payments and obtain various concessions. Conversely, high population density in other areas fuels the fires of conflict. In 19th-century Western Europe, large migrations to cities, which led to the concentration of impoverished populations who lacked suitable housing and sufficient food and were forced to work in terrible conditions, undoubtedly played the most significant role in creating revolutionary movements. The formation of shantytowns and slums around urban centers in underdeveloped countries has similar results. Here, population density is one of the constituent factors of a complex situation arising from a low standard of living, exploitation by employers, political frameworks, ideologies, and the like.”
As mentioned, Maurice Duverger likened politics to Janus with his two mythical faces. The first face showed order and harmony, and the second face was struggle, conflict, and contradiction. The nature of power always has this duality. Sometimes it operates with its order-creating face, and sometimes with its dominating and authoritarian aspect.
Duverger believed that the essence of politics, its specific nature, and its true meaning, is that it is always and everywhere ‘dual-natured’ (a term used by the book’s translator). The image of Janus, that mythical two-faced god, is also the true symbol of the state, because it expresses the deepest political reality: the state, and more broadly, organized power in a society, always and everywhere, while being an instrument of domination by some classes over others, used by dominant classes for their own benefit and to the detriment of subjugated classes, is also a means to ensure a kind of social order and a kind of harmony in society, for the public good.
