The Concept of the Political 97
3 should lie in the particular form of the political action by which
The Concept of the Political
On the subjective concept of the political
The object of the concept of the political is diverse. In the original
and etymological sense, this concept enters into the sphere of public
life, but everyday language sometimes applies it in relation to non -
state actors, or even to individuals. We are concerned here with the
definition of the concept of the political in the sphere of interstate
relations. Our considerations are solely concerned with the sphere of
foreign policy. Applied to state relations, the concept of the political
designates something which concerns the "polis", the state taken as
such, in accordance with the concept's etymological sense and with
its most widespread usage. In the sphere of international relations,
political matters are thus those which are likely to have an influence
on the relation of one state with other states — that is, on the situa-
tion of one state within the international community.'
However, any external action by the state ultimately concerns its
relations with other states, and considering their goals, all external
actions are always political. 2 We therefore cannot base the criterion
for the difference between political matters and non -political mat-
ters solely on the relation to the state, especially when we are looking
to define a concept which not only encompasses a distinct part of
international relations, but all the more when looking for the mean-
ing of a general concept of the political.
Some have alleged that the difference between political matters
and non-political international matters resides in the fact that the
first did not possess a legal nature, and therefore that the criterion
96
the state pursues the fulfillment of its political ends. The concept
of the political would thus be equivalent to that of matters of pure
interest. However, following empirical examination, it appears that
such a differentiation is not founded because the historical record
abounds with cases in which legal matters have taken on an unmis-
takably political nature. Thus, the question of knowing whether the
territorial integrity of China was violated by Japan in 1931 is of great
political importance despite its legal nature. The same is true of the
Franco-German dispute of 1911 regarding Morocco; of the issue of
the legitimacy of the occupation of a vast part of the Chinese prov-
ince of Shantung by Japanese troops in 1928; of the issue of the legit-
imacy of the allied intervention in Greece during the world war; 3 of
the Rumanian-Hungarian dispute in the matter of optants etcetera.
It would not be more correct to say, inversely, that a dispute of
which the object is not governed by international law, and which is
thus a dispute of pure interest, must necessarily possess a political
nature due to this absence of legal rule. For example, fixed rules con-
cerning the extent of the "domaine reserve's do not exist in inter-
national law; however, disputes regarding this matter would, despite
this, not generally be considered political disputes. The historical rec-
ord thus proves that the opposition of legal and political matters,
accepted in the doctrine, does not exist in reality. The assertion of
the legal nature of a dispute does not necessarily imply that it does
not have a political nature. The concepts of the political and of the legal
definitely do not constitute an antithetic pair. The opposite concept to that
of the political matter can be found in the concept of the non-political mat-
ter, and not in that of the legal matter. In turn, the latter can be both or a
_political nature as well as of anon-political nature .5
If we relinquish the idea of considering the relation to positive
international law as a distinguishing feature between political and
non-political matters, there is still another criterion left to establish
this distinction, a criterion which resides in the very object of the
matters fitting into one or the other of these groups. Those schol -
ars in favor of this last conceptualization take it for granted that,
owing to the nature of their object, certain matters never take on a
political characteristic, whereas other matters, for the same reason,
always present such a characteristic. They consider, however, that
the former are always of a legal nature. These colleagues do, however,