People's politics

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People's politics is a term coined by the Anglo-Dutch political scientist Thomas O'Neill.

People's politics is contrasted to governmental politics, a concept Graham T. Allison and Philip D. Zelikow developed in their classic Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. In governmental politics, a political decision is the result of a bargaining game between and inside political elites. In people’s politics, however, decisions are the result of a bargaining game between the political elites and civil society, which is conceived as an arena in which the public will is formulated. A healthy civil society is accessible to anyone and just as accessible, in one of O'Neill's characteristic phrases.