One thing that is essential to political activity is that it must always be what?

Civic life is the public life of the citizen concerned with the affairs of the community and nation as contrasted with private or personal life, which is devoted to the pursuit of private and personal interests.
Politics is a process by which a group of people, whose opinions or interests might be divergent, reach collective decisions that are generally regarded as binding on the group and enforced as common policy.

Politics is a process by which a group of people, whose opinions or interests might be divergent, reach collective decisions that are generally regarded as binding on the group and enforced as common policy. Political life enables people to accomplish goals they could not realize as individuals. Politics necessarily arises whenever groups of people live together, since they must always reach collective decisions of one kind or another.
Government is the formal institutions of a society with the authority to make and implement binding decisions about such matters as the distribution of resources, allocation of benefits and burdens, and the management of conflicts.

Differing assumptions about the proper relationship between civic and private life influence ideas about the purposes of government. Differing ideas about the purposes of government have profound consequences for the well-being of individuals and society. For example, if one believes that the activities of government should be restricted to providing for the security of the lives and property of citizens, one might believe in placing severe restrictions on the right of government to intrude into their private or personal lives. On the other hand, if one believes that the moral character of the individual should be a public or civic matter, one might support a broad range of laws and regulations concerning private behavior and belief.

Differing ideas about the purposes of government have profound consequences for the well-being of individuals and society.
Citizens need to understand competing ideas about civic life, politics, and government so that they can make informed judgments about what government should and should not do, how they are to live their lives together, and how to support the proper use of authority or combat the abuse of political power.

Vanessa had a dream to be a ballerina. with her father's she had that opportunity.

As citizens grow increasingly wary of whose interests are being represented in the public policy arena, especially in light of recent sensational scandals showing a cozy relationship between professional lobbyists and lawmakers, a crisis of confidence is engulfing many democratic societies across the european and north american continents. public perceptions of undue influence peddling, in which special interest groups exercise too much sway over government for self-serving purposes, have led to growing demands for the regulation of lobbyists and transparency of the policymaking process. the united states and canada have been struggling for decades to refine their systems of lobbyist regulation. of all the shortcomings of the north american model of lobbyist regulation – and there are many – transparency is not, for the most part, one of them. many european countries have also been experimenting with systems of lobbyist regulation. until recently, however, the european national experiments have produced very different results among themselves and in comparison with the north american counterparts. surprisingly, some of the earliest efforts to regulate lobbying occurred among new democratic countries in eastern europe rather than the more advanced industrial democracies of western europe. this observation stands in stark contrast to the north american experience, where lobbyist regulation emerged as an effort to manage a highly developed class of professional lobbyists within the strictures of long-standing democratic principles. the authors find that the answer to this anomaly lies in the fact that early european lobbyist regulations focused not on  transparency  as a means to regain public confidence in government, but on providing business interests with  access  to lawmakers as a means to bolster fledgling economies. this focus on access is quickly giving way to demands for transparency as many european governments, racked by scandal, are striving to salvage the public's trust. propelled largely by example from a reluctant european parliament and commission, which are themselves attempting to convince europe that a regional government is in its own interest, several european countries are beginning to make a transition from weak systems of lobbyist regulation, which emphasize business access, to strong systems of lobbyist regulation, which emphasize public transparency. in order to discern ‘best’ practices for achieving transparency through lobbying regulation, the authors first chart the regulatory systems of the united states and canada. that is followed by an analysis of all of the european lobbying regimes. the oft-expressed objection to this new trend toward transparency in europe – that professional lobbyists view such regulations as overly burdensome – is undercut by research on european and american lobbyists’ attitudes toward regulation, which are generally quite favorable. like everyone else, lobbyists realize that they have an image problem and that the best way to address that problem is by operating in the broad daylight of public transparency. finally, the authors offer recommendations on how to enhance transparency in policymaking, drawing from detailed comparisons of the north american and european models of lobbyist regulation.