When politics becomes play

The ways in which political systems and their members respond to social strains are little understood. When citizens are confronted by unfathomable problems or intense pressures, they often seek to suspend serious activities or escape rigid and alienating roles in order to attain psychological release, mutual involvement, and insights about their lives. Release, involvement, and insight are consequences of a universal human activity called play. People play in order to make room for personal expression in rigid social structures. People play in order to create and maintain the bounds necessary for community. People play in order to generate the novelty, perspective, and invention necessary for social and political change.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1977 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., September 1977.