This paper aims to critically analyse the meaning and scope of ‘the political’ in three『Law and
Politics』textbooks that are currently being used at the high school level in South Korea. The analysis is
based on the conceptual tools that are offered by Andrew Heywood and Stoker & Marsh, from which we
infer four different conceptions of the political. This paper focuses on ‘the meaning and functions of
Politics’ section in each textbook to examine which conception of politics they have adopted. Furthermore,
this paper tries to find if there is any discrepancy in the three textbooks between the definition of the
political that are provided and the actual contents of the political that are designed to be taught. The
conclusion of this paper is as following: First, all the three『Law and Politics』textbooks that have been
analyzed in this paper use the concept of the political rather broadly; Second, although all the three
『Law and Politics』textbooks adopt a rather broad meaning and scope of the political, it falls short of
being the broadest concept possible because it fails to embrace the idea of “politics as a social process”;
Third, there is a distinguished mismatch between the concept of the political and the contents of the
political in all the three textbooks, which is likely lead students to learn and internalize the concept of
the political very narrowly.