  Human-computer interaction scholars are increasingly touching on topics
related to politics or democracy. As these concepts are ambiguous, an
examination of concepts' invoked meanings aids in the self-reflection of our
research efforts. We conduct a thematic analysis of all papers with the word
`politics' in abstract, title or keywords ($n$=378) and likewise 152 papers
with the word `democracy.' We observe that these words are increasingly being
used in human-computer interaction, both in absolute and relative terms. At the
same time, we show that researchers invoke these words with diverse levels of
analysis in mind: the early research focused on mezzo-level (i.e., small
groups), but more recently the work has begun to include macro-level analysis
(i.e., society and politics as played in the public sphere). After the
increasing focus on the macro-level, we see a transition towards more normative
and activist research, in some areas it replaces observational and empirical
research. These differences indicate semantic differences, which -- in the
worst case -- may limit scientific progress. We bring these differences visible
to help in further exchanges of ideas and human-computer interaction community
to explore how it orients itself to politics and democracy.
