  Classical electrodynamics uses a dielectric constant to describe the
polarization response of electromechanical systems to changes in an electric
field. We generalize that description to include a wide variety of responses to
changes in the electric field, as found in most systems and applications.
Electromechanical systems can be found in many physical and biological
applications, such as ion transport in membranes, batteries, and dielectric
elastomers. We present a unified, thermodynamically consistent, variational
framework for modeling electromechanical systems as they respond to changes in
the electric field; that is to say, as they polarize. This framework is
motivated and developed using the classical energetic variational approach
(EnVarA). The coupling between the electric part and the chemo-mechanical parts
of the system is described either by Lagrange multipliers or various energy
relaxations. The classical polarization and its dielectrics and dielectric
constants appear as outputs of this analysis. The Maxwell equations then become
universal conservation laws of charge and current, conjoined to an
electromechanical description of polarization. Polarization describes the
entire electromechanical response to changes in the electric field and can
sometimes be approximated as a dielectric constant or dielectric dispersion.
