Political theory

The following is excerpted from George W. Carey’s excellent little book What is American political theory? There is no universal agreement about what constitutes politics or the political, as the efforts to define the boundaries of political science over the decades will attest. Yet, at a minimum, “political theory” clearly is concerned with core questions relating to government and how authoritative decisions are made in a society. Among these questions are: • On what principles is the government based? • How is authority allocated within it? • What are its primary purposes? • Are there limitations to its powers? • How can it be altered? • And upon what assumptions regarding human nature does it seem to be based? Viewed from this perspective, the American experience provides a rich source of theory in many particulars. Most of the early charters left the colonists free to use their own best ideas in establishing political order, the terms of which were spelled out in written documents. Moreover, during the long period of England’s “benign neglect,” which extended into the middle of the eighteenth century, the colonists grew accustomed to refining their processes and institutions of government. Thus, we have numerous documents relating directly to core concerns of governance that reveal a good deal about the American political thought of the pre-founding period. To these, of course, must be added those ordering documents of the founding era with which we are far more famil...

political philosophy, branch of philosophy that is concerned, at the most abstract level, with the concepts and arguments involved in political political is itself one of the major problems of political philosophy. Broadly, however, one may characterize as political all those practices and institutions that are concerned with The central problem of political philosophy is how to There is thus a distinction between political philosophy, which reflects the world outlook of successive theorists and which demands an appreciation of their historical settings, and modern Despite this unique aspect of the contemporary situation, and although ancient political philosophies were formulated under very different conditions, their study still This article describes how these questions have been asked and answered by representative and influential political philosophers in the West, from Greco-Roman antiquity through the Middle Ages, early modern times, and the 19th, 20th, and early 21st centuries. During so long a time span the historical

The Racial Contract argues that the society we live in is a continuing white supremacist state. Holding up a mirror to mainstream philosophy, this provocative book explains the evolving outline of the racial contract from the time of the New World conquest and subsequent colonialism to the written slavery contract, to the "separate but equal" system of segregation in the twentieth-century United States. • Young discusses our responsibilities to address "structural" injustices in which we among many are implicated (but for which we not to blame), often by virtue of participating in a market, such as buying goods produced in sweatshops, or participatingin booming housing markets that leave many homeless. Young argues that addressing these structural injustices requires a new model of responsibility, which she calls the "social connection" model. • Rawls aims to express an essential part of the common core of the democratic tradition--justice as fairness--and to provide an alternative to utilitarianism, which had dominated the Anglo-Saxon tradition of political thought since the nineteenth century. Rawls substitutes the ideal of the social contract as a more satisfactory account of the basic rights and liberties of citizens as free and equal persons. • This highly regarded volume features a modern translation of all ten books of The Republic along with a synoptic table of contents, a prefatory essay, and an appendix on The Spindle of Necessity by the translator and editor, Ra...

Elaine and Nathan are professors of political science at a university. They both focus their studies on political theory, which is the study of the ideas and values concerning concepts of the state, power, individuals, groups and the relationship between them. Furthermore, political theory is not only concerned with how these relationships work, but also how they ought to work. Even though Elaine and Nathan both study political theory, they take different approaches. Let's take a quick look at each. Elaine focuses her studies and research on empirical political theory. In the simplest terms, empirical political theory is focused on explaining 'what is' through observation. In this approach, scholars seek to generate a hypothesis, which is a proposed explanation for some phenomena that can be tested empirically. After formulating a hypothesis, a study will be designed to test the hypothesis. Let's look at an example. Nathan's focus is on normative political theory. While empirical political theory is concerned with 'what is,' normative political theory is concerned with 'what ought to be.' In other words, normative political theory is concerned about how the world should be and focuses on the exploration of values and what should be done based upon those values. Elaine and Nathan don't interact much because their approaches to scholarship and research are on different paths. However, both Elaine and Nathan, as well as their theoretical approaches, would benefit if their pat...

Aristotle (b. 384–d. 322 BCE), was a Greek philosopher, logician, and scientist. Along with his teacher Plato, Aristotle is generally regarded as one of the most influential ancient thinkers in a number of philosophical fields, including political theory. Aristotle was born in Stagira in northern Greece, and his father was a court physician to the king of Macedon. As a young man he studied in Plato’s Academy in Athens. After Plato’s death he left Athens to conduct philosophical and biological research in Asia Minor and Lesbos, and he was then invited by King Philip II of Macedon to tutor his young son, Alexander the Great. Soon after Alexander succeeded his father, consolidated the conquest of the Greek city-states, and launched the invasion of the Persian Empire. Aristotle returned as a resident alien to Athens, and was a close friend of Antipater, the Macedonian viceroy. At this time (335–323 BCE) he wrote, or at least worked on, some of his major treatises, including the Politics. When Alexander died suddenly, Aristotle had to flee from Athens because of his Macedonian connections, and he died soon after. Aristotle’s life seems to have influenced his political thought in various ways: his interest in biology seems to be reflected in the naturalism of his politics; his interest in comparative politics and his qualified sympathies for democracy as well as monarchy may have been encouraged by his travels and experience of diverse political systems; he reacts critically to ...

Political Philosophy: Methodology Political philosophy begins with the question: what ought to be a person’s relationship to society? The subject seeks the application of ethical concepts to the social sphere and thus deals with the variety of forms of government and social existence that people could live in – and in so doing, it also provides a standard by which to analyze and judge existing institutions and relationships. Although the two are intimately linked by a range of philosophical issues and methods, political philosophy can be distinguished from political science. Political science predominantly deals with existing states of affairs, and insofar as it is possible to be amoral in its descriptions, it seeks a positive analysis of social affairs – for example, constitutional issues, voting behavior, the balance of power, the effect of judicial review, and so forth. Political philosophy generates visions of the good social life: of what ought to be the ruling set of values and institutions that combine men and women together. The subject matter is broad and connects readily with various branches and sub-disciplines of philosophy including Table of Contents • • • • • • • • • • • Political philosophy has its beginnings in To take a few examples: the ethical utilitarian claims that the good is characterized by seeking (that is, attempting to bring about) the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people (see deontologist, who claims that the highest go...

Aristotle: Politics In his Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, he describes the role that politics and the political community must play in bringing about the virtuous life in the citizenry. The Politics also provides analysis of the kinds of political community that existed in his time and shows where and how these cities fall short of the ideal community of virtuous citizens. Although in some ways we have clearly moved beyond his thought (for example, his belief in the inferiority of women and his approval of slavery in at least some circumstances), there remains much in Aristotle’s philosophy that is valuable today. In particular, his views on the connection between the well-being of the political community and that of the citizens who make it up, his belief that citizens must actively participate in politics if they are to be happy and virtuous, and his analysis of what causes and prevents revolution within political communities have been a source of inspiration for many contemporary theorists, especially those unhappy with the liberal political philosophy promoted by thinkers such as John Locke and John Stuart Mill. Table of Contents • • • • • Telos • Politics • Politics, Book I • • • • • • Politics, Book II • • • Politics, Book III • • • • Politics, Book IV • • • Politics, Book V • • • Politics, Book VI • • • • Politics, Book VII • • • Politics, Book VIII • • Aristotle’s life was primarily that of a scholar. However, like the other ancient philosophers, it was not the ster...

political science, the systematic study of governance by the application of Although political science borrows heavily from the other sciences politiques and ciencias políticas, respectively) is used, perhaps a reflection of the discipline’s Although political science, like all modern sciences, involves empirical investigation, it generally does not produce precise measurements and predictions. This has led some scholars to question whether the discipline can be accurately described as a science. However, if the term science applies to any body of systematically organized knowledge based on facts

Political philosophy, also known as political theory, is the study of topics such as politics, liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of laws by authority: what they are, if they are needed, what makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect, what form it should take, what the law is, and what duties citizens owe to a legitimate government, if any, and when it may be legitimately overthrown, if ever. Political philosophy is a branch of philosophy ( Strauss, 1959), but it has also been a major part of political science, within which a strong focus has historically been placed on both the history of political thought and contemporary political theories (from normative political theory to various critical approaches). In the Oxford Handbook in Political Theory (2006), the field is described as: “[…] an interdisciplinary endeavor whose center of gravity lies at the humanities end of the happily still undisciplined discipline of political science … For a long time, the challenge for the identity of political theory has been how to position itself productively in three sorts of location: in relation to the academic disciplines of political science, history, and philosophy; between the world of politics and the more abstract, ruminative register of theory; between canonical political theory and the newer resources (such as feminist and critical theory, discourse analysis, film and film theory, popular and political culture, mass m...