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Political philosophy, or political theory, is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, justice, liberty, property, rights, law, and 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 theory also engages questions of a broader scope, tackling the political nature of phenomena and categories such as identity, culture, sexuality, race, wealth, human-nonhuman relations, ethics, religion, and more.

Political philosophy is a branch of philosophy,^[1] but it has also played a major part in political science, within which a strong focus has historically been placed on both the history of political thought and contemporary political theory (from normative political theory to various critical approaches).

In the Oxford Handbook of Political Theory (2009), 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 media studies, neuroscience, environmental studies, behavioral science, and economics) on which political theorists increasingly draw."^{[2][excessive quote]}

In a 1956 American Political Science Review report authored by Harry Eckstein, political philosophy as a discipline had utility in two ways:

the utility of political philosophy might be found either in the intrinsic ability of the best of past political thought to sharpen the wits of contemporary political thinkers, much as any difficult intellectual exercise sharpens the mind and deepens the imagination, or in the ability of political philosophy to serve as a thought-saving device by providing the political scientist with a rich source of concepts, models, insights, theories, and methods.^[3]

In his 2001 book A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy, Harvey Mansfield contrasts political philosophy with political science. He argues that political science "apes" the natural sciences and is a rival to political philosophy, replacing normative words like "good", "just", and "noble" with words like "utility" or "preferences". According to Mansfield, political science rebelled from political philosophy in the seventeenth century and declared itself distinct and separate in the positivist movement of the late nineteenth century. He writes:

"Today political science is often said to be 'descriptive' or 'empirical,' concerned with facts; political philosophy is called 'normative' because it expresses values. But these terms merely repeat in more abstract form the difference between political science, which seeks agreement, and political philosophy, which seeks the best."

According to Mansfield, political science and political philosophy are two distinct kinds of political philosophy, one modern and the other ancient. He stresses that the only way to understand modern political science and its ancient alternative fully is to enter the history of political philosophy and to study the tradition handed down over the centuries. Although modern political science feels no obligation to look at its roots, and might even denigrate the subject as if it could not be of any real significance, he says, "our reasoning shows that the history of political philosophy is required for understanding its substance".

Indian political philosophy in ancient times demarcated a clear distinction between (1) nation and state (2) religion and state. The constitutions of Hindu states evolved over time and were based on political and legal treatises and prevalent social institutions. The institutions of state were broadly divided into governance, diplomacy, administration, defense, law and order. Mantranga, the principal governing body of these states, consisted of the King, Prime Minister, Commander in chief of army, Chief Priest of the King. The Prime Minister headed the committee of ministers along with head of executive (Maha Amatya).

Chanakya was a 4th-century BC Indian political philosopher.^[4] The Arthashastra provides an account of the science of politics for a wise ruler, policies for foreign affairs and wars, the system of a spy state and surveillance and economic stability of the state.^[5] Chanakya quotes several authorities including Bruhaspati, Ushanas, Prachetasa Manu, Parasara, and Ambi, and described himself as a descendant of a lineage of political philosophers, with his father Chanaka being his immediate predecessor.^[6] Another influential extant Indian treatise on political philosophy is the Sukra Neeti.^[7][8] An example of a code of law in ancient India is the Manusmṛti or Laws of Manu.^[9]

Chinese political philosophy dates back to the Spring and Autumn period, specifically with Confucius in the 6th century BC. Chinese political philosophy was developed as a response to the social and political breakdown of the country characteristic of the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period. Confucius was the first thinker to relate ethics to the political order.^[10] The major philosophies during the period, Confucianism, Legalism, Mohism, Agrarianism and Taoism, each had a political aspect to their philosophical schools. Philosophers such as Confucius, Mencius,^[11] and Mozi, focused on political unity and political stability as the basis of their political philosophies. Confucianism advocated a hierarchical, meritocratic government based on empathy, loyalty, and interpersonal relationships. Legalism advocated a highly authoritarian government. Mohism advocated a communal, decentralized government centered on frugality and asceticism. The Agrarians advocated a peasant utopian communalism and egalitarianism.^[12] Taoism advocated a proto-anarchism. Legalism was the dominant political philosophy of the Qin dynasty, but was replaced by State Confucianism in the Han dynasty. Each had religious or mythic aspects as well that played into how they viewed fairness in governance.

Prior to China's adoption of communism, State Confucianism remained the dominant political philosophy of China up to the 20th century.^[13]

Western political philosophy originates in the philosophy of ancient Greece, where political philosophy dates back to at least Plato.^[14] Ancient Greece was dominated by city-states, which experimented with various forms of political organization. Plato grouped forms of government into five categories of descending stability and morality: republic, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny. One of the first, extremely important classical works of political philosophy is Plato's Republic,^[14] which was followed by Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Politics.^[15] Aristotle is notable for the theories that humans are social animals, and that the polis (Ancient Greek city state) existed to bring about the good life appropriate to such animals.^[16] Roman political philosophy was influenced by the Stoics and the Roman statesman Cicero.^[17]

Medieval political philosophy in Europe was heavily influenced by Christian thinking. It had much in common with the Mutazilite Islamic thinking in that the Roman Catholics thought subordinating philosophy to theology did not subject reason to revelation but in the case of contradictions, subordinated reason to faith as the Asharite of Islam. The Scholastics by combining the philosophy of Aristotle with the Christianity of St. Augustine emphasized the potential harmony inherent in reason and revelation.^[18] Scholastic political philosophy dominated European thought for centuries even unto the Renaissance.^[19]

Some medieval political philosophers, such as Aquinas in his Summa Theologica, developed the idea that a king who is a tyrant is no king at all and could be overthrown. Others, like Nicole Oresme in his Livre de Politiques, categorically denied this right to overthrow an unjust ruler. Magna Carta, viewed by many as a cornerstone of Anglo-American political liberty, explicitly proposes the right to revolt against the ruler for justice's sake. Other documents similar to Magna Carta are found in other European countries such as Spain and Hungary.^[20]

The early Christian philosophy of Augustine of Hippo was heavily influenced by Plato. A key change brought about by Christian thought was the moderation of the Stoicism and theory of justice of the Roman world, as well emphasis on the role of the state in applying mercy as a moral example. Augustine also preached that one was not a member of his or her city, but was either a citizen of the City of God (Civitas Dei) or the Earthly City (Civitas Terrena). Augustine's City of God is an influential work of this period that attacked the thesis, held by many Christian Romans, that the Christian view could be realized on Earth.^[21]

Perhaps the most influential political philosopher of medieval Europe was St. Thomas Aquinas who helped reintroduce Aristotle's works, which had only been transmitted to Catholic Europe through Muslim Spain, along with the commentaries of Averroes. Aquinas meticulously dealt with the varieties of philosophy of law. According to Aquinas, there are four kinds of law:

1. Eternal law ("the divine government of everything")
2. Divine positive law (having been "posited" by God; external to human nature)
3. Natural law (the right way of living discoverable by natural reason; what cannot-not be known; internal to human nature)
4. Human law (what we commonly call "law"—including customary law; the law of the Communitas Perfecta)

Aquinas never discusses the nature or categorization of canon law. There is scholarly debate surrounding the place of canon law within the Thomistic jurisprudential framework. Aquinas was an incredibly influential thinker in the Natural Law tradition.

In synthesizing Christian theology and Peripatetic (Aristotelian) teaching in his Treatise on Law, Aquinas contends that God's gift of higher reason—manifest in human law by way of the divine virtues—gives way to the assembly of righteous government.^[22]

The rise of Islam, based on both the Qur'an and Muhammad strongly altered the power balances and perceptions of origin of power in the Mediterranean region. Early Islamic philosophy emphasized an inexorable link between science and religion, and the process of ijtihad to find truth—in effect all philosophy was "political" as it had real implications for governance. This view was challenged by the "rationalist" Mutazilite philosophers, who held a more Hellenic view, reason above revelation, and as such are known to modern scholars as the first speculative theologians of Islam; they were supported by a secular aristocracy who sought freedom of action independent of the Caliphate. By the late ancient period, however, the "traditionalist" Asharite view of Islam had in general triumphed. According to the Asharites, reason must be subordinate to the Quran and the Sunna.^[23]

Islamic political philosophy, was, indeed, rooted in the very sources of Islam—i.e., the Qur'an and the Sunnah, the words and practices of Muhammad—thus making it essentially theocratic. However, in Western thought, it is generally supposed that it was a specific area peculiar merely to the great philosophers of Islam: al-Kindi (Alkindus), al-Farabi (Abunaser), İbn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Bajjah (Avempace) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes). The political conceptions of Islam such as kudrah (power), sultan, ummah, cemaa (obligation)-and even the "core" terms of the Qur'an—i.e., ibadah (worship), din (religion), rab (master) and ilah (deity)—is taken as the basis of an analysis. Hence, not only the ideas of the Muslim political philosophers but also many other jurists and ulama posed political ideas and theories. For example, the ideas of the Khawarij in the very early years of Islamic history on Khilafa and Ummah, or that of Shia Islam on the concept of Imamah are considered proofs of political thought. The clashes between the Ehl-i Sunna and Shia in the 7th and 8th centuries had a genuine political character. Political thought was not purely rooted in theism, however. Aristotleanism flourished as the Islamic Golden Age saw rise to a continuation of the peripatetic philosophers who implemented the ideas of Aristotle in the context of the Islamic world. Abunaser, Avicenna and Ibn Rushd where part of this philosophical school who claimed that human reason surpassed mere coincidence and revelation. They believed, for example, that natural phenomena occur because of certain rules (made by god), not because god interfered directly (unlike Al-Ghazali and his followers).^[24][25][26]

Other notable political philosophers of the time include Nizam al-Mulk, a Persian scholar and vizier of the Seljuq Empire who composed the Siyasatnama, or the "Book of Government" in English. In it, he details the role of the state in terms of political affairs (i.e. how to deal with political opponents without ruining the government's image), as well as its duty to protect the poor and reward the worthy. In his other work, he explains how the state should deal with other issues such as supplying jobs to immigrants like the Turkmens who were coming from the north (present day southern Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan).^[27]

The 14th-century Arab scholar Ibn Khaldun is considered one of the greatest political theorists. The British philosopher-anthropologist Ernest Gellner considered Ibn Khaldun's definition of government, "...an institution which prevents injustice other than such as it commits itself," the best in the history of political theory. For Ibn Khaldun, government should be restrained to a minimum for as a necessary evil, it is the constraint of men by other men.^[28]

During the Renaissance secular political philosophy began to emerge after about a century of theological political thought in Europe. While the Middle Ages did see secular politics in practice under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire, the academic field was wholly scholastic and therefore Christian in nature.

One of the most influential works during this burgeoning period was Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince, written between 1511–12 and published in 1532, after Machiavelli's death. That work, as well as The Discourses, a rigorous analysis of classical antiquity, did much to influence modern political thought in the West. A minority (including Jean-Jacques Rousseau) interpreted The Prince as a satire meant to be given to the Medici after their recapture of Florence and their subsequent expulsion of Machiavelli from Florence.^[29] Though the work was written for the di Medici family in order to perhaps influence them to free him from exile, Machiavelli supported the Republic of Florence rather than the oligarchy of the Medici family. At any rate, Machiavelli presents a pragmatic and somewhat consequentialist view of politics, whereby good and evil are mere means used to bring about an end—i.e., the acquisition and maintenance of absolute power. Thomas Hobbes, well known for his theory of the social contract, goes on to expand this view at the start of the 17th century during the English Renaissance. Although neither Machiavelli nor Hobbes believed in the divine right of kings, they both believed in the inherent selfishness of the individual. It was necessarily this belief that led them to adopt a strong central power as the only means of preventing the disintegration of the social order.^[30]

The main practical conclusion of Hobbes' political theory is that state or society can not be secure unless at the disposal of an absolute sovereign. From this follows the view that no individual can hold rights of property against the sovereign, and that the sovereign may therefore take the goods of its subjects without their consent.

In Leviathan, Hobbes set out his doctrine of the foundation of states and legitimate governments and creating an objective science of morality.^{[citation needed]} Much of the book is occupied with demonstrating the necessity of a strong central authority to avoid the evil of discord and civil war.

Beginning from a mechanistic understanding of human beings and their passions, Hobbes postulates what life would be like without government, a condition which he calls the state of nature. In that state, each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world. This, Hobbes argues, would lead to a "war of all against all".

During the Enlightenment period, new theories emerged about what the human was and is and about the definition of reality and the way it was perceived, along with the discovery of other societies in the Americas, and the changing needs of political societies (especially in the wake of the English Civil War, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Haitian Revolution). These new theories led to new questions and insights by thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Benjamin Constant and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

These theorists were driven by two basic questions: one, by what right or need do people form states; and two, what the best form for a state could be. These fundamental questions involved a conceptual distinction between the concepts of "state" and "government." It was decided that "state" would refer to a set of enduring institutions through which power would be distributed and its use justified. The term "government" would refer to a specific group of people who occupied the institutions of the state, and create the laws and ordinances by which the people, themselves included, would be bound. This conceptual distinction continues to operate in political science, although some political scientists, philosophers, historians and cultural anthropologists have argued that most political action in any given society occurs outside of its state, and that there are societies that are not organized into states that nevertheless must be considered in political terms. As long as the concept of natural order was not introduced, the social sciences could not evolve independently of theistic thinking. Since the cultural revolution of the 17th century in England, which spread to France and the rest of Europe, society has been considered subject to natural laws akin to the physical world.^[31]

Political and economic relations were drastically influenced by these theories as the concept of the guild was subordinated to the theory of free trade, and Roman Catholic dominance of theology was increasingly challenged by Protestant churches subordinate to each nation-state, which also (in a fashion the Roman Catholic Church often decried angrily) preached in the vulgar or native language of each region. Free trade, as opposed to these religious theories, is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. It can also be understood as the free market idea applied to international trade. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold liberal economic positions while economically left-wing and nationalist political parties generally support protectionism, the opposite of free trade. However, the enlightenment was an outright attack on religion, particularly Christianity. The most outspoken critic of the church in France was François Marie Arouet de Voltaire, a representative figure of the enlightenment.

Historians have described Voltaire's description of the history of Christianity as "propagandistic". Voltaire is partially responsible for the misattribution of the expression Credo quia absurdum to the Church Fathers. In a letter to Frederick II, King of Prussia, dated 5 January 1767, he wrote about Christianity: La nôtre [religion] est sans contredit la plus ridicule, la plus absurde, et la plus sanguinaire qui ait jamais infecté le monde. "Ours [i.e., the Christian religion] is assuredly the most ridiculous, the most absurd and the most bloody religion which has ever infected this world. Your Majesty will do the human race an eternal service by extirpating this infamous superstition, I do not say among the rabble, who are not worthy of being enlightened and who are apt for every yoke; I say among honest people, among men who think, among those who wish to think. ... My one regret in dying is that I cannot aid you in this noble enterprise, the finest and most respectable which the human mind can point out." After Voltaire, religion would never be the same again in France.^[32]

John Locke in particular exemplified this new age of political theory with his work Two Treatises of Government. In it, Locke proposes a state of nature theory that directly complements his conception of how political development occurs and how it can be founded through contractual obligation. Locke stood to refute Sir Robert Filmer's paternally founded political theory in favor of a natural system based on nature in a particular given system. The theory of the divine right of kings became a passing fancy, exposed to the type of ridicule with which John Locke treated it. Unlike Machiavelli and Hobbes but like Aquinas, Locke would accept Aristotle's dictum that man seeks to be happy in a state of social harmony as a social animal. Unlike Aquinas's preponderant view on the salvation of the soul from original sin, Locke believes man's mind comes into this world as tabula rasa. For Locke, knowledge is neither innate, revealed nor based on authority but subject to uncertainty tempered by reason, tolerance and moderation. According to Locke, an absolute ruler as proposed by Hobbes is unnecessary, for natural law is based on reason and seeking peace and survival for man.

David Hume criticized the social contract theory of John Locke and others as resting on a myth of some actual agreement. Hume was a realist in recognizing the role of force to forge the existence of states and that consent of the governed was merely hypothetical. He also introduced the concept of utility, later picked up on and developed by Jeremy Bentham. Hume also coined the is–ought problem, i.e. that just because something is does not mean that is how it ought to be, which was a very influential idea on normative politics.^[33]

Known as the father of liberalism, Adam Smith explained emergence of economic benefits from the self-interested behavior (the invisible hand) of artisans and traders. While praising its efficiency, Smith also expressed concern about the effects of industrial labor (e.g., repetitive activity) on workers. His work on moral sentiments sought to explain social bonds which enhance economic activity.

Immanuel Kant argued that participation in civil society is undertaken not for self-preservation, as per Thomas Hobbes, but as a moral duty. He was the first modern thinker who fully analyzed structure and meaning of obligation. He also argued that an international organization was needed to preserve world peace.

John Stuart Mill's work on political philosophy begins in On Liberty, the most influential statement of his liberal principles. He begins by distinguishing old and new threats to liberty. The old threat to liberty is found in traditional societies in which there is rule by one (a monarchy) or a few (an aristocracy). Though one could be worried about restrictions on liberty by benevolent monarchs or aristocrats, the traditional worry is that when rulers are politically unaccountable to the governed they will rule in their own interests, rather than the interests of the governed. Mill's explicit theory of rights is introduced in Chapter V of Utilitarianism in the context of his sanction theory of duty, which is an indirect form of utilitarianism that identifies wrong actions as actions that it is useful to sanction. Mill then introduces justice as a proper part of the duty. Justice involves duties that are perfect duties—that is, duties that are correlated with rights. Justice implies something which it is not only right to do, and wrong not to do, but which some individual person can claim from us as a matter of right. These perfect duties will thus create liberty and collective freedom within a state. He uses, On Liberty to discuss gender equality in society. To Mill, Utilitarianism was the perfect tool to justify gender equality in The Subjection of Women, referring to the political, lawful and social subjection of women. When a woman was married, she entered legally binding coverture with her husband; once she married her legal existence as an individual was suspended under "marital unity". While it is easy to presume that a woman would not marry under these circumstances, being unmarried had social consequences. A woman could only advance in social stature and wealth if she had a rich husband to do the groundwork. Mill uses his Utilitarian ethics to assess how gender equality would be the best way to achieve "the greatest good for the greatest number" : "The principle that regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes … and is now one of the chief obstacles to human improvement…"

The 'chief obstacle' to Mill relates to women's intellectual capability. The Subjection of Women looks at this in the women of society and argues that diminishing their intellectual potential wastes the knowledge and skill of half of the population; such knowledge lost could formulate ideas that could maximize pleasure for society.

James Madison was an American politician considered to be "Father of the Constitution" and "Father of the Bill of Rights" of the United States. As a political theorist, he believed in separation of powers and proposed a comprehensive set of checks and balances that are necessary to protect the rights of an individual from the tyranny of the majority.

Thomas Paine defended liberal democracy, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution in Common Sense and The Rights of Man.

One of the first thinkers to go by the name of "liberal", Benjamin Constant looked to Britain rather than to ancient Rome for a practical model of freedom in a large, commercial society. He drew a distinction between the "Liberty of the Ancients" and the "Liberty of the Moderns". The Liberty of the Ancients was participatory republican liberty, which gave the citizens the right to directly influence politics through debates and votes in the public assembly. In order to support this degree of participation, citizenship was a burdensome moral obligation requiring a considerable investment of time and energy. Generally, this required a sub-society of slaves to do much of the productive work, leaving the citizens free to deliberate on public affairs. Ancient Liberty was also limited to relatively small and homogenous societies, in which the people could be conveniently gathered together in one place to transact public affairs.

The Liberty of the Moderns, in contrast, was based on the possession of civil liberties, the rule of law, and freedom from excessive state interference. Direct participation would be limited: a necessary consequence of the size of modern states, and also the inevitable result of having created a commercial society in which there are no slaves but almost everybody must earn a living through work. Instead, the voters would elect representatives, who would deliberate in Parliament on behalf of the people and would save citizens from the necessity of daily political involvement.

Moreover, Constant believed that, in the modern world, commerce was superior to war. He attacked Napoleon's martial appetite, on the grounds that it was illiberal and no longer suited to modern commercial social organization. Ancient Liberty tended to be warlike, whereas a state organized on the principles of Modern Liberty would be at peace with all peaceful nations.

Rousseau analyzed the social contract as an expression of the general will, and controversially argued in favor of absolute democracy where the people at large would act as sovereign. The Social Contract (1762) outlines the basis for a legitimate political order within a framework of classical republicanism, becoming one of the most influential works of political philosophy in the Western tradition. It developed some of the ideas mentioned in earlier work, the article Discours sur l'oeconomie politique (Discourse on Political Economy), featured in Diderot's Encyclopédie. The treatise begins with the dramatic opening lines, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they."

Rousseau claimed that the state of nature was a primitive condition without law or morality, which human beings left for the benefits and necessity of cooperation. As society developed, the division of labor and private property required the human race to adopt institutions of law. In the degenerate phase of society, man is prone to be in frequent competition with his fellow men while also becoming increasingly dependent on them. This double pressure threatens both his survival and his freedom.

G. W. F. Hegel emphasized the "cunning" of history, arguing that it followed a rational trajectory, even while embodying seemingly irrational forces. Hegel influenced Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Oakeshott.

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Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is commonly considered the father of modern anarchism, specifically mutualism. Peter Kropotkin is another classic anarchist thinker, who was the most influential theorist of anarcho-communism. Mikhail Bakunin's specific version of anarchism is called collectivist anarchism. Max Stirner was the main representative of the anarchist current known as individualist anarchism and the founder of ethical egoism which endorses anarchy.^[34]

Henry David Thoreau was an influential anarchist thinker writing on topics such as pacifism, environmentalism and civil disobedience – notably with his written work Civil Disobedience – who influenced later important political activists such as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Hard-lining on the individual citizen's right to seek justice over the state's, he was also an outspoken advocate and apologist for John Brown following his raid on Harper's Ferry for the purpose of abolitionist efforts, writing A Plea for Captain John Brown and The Last Days of John Brown.

Noam Chomsky is a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy, neoliberalism and contemporary state capitalism, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and mainstream news media. His ideas have proven highly influential in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements, and aligns with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism.^[35][36][37]

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Friedrich Hayek argued that central planning was inefficient because members of central bodies could not know enough to match the preferences of consumers and workers with existing conditions. Hayek further argued that central economic planning—a mainstay of socialism—would lead to a "total" state with dangerous power. He advocated free-market capitalism in which the main role of the state is to maintain the rule of law and let spontaneous order develop.

An economist of the Austrian School, Murray Rothbard was the central theorist of anarcho-capitalism.

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Philosophers Arizmendiarrieta Baader Belloc Berggrav Chesterton Day Dooyeweerd Gebhardt Gilson Görres Groen Habsburg John Paul II Ketteler Korfanty Lamennais Leo XIII Lewis Maritain Mounier Nell-Breuning Pesch Pius XI Röpke Stein Sturzo Tischner Vogelsang Williams
Politicians Adenauer Andreotti Beel Buzek Caldera De Gasperi Erhard Frei Groen Joseph Ketteler Kohl Korfanty Kurz Kuyper Letta Martens Mazowiecki Merkel Metsola Mikołajczyk Moro Quadros Pastrana Pethrus Pöttering Prodi Schuman Söder Strauss Sturzo Tindemans Vogelsang von der Leyen Wałęsa Weber Windthorst
Parties American Solidarity Party Austrian People's Party Christian Democracy Christian Democratic Appeal Christian Democratic and Flemish Christian Democratic Party Christian Democratic People's Party Christian Democratic Union of Germany Christian Social People's Party Christian Social Union in Bavaria Centre Party Civic Platform Croatian Democratic Union Democratic Rally Fianna Fáil Fine Gael Kataeb Party National Action Party National Party Nationalist Party New Democracy Patriotic Union People's Party Polish People's Party Popular Republican Movement VMRO-DPMNE More
Organizations Catholic Action Centrist Democrat International Christian Democrat Organization of America European People's Party European Christian Political Movement Konrad Adenauer Foundation Conservative Christian Fellowship Centre for European Studies European Ideas Network Schuman Foundation Center for Public Justice Paneuropean Union
Documents Rerum novarum Populorum progressio Graves de communi re Quadragesimo anno Laborem exercens Sollicitudo rei socialis Centesimus annus Laudato si'
Related topics Catholic Church and politics Christian left Christian anarchism Christian communism Christian socialism Christian right Christian libertarianism Christian nationalism Theoconservatism Clerical philosophers Ethical socialism Integralism Illiberal democracy Religious democracy Buddhist Islamic Jewish Mormon Social democracy Traditionalist Catholicism
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Christian democracy is a centre-right ideology inspired by Christian social teaching.^[38] It originated as a reaction against the industrialisation and urbanisation associated with laissez-faire capitalism.^[39] Jacques Maritain has been recognized as the leading Christian-democratic philosopher.^[40] Key ideas in Christian-democratic thought include personalism,^[41] popularism,^[42] subsidiarity,^[43] and stewardship.^[44]

In post-war Europe, Christian-democratic parties dominated politics in several nations—the Christian People's Party in Belgium, CDU and CSU in Germany, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in Ireland, and Christian Democracy in Italy.^[45] Many post-war Europeans saw Christian democracy as a moderate alternative to the extremes of right-wing nationalism and left-wing communism.^[46] Christian-democratic parties were especially popular among European women, who often voted for these parties to a large extent due to their pro-family policies.^[47]

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Communitarianism
Ideas Civil society Common good Community Consensus decision-making Diversity Political particularism Positive rights Social capital Solidarity Social responsibility Value pluralism Workplace democracy
Intellectuals Aristotle Barber Barzilai Bellah Seyla Benhabib Blond Etzioni Galston Hauerwas Jean Bethke Elshtain Hegel Kuczewski MacIntyre Marglin Adán Preve Putnam Rousseau Reich Sandel Taylor Tönnies Walzer
Related topics Catholic social teaching Christian democracy Libertarian socialism Progressivism Radical centrism Republicanism Social democracy Utopian socialism
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Another debate developed around the (distinct) criticisms of liberal political theory made by Michael Walzer, Michael Sandel and Charles Taylor. The liberal-communitarian debate is often considered valuable for generating a new set of philosophical problems, rather than a profound and illuminating clash of perspective. These and other communitarians (such as Alasdair MacIntyre and Daniel A. Bell) argue that, contra liberalism, communities are prior to individuals and therefore should be the center of political focus. Communitarians tend to support greater local control as well as economic and social policies which encourage the growth of social capital.

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Conservatism
Variants Authoritarian Corporatist Cultural Fiscal Green Liberal Libertarian Moderate National Paternalistic Populist Pragmatic Progressive Reactionary Religious Social Traditionalist Ultra
Principles Ancestral worship Authority Traditional Class collaboration Collective identity Cultural heritage Cultural values Culture of life Pro-Life Discipline Duty Elitism Aristocracy Meritocracy Noblesse oblige Ethical order Familialism Family as a state model Family values Fundamentalism Gender roles Complementarianism Essentialism Historism Honour Imperialism Law and order Loyalty Maternalism Monarchism Royalism Moral absolutism Natalism Nationalism Natural law Norms Customs Mores Ordered liberty Organicism Organised religion Orthodoxy Patriotism Peace through strength  Property rights Public morality Rule of law Social hierarchy Social institutions Social order Sovereignty State religion Stewardship Subsidiarity Tradition
Intellectuals Johnson Hume Burke More Maistre Bonald Chateaubriand Czartoryski Coleridge Karamzin Savigny Carlyle Ranke Newman Tocqueville Dostoevsky Taine Le Bon Nordau Belloc Iorga Chesterton Spengler Jabotinsky Ilyin Savarkar Schmitt Eliot Mannheim Jünger Evola Strauss Röpke Freyre Voegelin Oakeshott Burnham Lefebvre Qutb Kuehnelt-Leddihn Gómez Dávila Kirk Solzhenitsyn Koselleck Mishima Buckley Sowell Mansfield Scruton Peterson
Politicians Adams Pitt Canning Metternich Disraeli Bismarck Salisbury Dmowski Mannerheim Baldwin Maurras Horthy Metaxas Churchill Adenauer De Gasperi Chiang Salazar De Gaulle Dollfuss Franco Khomeini Reagan Powell Pinochet Marcos Park Smith Reza Shah Suharto Lee Zia Vajpayee Thatcher Kohl Fujimori Trump Kaczyński Netanyahu Modi Putin Abe Bolsonaro Orbán Meloni
Religion Christian democracy Christian right Confucianism Hindutva Islamism Jewish conservatism Religious Zionism Theravada Buddhism Traditionalist Catholicism Integralism Ultramontanism Traditionalist School
Personal variants Berlusconism Bukelism Cameronism Chiangism Erdoğanism Francoism Fujimorism Gaullism Janismo Maurrassisme Mellismo Metaxism Powellism Pinochetism Putinism Qutbism Khomeinism Reaganism Sarkozysm Thatcherism Trumpism Ziaism
National variants Australia Austria Bangladesh Belgium Belize Brazil Canada Chile China Hong Kong Taiwan Colombia Cuba Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Guatemala Hungary Iceland India Iran Israel Italy Japan Luxembourg Malaysia Mexico Netherlands New Zealand Norway Pakistan Panama Peru Poland Russia Serbia Singapore Sweden Switzerland South Korea Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom United States
Related ideologies Agrarianism Clerical fascism Communitarianism Conservative liberalism Corporatism Ordoliberalism
Related topics Anti-communism White Terror Anti-gender movement Anti-immigration Black conservatism United States Catholic social teaching Conservative feminism Conservative wave Hispanic conservatism in United States LGBT conservatism NatCon Nativism Para-fascism Patriarchy Patriarchalism Radical right Europe US Right realism Right-wing politics Authoritarianism Far New Small-c conservative Toryism
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An Irish member of the British parliament, Edmund Burke is credited with the creation of conservative thought. Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France is the most popular of his writings where he denounced the French Revolution, although he supported the American Revolution.^[48]

An exponent of liberal conservatism, French sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville is known for his works Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution.

A German political theorist of the Conservative Revolution movement, Carl Schmitt developed the concepts of the friend/enemy distinction, the state of exception, and political theology. Though his most influential books were written in the 1920s, he continued to write prolifically until his death (in academic quasi-exile) in 1985. He heavily influenced 20th-century political philosophy.

Leo Strauss famously rejected modernity, mostly on the grounds of what he perceived to be modern political philosophy's excessive self-sufficiency of reason and flawed philosophical grounds for moral and political normativity. He argued instead that we should return to pre-modern thinkers for answers to contemporary issues. His philosophy was influential on the formation of neoconservatism, and a number of his students later were members of the Bush administration.

Colonialism and racism were important issues that arose during the 1950s and 1960s. The rise of feminism, LGBT social movements and the end of colonial rule and of the political exclusion of such minorities as African Americans and sexual minorities in the developed world has led to feminist, postcolonial, and multicultural thought becoming significant. This led to a challenge to the social contract by philosophers Charles W. Mills in his book The Racial Contract and Carole Pateman in her book The Sexual Contract that the social contract excluded persons of colour and women respectively. Michel Foucault critiqued the modern conception of power on the basis of the prison complex and other prohibitive institutions, such as those that designate sexuality, madness and knowledge as the roots of their infrastructure—a critique that demonstrated that subjection is the power formation of subjects in any linguistic forum and that revolution cannot just be thought as the reversal of power between classes.

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Marxism
Theoretical works Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The Condition of the Working Class in England The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte Grundrisse Capital Critique of the Gotha Programme Dialectics of Nature The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State What Is to Be Done? The Accumulation of Capital Philosophical Notebooks Terrorism and Communism The State and Revolution Essays on Marx's Theory of Value History and Class Consciousness Prison Notebooks The Black Jacobins On Practice Theses on the Philosophy of History Dialectic of Enlightenment A Critique of Soviet Economics The Long Revolution Guerrilla Warfare The Wretched of the Earth Reading Capital The Society of the Spectacle Pedagogy of the Oppressed Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses Ways of Seeing How Europe Underdeveloped Africa Social Justice and the City Women, Race and Class Marxism and the Oppression of Women Imagined Communities Hegemony and Socialist Strategy The Sublime Object of Ideology Time, Labor and Social Domination The Age of Extremes The Origin of Capitalism Empire Late Victorian Holocausts Change the World Without Taking Power Caliban and the Witch An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx's Capital Capitalist Realism Capital in the Anthropocene Towards Socialism or Capitalism? The Revolution Betrayed Literature and Revolution The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany Their Morals and Ours: The class foundations of moral practice
Philosophy Alienation Dialectical materialism Ideology Philosophy of nature Philosophy in the Soviet Union Reification Marxist ethics
Critique of political economy Capital (accumulation) Crisis theory Commodity Concrete and abstract labor Factors of production Falling profit-rate tendency Means of production Mode of production Capitalist Socialist Productive forces Scientific socialism Surplus product Socially necessary labour time Value-form Wage labour
Sociology Base and superstructure Bourgeoisie Class Class consciousness Classless society Commodity fetishism Communist society Critical theory Cultural hegemony Democracy Dictatorship of the proletariat Soviet Radical Democratic centralism Exploitation False consciousness Human nature Immiseration Imperialism Lumpenproletariat Metabolic rift Proletariat Private property Relations of production State theory Working class
History Class struggle Historical determinism Primitive accumulation Proletarian revolution World revolution Theory of historical trajectory
Aspects Aesthetics Archaeology Criminology Cultural analysis Cultural Studies Ethics Film theory Geography Historiography Literary criticism Marxism and religion Sociology Philosophy
Common variants Structural Autonomist Marxism–Leninism Guevarism Maoism Titoism Trotskyism Neo-Gramscianism Regulation school Third-worldist Hegelian Budapest School Frankfurt School Humanist Neue Marx-Lektüre Open Political Praxis School Both Black Classical Communization Feminist Leninism Neo Post Western
Other variants Analytical Austromarxism Centrist Council communism Eurocommunism Instrumental Marxism–Leninism–Maoism Nkrumaism Orthodox Revisionist Situationist Socialism with Chinese characteristics Wertkritik
People Marx Engels Morris Lafargue Rubin Kautsky Plekhanov Du Bois Connolly Lenin Luxemburg Liebknecht Kollontai Bogdanov Stalin Trotsky Grossman Zinoviev Bloch Lukács Korsch Bukharin Ho Serge Gramsci Galiev Pashukanis Bordiga Benjamin Mao Basu Mariátegui Horkheimer Dutt Brecht Marcuse Kalecki Fromm Cox Lefebvre James Adorno Padmore Sartre Deutscher Hoxha Beauvoir Sombart Nkrumah Sweezy Emmanuel Hill Bettelheim Draper Jones Hobsbawm Althusser Hinton Williams Freire Mandel Sivanandan Miliband Cabral Thompson Bauman Fanon Kosik Berger Castro Guevara Liebman Heller Guattari Mészáros O'Connor Wallerstein Mies Tronti Debord Amin Hall Nairn Parenti Negri Jameson Gonzalo Dussel Harvey Laclau Bahro Poulantzas Vattimo Badiou Harnecker Altvater Anderson Löwy Vogel Sison Easthope Rancière Berman Przeworski Cohen Therborn Losurdo Ture Postone Rodney Bannerji Spivak Newton Sakai Wood Federici Wolff Balibar Eagleton Kurz Hartsock Rowbotham Mouffe Geras Brenner Davis Massey Cleaver Bishop Haraway Panitch Clarke Jessop Davis Wright Fraser Burawoy Holloway Rose Screpanti Tamás Hampton Cano Žižek Berardi Sankara Hennessy McDonnell Douzinas Roediger Foster West Ghandy Marcos Heinrich Prashad Kelley Dean Lordon Linera Fisher Li Coulthard Malm Seymour Toscano Bhattacharya Moufawad-Paul Srnicek Horvat Hamza Saito
Journals Antipode Capital & Class Capitalism Nature Socialism Constellations Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory Historical Materialism Mediations Monthly Review New Left Review Race & Class Rethinking Marxism Science & Society Socialist Register
Related topics 21st-century communist theorists Anarchism Creative destruction Conflict theory Criticism of Marxism Communism Communalism Economic determinism History of communism Left-wing politics Marxian economics New Left Old Left Municipalism Political ecology Socialism Authoritarian Democratic Market Reformist Revolutionary Social Utopian Left-wing populism Universal class Vulgar Marxism Economism Worker cooperative Workers' council
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Karl Marx's critique of capitalism—developed with Friedrich Engels—was, alongside liberalism and fascism, one of the defining ideological movements of the twentieth century.^{[citation needed]} The Industrial Revolution produced a parallel revolution in political thought. Urbanization and capitalism greatly reshaped society. During this same period, the socialist movement began to form. In the mid-19th century, Marxism was developed, and socialism in general gained increasing popular support, mostly from the urban working class. Without breaking entirely from the past, Marx established principles that would be used by future revolutionaries of the 20th century, namely Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, and Fidel Castro. Though Hegel's philosophy of history is similar to Immanuel Kant's, and Karl Marx's theory of revolution towards the common good is partly based on Kant's view of history—Marx declared that he was turning Hegel's dialectic, which was "standing on its head", "the right side up again".^{[citation needed]} Unlike Marx who believed in historical materialism, Hegel believed in the Phenomenology of Spirit.^[49] The Russian Revolution of 1917—and similar, albeit less successful, revolutions in many other European countries—brought communism, in particular the political theory of Leninism but also on a smaller level Luxemburgism, on the world stage.^{[citation needed]} Antonio Gramsci instigated the concept of hegemony, arguing that the state and the ruling class use culture and ideology to gain the consent of the classes they rule over.

Contemporaneously with the rise of analytic ethics in Anglo-American thought, several new lines of philosophy directed at the critique of existing societies arose between the 1950s and 1980s. Most of these took elements of Marxist economic analysis but combined them with a more cultural or ideological emphasis. One of the founders of Western Marxism, György Lukács developed the theory of class consciousness and introduced the concept of reification in History and Class Consciousness. Out of the Frankfurt School, thinkers like Herbert Marcuse, Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Jürgen Habermas combined Marxian and Freudian perspectives. Called the father of the New Left, Marcuse introduced the concept of repressive desublimation, in which social control can operate not only by direct control but also by manipulation of desire. Habermas pioneered such concepts as the public sphere, communicative action, and deliberative democracy. Along somewhat different lines, a number of other continental thinkers—still largely influenced by Marxism—put new emphases on structuralism and on a "return to Hegel". Within the (post-) structuralist line (though mostly not taking that label) are thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Claude Lefort, and Jean Baudrillard. The Situationists were more influenced by Hegel; Guy Debord, in particular, moved a Marxist analysis of commodity fetishism to the realm of consumption, and looked at the relation between consumerism and dominant ideology formation.

Ayn Rand was the founder of Objectivism and a prime mover of the libertarian movement in mid-twentieth-century America. Advocating a complete, laissez-faire capitalism, Rand held that the proper role of government was exclusively the protection of individual rights without economic interference. The government was to be separated from economics the same way and for the same reasons it was separated from religion. Any governmental action not directed at the defense of individual rights would constitute the initiation of force (or threat of force), and therefore a violation not only of rights but also of the legitimate function of government.

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Republicanism
Concepts Anti-monarchism Anti-corruption Civil society Civic virtue Consent of the governed Democracy Democratization Liberty as non-domination Mixed government Political representation Popular sovereignty Public participation Republic Res publica Rule of law Self-governance Separation of powers Social contract Social equality
Schools Classical Modern Federal Kemalism Khomeinism Nasserism Neo-republicanism Venizelism
Types Autonomous Capitalist Christian Democratic Federal Federal parliamentary Imperial Islamic Parliamentary People's Revolutionary Secular Sister Soviet
Philosophers Arendt Baggini Bello Bentham Bodin Cattaneo Chappell Cicero Condorcet Crick Franklin Harrington Honderich Jefferson Kant Locke Machiavelli Madison Mazzini Mill Montesquieu Paine Pettit Polybius Rousseau Sandel Sidney Sunstein Tocqueville Warburton Wollstonecraft
Politicians Adams (Gerry) Adams (John) Atatürk Azaña Bartley Benn (Tony) Bennett Black Bolívar Burgon Campbell Chapman Clark (Katy) Clarke (Tom) Connolly Cromwell Davidson Drakeford Etherington Fabiani Ferguson Flynn (Paul) Flynn (Stephen) Galloway Gambetta Garibaldi de Gaulle Greer Grévy Griffith Griffiths Harvie Hatton Hébert Hopkins Huppert Iorwerth Jackson Jay Jefferson Jones (Elin) Jones (Lynne) Juárez Kane Khomeini La Malfa Lewis Lincoln Lucas Mackay Mackenzie Madison Magid McKechin Mullin Naysmith Mannin McDonnell Nandy Nehru Pound Prescott Ritchie Robespierre Sayed Skates Skinner Slater Slaughter Smith Spadolini Taverne Venizelos Wilson Wood
Theoretical works Republic (c. 375 BC) De re publica (54–51 BC) Discourses on Livy (1531) The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649) The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656) Discourses Concerning Government (1698) The Spirit of Law (1748) Discourse on Inequality (1755) The Social Contract (1762) The Federalist Papers (1787–1788) Rights of Man (1791) Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch (1794) Democracy in America (1835–1840) On Revolution (1963)
History Roman Republic Gaṇasaṅgha Classical Athens Republic of Venice Republic of Genoa Republic of Florence Dutch Republic American Revolution French Revolution Spanish American wars of independence Trienio Liberal French Revolution of 1848 5 October 1910 revolution Chinese Revolution Russian Revolution German Revolution of 1918–1919 Turkish War of Independence Mongolian Revolution of 1921 11 September 1922 Revolution 1935 Greek coup d'état attempt Spanish Civil War 1946 Italian institutional referendum 1952 Egyptian revolution 14 July Revolution North Yemen civil war Zanzibar Revolution 1969 Libyan coup d'état 1970 Cambodian coup d'état Metapolitefsi Iranian Revolution 1987 Fijian coups d'état Nepalese Civil War Barbadian Republic Proclamation
National variants Antigua and Barbuda Australia Bahamas Barbados Canada Ireland Jamaica Japan Morocco Netherlands New Zealand Norway Spain Sweden United Kingdom Scotland Wales United States
Related topics Classical radicalism Common good Communitarianism Criticism of monarchy Egalitarianism The Emperor's New Clothes Jacobinism Liberalism List of republics Monarchism Peasant republic Primus inter pares Republic without republicans Republican empire Republican Party
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A pair of overlapping political perspectives arising toward the end of the 20th century are republicanism (or neo- or civic-republicanism) and the capability approach. The resurgent republican movement aims to provide an alternative definition of liberty from Isaiah Berlin's positive and negative forms of liberty, namely "liberty as non-domination."^[50] Unlike the American liberal movement which understands liberty as "non-interference," "non-domination" entails individuals not being subject to the arbitrary will of any other person. To a republican the mere status as a slave, regardless of how that slave is treated, is objectionable. Prominent republicans include historian Quentin Skinner, jurist Cass Sunstein, and political philosopher Philip Pettit. The capability approach, pioneered by economists Mahbub ul Haq and Amartya Sen and further developed by legal scholar Martha Nussbaum, understands freedom under allied lines: the real-world ability to act. Both the capability approach and republicanism treat choice as something which must be resourced. In other words, it is not enough to be legally able to do something, but to have the real option of doing it.

In Anglo-American academic political philosophy, the publication of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice in 1971 is considered a milestone. Rawls used a thought experiment, the original position, in which representative parties choose principles of justice for the basic structure of society from behind a veil of ignorance. Rawls also offered a criticism of utilitarian approaches to questions of political justice. Robert Nozick's 1974 book Anarchy, State, and Utopia, which won a National Book Award, criticized the social liberalism of Rawls from a libertarian perspective, gaining much academic respectability.^[51]

Julius Evola called for a return to pre-Renaissance values of tradition and aristocracy while discussing possible ways to survive the inevitable collapse of the modern civilization and to bring forth a new order.

• History of political thought
• Philosophy of law
• Political ethics
• Political ideologies
• Political journalism
• Political theology

Academic journals dedicated to political philosophy include: Political Theory, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Contemporary Political Theory, Constellations, and The Journal of Political Philosophy

• Wolff, Jonathan (2006). An Introduction to Political Philosophy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199296095.
• Miller, David (2003). Political Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192803955.
• Strauss, Leo (2012). History of Political Philosophy. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226924717.
• Kymlicka, Will (2002). Contemporary Political Philosophy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198782742.
• Rawls, John (2009). Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674042568.

• Political philosophy at PhilPapers
• Political philosophy at the Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project
• "Political philosophy". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Video lectures (require Adobe Flash): Introduction to Political Philosophy delivered by Steven B Smith of Yale University and provided by Academic Earth.