Political Theory in Society: Comparative and Historical Perspectives

Abstract

Rather than focusing on a single national genre or sub-discipline of political theory, this panel concentrates on the various attempts to theorise politics that have taken place under diverse headings such as political theory, political philosophy, and the history of political thought. The papers pay attention to the significant national and historical variation in such theoretical approaches to politics, as well as to the variation in the public roles of the theorists and their influence on past and contemporary societies. The time-frame of the presentations extends from the 1930s-40s to the present, thus enabling the treatment of themes such as the crisis of ideology around WWII and the proclaimed death of “traditional” political philosophy in the mid-1950s, the partial replacement of political philosophy by “empirical theory” in political science, the rise of the “new history of political thought”, and the revival of normative “new political philosophy” after Rawls. In the midst of these cross-pressures, “political theory” signified a number of different things, for example, the persistent defence of the distinct quality of “the political” against social, economic, behavioural or positivist interpretations of society. Recently, political theorists have re-established their connection to normative political ideology under such headings as liberalism, communitarianism, republicanism, and deliberative democracy. In short, we wish to be able to comparatively and historically elucidate the role and significance of political theory and philosophy in societies, as well as the public roles of political theorists, philosophers, intellectual historians and others who claim to have developed relevant theoretical approaches to modern politics.