bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Orwell, George (1903–50)
Authors: Sabl Andrew
Published: August 2023

George Orwell (born Eric Arthur Blair) was an English novelist and journalist. His importance to political theorists lies in his analysis of totalitarianism and the success of his writing against it, especially in his novels
Animal Farm
and
Nineteen Eighty‐Four
; in his preaching and practice of a kind of political writing that rendered lazy ignorance of political evil more difficult; and in his heroic, never quite successful attempt to reconcile liberalism and individualism in literary life with a republican ideal of political virtue and solidarity.
Ostrom, Elinor (1933–2012)
Authors: Sanborn Howard B.
Published: August 2023

Elinor Ostrom was a highly regarded political scientist and public choice scholar whose research concentrated on the study of economic governance and common‐pool resources. She was the first woman to win the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, which she shared with Oliver E. Williamson in 2009.
Pain
Authors: Hutchings Kimberly
Published: August 2023

Narrow definitions of pain identify it with
physical
pain; broader definitions extend the concept to encompass
mental
or
spiritual
pain. Whichever way it is being used, it is always about something that is subjectively felt. Because of this, twentieth‐century linguistic philosophy focused on the phenomenon of pain in arguments about the possibility of private language. Pain is a concept that both marks and troubles the distinction between public and private in political thought. It figures in different ways: as inherently bad; as educative; as pleasure; and as a kind of transcendence, which may be identified with freedom.
Pan‐Arabism
Authors: Lawson Fred H.
Published: August 2023

Pan‐Arabism refers to two quite different things. On one hand, it describes a form of nationalism, namely Arab nationalism, that emerged at the end of the nineteenth century among speakers of the Arabic language inside the Ottoman Empire and asserted that “Arabs” across the empire shared characteristics that entitled them to think of themselves as a single community. On the other hand, the term describes a form of diplomacy that was practiced by Arab governments in the mid‐twentieth century and presumed that the Arab world has common strategic and economic interests that transcend the interests of individual states. These two distinct meanings of pan‐Arabism are often conflated, making it difficult to use the term in a consistent way.
Parliament/Parliamentarism
Authors: Palonen Kari
Published: August 2023

A parliament presupposes representation and deliberation. A nonrepresentative deliberative assembly, or just an advisory and irregular one, is not a parliament. The same holds for a representative assembly that only votes, a corporative assembly, or a soviet based on a revocable imperative mandate. The free mandate of members is commonly held to be an essential condition for parliamentary representation and deliberation.
Parmenides (ca. 6th–5th century BCE)
Authors: Ray Clyde
Published: August 2023

Parmenides was an ancient Greek philosopher credited with developing the monistic theory that eternal Being governed sensory experience. He was an important figure in Presocratic philosophy and his theory significantly influenced later Greek philosophical inquiry.
Passions
Authors: Chakravarti Sonali
Published: August 2023

“Passion” is an encompassing term that includes feelings, sentiments, and emotions, and suggests the wide breadth of one's visceral experiences in the world beyond the narrowly rational, calculative, or cognitive. Individuals do not only think about politics, they live with its consequences in an embodied way. Moreover, passion can motivate political action and guide judgment in complex situations. Although the seat of the passions may be in the individual, our collective and social experiences shape and form our experiences of the passions. Social norms and expectations direct which passions are seen as politically relevant and how these passions are expressed. Passions do not only emanate from the individual, they are also constituted through external social and cultural forces. It is tempting to think about the passions in the history of political thought in terms of a struggle between reason and emotion for dominance in political life. However, the recent wealth of scholarship on the topic supports the idea that passion and reason are better seen as inextricably connected and that the changing nature of their interdependency is more telling than a focus on their perceived antagonism. The ways in which passion and reason are connected determine the contours of a great variety of political questions. To shed light on their interconnectedness, this entry includes a selection of philosophical positions on the passions in politics, first from a historical perspective and then with an identification of key themes in contemporary debates.
Patriotism
Authors: Johnston Steven
Published: August 2023

Patriotism, understood as love of city, republic, country, or homeland, plays a central, if also contested, role in the history of citizenship. Patriotism, not surprisingly, seems particularly significant for political communities – city‐states, democracies, constitutional republics – that govern themselves through some kind of participatory self‐rule. It signifies the emotional attachment, loyalty, and commitment without which (it is claimed) political society guarantees apathy, corruption, and dissolution. Self‐governing orders must be able to count on innumerable contributions from citizens to flourish. At the same time, it is precisely polities that manifest serious democratic shortcomings that often insist on patriotism's indispensability.
Peirce, Charles (1839–1914)
Authors: Talisse Robert B.
Published: August 2023

Charles Peirce was an American scientist and philosopher who made significant contributions to metaphysics, logic, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science. His most enduring achievement was the founding of pragmatism, America's indigenous philosophical movement. Despite his broad intellectual reach, Peirce never wrote in political philosophy, and apparently held political opinions that we would today find noxious. In recent years, though, political theorists have argued that Peirce's pragmatism holds important resources for deliberative democratic theory.
Peronism
Authors: Culver William W.
Published: August 2023

Peronism is an Argentine political movement defined mostly by what its founder, Juan Domingo Perón (1895–1974), did and said while in government from the 1940s through 1955. At its core, Peronism stands for popular social justice and national economic independence. At the outset of the Cold War (1950), Perón declared his “20 Peronist truths,” in an effort to create a coherent synthesis of ideas previously mentioned here and there. Perón sought a Third Way, neither capitalist nor socialist. He rejected Marxist class struggle; his populist fight was against “concentrated economic power.” During his first presidential term (1946–52) he nationalized key economic institutions. This was a period when Perón sought to bring about permanent shifts in the country's social and economic structure, when action matched rhetoric.
Perpetual Peace
Authors: Staring Scott
Published: August 2023

The term “perpetual peace” has been used by philosophers since the eighteenth century to describe an as yet unrealized state of relations in the international realm that would bring an end to all existing wars, and all reasons for future wars, between nations. Precedents for the idea of a perpetual peace can be found in many religious traditions, including in the well‐known biblical prophecy “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” The first systematic attempts to outline proposals for perpetual peace, however, did not emerge until much later.
Pessimism
Authors: Dienstag Joshua Foa
Published: August 2023

Pessimism is a modern tradition of political thought with roots in the ancient philosophies of Stoicism and Epicureanism. It appears, alongside more optimistic philosophies, as a consequence of the modern, linear time‐consciousness that emerges during and after the Renaissance. The most characteristic feature of pessimism is not the idea of decline but rather the denial of progress or repetition in human history, and a consequent sensitivity to the burdens of temporality in a world where nonprogressive change is a fundamental condition. Arthur Schopenhauer is the best‐known exponent of pessimism, but pessimism appears already in the works of Jean‐Jacques Rousseau and continues after Schopenhauer in such theorists as Friedrich Nietzsche. Spurred on by the extraordinary political violence of the twentieth century, pessimism experienced something of a revival in figures such as Sigmund Freud, Max Weber, Albert Camus, Theodor Adorno, and E. M. Cioran.
Plato (429–347 BCE)
Authors: Zuckert Catherine
Published: August 2023

Plato has often been said to be at the origin of western rationalism. Alfred North Whitehead once famously quipped that all subsequent philosophy was merely a footnote to Plato. Friedrich Nietzsche characterized Christianity as “Platonism for the people.” Martin Heidegger and his “postmodern” followers have also traced the “onto‐theology” that has dominated western thought back to Plato.
Pleasure
Authors: Wimberly Cory
Published: August 2023

The history of the political thought on pleasure is not a cloistered affair in which scholars only engage one another. In political thought, one commonly finds a critical engagement with the wider public and the ruling classes, which are both perceived to be dangerously hedonistic. The effort of many political thinkers is directed toward showing that other political ends are more worthy than pleasure: Plato battles vigorously against Callicles’ pleasure‐seeking in the
Gorgias
, Augustine argues against the human tendency to hedonism and in favor of a profound distrust of pleasure in
City of God
, and even Machiavelli claims in
The Prince
that it is in the prince's best interest to separate his pursuit of pleasure from his pursuit of political power.
Plekhanov, Georgii (1856–1918)
Authors: Josephson Peter B.
Published: August 2023

Georgii Plekhanov is generally acknowledged as “the father of Russian Marxism.” He began his political activities in the 1870s, and early in his career opposed the use of terrorism and assassination. He was arrested in Russia twice, and emigrated to Switzerland in 1880. In the early twentieth century Plekhanov aligned with the Mensheviks against the more extreme elements of Lenin's Bolshevism. In his political thought he offered thoughtful critiques of utopian socialism and of idealism. In doing so he articulated and developed the political thought of Marx and Engels, traced the development of materialist philosophy, and elaborated a theory of individual action suited to Marxism.
Pliny the Elder (23/4–79)
Authors: Laehn Thomas R.
Published: August 2023

Gaius Plinius Secundus, known today as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman official under the Emperor Vespasian, a prolific and polyhistoric author, and an apologist for Roman expansionism. Pliny was born into a family of equestrian rank in Novum Comum in Transpadane Gaul, in 23 or 24ce, and was educated as an adolescent in Rome.
Plotinus (205–269/70)
Authors: Gibbons Kathleen
Published: August 2023

Plotinus was a mid‐third‐century philosopher who taught in Alexandria and Rome and is often taken to be the founder of what came to be known as neo‐Platonism. For Plotinus, the sensible world is ontologically dependent on three metaphysical principles: the One, which is beyond being and from which everything else emanates; the Intellect; and the World Soul. The goal of human life is to achieve unity with the One through contemplation of the Forms that reside in the Intellect.
Pocock, J. G. A. (1924–)
Authors: Gibbins John R.
Published: August 2023

John Grenville Agard Pocock, known to his readers as J. G. A. Pocock, emerged from an Anglo‐New Zealand upbringing, to become one of the leading historians and a major advocate and defender of a new style of historical writing on politics, on the revival of an ancient theme, and on the discovery of islands. His methods can be identified with the Cambridge School and its stress on the reconstruction of past languages and on understanding discourses and events within the linguistic contexts that were contemporary to their construction and passed down in conversation as tradition.
Polis
Authors: Wallach John R.
Published: August 2023

“Polis” is the name for a unique social order in which ancient Greeks lived and exercised autonomous power, from ca. 650 bce (Sparta) or ca. 594 bce (Athens) until they were overwhelmed by Macedonian or Roman military power from the late fourth to the early second centuries bce. The Athenian polis occupied an area about the size of the American state of Rhode Island, the smallest of the 50 states of the USA. At the height of its population, before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431 bce, Athens contained nearly 400 000 persons, about one sixth of whom were full citizens (i.e., adult males). Although there were monarchical, oligarchical, and democratic poleis, the institutional character of the polis was conducive to active, deliberative citizenship, which, in turn, was facilitated by democracy. Mid‐twentieth‐century classicists such as Victor Ehrenberg claimed that democracy was the telos of the polis. While that claim overreaches, the polis surely provided a nourishing social order for democracy, for democracy was established during the historical growth of the Athenian polis,between 508–7 and 462 bce. The Athenian polis, which was paradigmatic for Plato's relatively critical and Aristotle's relatively sympathetic account of political relations – retained its democratic character, except for two brief interludes lasting for barely a year, until Alexander and the Macedonians replaced its constitution with a regency in 323 bce. Athenian democracy was stable for most of the fifth and fourth centuries – unlike the portrait of it commonly painted by its antidemocratic interpreters. The idea of “the political” stems primarily from the relatively equal, not always harmonious, active exercise of authoritative citizenship by Athenians in the fifth and fourth centuries bce. Beginning in the nineteenth century but particularly after World War I, the term “political” has been used to highlight deficiencies in the modern state.
Political Ecology
Authors: Buck Christopher
Published: August 2023

The phrase “political ecology” covers a wide range of approaches to understanding and transforming human interactions with the environment. These perspectives put forward different and sometimes conflicting accounts of the relationship between science and politics and question the assumption that politics is an exclusively human affair.
Political Education
Authors: Esquith Stephen L.
Published: August 2023

This discussion of political education is divided into four parts. While there are references to important historical antecedents, the emphasis is on contemporary topics and interpretations. The first section provides a general comparison between liberal and democratic political education. The second describes the complex relationships between the moral virtues and political skills that liberal theorists have argued are an integral part of liberal political education. The third section focuses on democratic political education and the need to grasp the relationships between power and violence. The final section examines the relationship between democratic political education and political responsibilities, in particular the political responsibilities of beneficiaries of institutional violence.
Political Rhetoric
Authors: Masugi Ken
Published: August 2023

The two fundamental texts for understanding political rhetoric and its relationship to political theory are Plato'sGorgiasand Aristotle'sRhetoric. Both works raise enduring philosophical questions about the ultimate purposes of political life. These themes are vividly exemplified in American political rhetoric.
Political Sociology
Authors: Kauppi Niilo
Published: August 2023

Political sociology analyzes the relationship between society and politics. In contrast to sociology, political sociology deals mostly with the state, governments, parties, interest groups, and so on. Compared to political science, political sociology is interested in power relations in various social contexts. A first broad approach encompasses society as a whole and social stratification processes such as professionalization and differentiation. These processes are linked to social developments explored by such diverse authors as Karl Marx, who focused on the key role of economic processes and social class, and Max Weber, who studied the rationalization of life, the emergence of bureaucratic power centers, and subjective disenchantment. The governance perspective has further refined this broad view by focusing on the shifting line between private and public actors. While Marx and Weber as well as authors like Tocqueville successfully link political developments to broader historical trends, their approaches may minimize the specificity of the political field. After all, each area of human social activity has its specific features. One defining feature of the political field is the institution of elections to choose leaders. A second research tradition adopts a more restricted view of politics that concentrates on political actors such as parties and institutions like parliaments and governments. Scholars adopting this narrower conception study, for instance, the evolution of the political field and its internal dividing lines, resources, conventions, and power struggles.
Politics and Language
Authors: Curthoys Ned
Published: August 2023

This entry will discuss the interdependence of language and politics as a recurrent theme of analysis since World War II. The horrors of that war, in which a state mobilized propaganda to dehumanize ethnic and social minorities, have led to a variety of meditations on how under conditions of mass society the language we speak, and hence our perception of the world, can be transformed by political power. Postwar anxiety about the reciprocal conditioning of language and politics has generated a number of critical responses that have been influential in contemporary political theory. Three normative ideals have emerged from these urgent inquiries: (1) the theorization of a pluralist public sphere encouraging deliberation and debate and thus entertaining a variety of perspectives as indispensable for democratic politics; (2) a humanist rethinking of the political virtues in formal rather than substantive terms; (3) a reinvigorated conception of the intellectual as endowed with a capacity for representation that challenges hegemonic political discourses and the narrow and biased frameworks of interpretation they produce. Taking a longer view, we will discuss how intellectuals who seek to challenge the detrimental effects of dominant political discourses on the public sphere have reinvigorated the humanist concerns espoused by rhetoricians such as Aristotle, Cicero, and Desiderius Erasmus. Renewed interest in the intimate relationship between the manipulation of language and political hegemony in mass societies has reprised human concerns that political language, as a rhetorical medium, should be supple, eloquent, enriched by concrete examples, and a manifestation of the individual character and ethos of the speaker.
Politics and Music
Authors: Love Nancy Sue
Published: August 2023

Campaign themes and protest songs, military marches and national anthems, the blues and hip‐hop: many types of music play a role in politics. However, many political scientists continue to relegate music to background context or omit it entirely from the study of politics. Mainstream definitions of politics tend to emphasize established institutions, standard procedures, and rational or self‐interested processes of decision‐making. Musical practices engage other aspects, even another level, of political experience, including affective ties, bodily movements, sensory responses, and visceral reactions. These extra‐rational, some would say nonrational or even irrational, qualities of music can and often do move people to act politically. Yet the political effects of music are not easily controlled, defined, and measured. This is partly because music flows across the many borders – cultural, linguistic, national, religious, and so on – that mark distinct categories and identities. As a result, its political meaning is often ambiguous and malleable.
Politics and the Political
Authors: Norval Aletta J. , Howarth David
Published: August 2023

Aside from disciplinary interests and considerations – What is the nature and scope of political activity? How do political philosophy and political theory relate to political science? How should we best study this particular region of human practice? – contemporary discussions of the concept of politics, as well as of the more awkward and somewhat elusive locution “the political,” are associated with rival attempts to delineate a specific logic of political behavior or endeavor as against other areas of activity, such as social practices and economic processes. Like other key terms in social and political theory, “politics” and “the political” are subject to vigorous contestation, perhaps essentially so. Depending on the intellectual traditions within which they are rooted and developed, they are accorded multiple inflections and valences.
Polity
Authors: Garlitz Dustin
Published: August 2023

The term “polity” is used casually today to describe almost any political community. It is so broad that it has lost any theoretical import. In contrast, it had a much more focused – even technical – meaning in ancient, and especially Aristotelian thought.
Popular Sovereignty
Authors: Espejo Paulina Ochoa
Published: August 2023

Popular sovereignty is the condition in which the people's unified will is the supreme authority in a state. This definition varies widely, depending on one's conceptions of the people and of sovereignty, but for most thinkers, popular sovereignty requires that the people be a collective actor who is the ultimate decider and the last instance of appeal in a political community. This allows us to understand a people as a bearer of the right of self‐determination, and as an independent actor in the international realm. Popular sovereignty is closely associated with the social contract tradition, a theory basing political legitimacy on individual freedom and autonomy. In this theory, popular sovereignty allows individuals both to have government and to remain autonomous because, when individuals consent to be ruled by the group of which they are members, they are simultaneously rulers and ruled. Popular sovereignty thus harmonizes individual freedom and social coordination, and for this reason it is highly valued in democratic thought. But it presents at least two important problems for democratic theory: The first is to explain how a group can rule; the second, to specify who or what constitutes the people.
Pornography
Authors: Schotten C. Heike
Published: August 2023

Pornography is the explicit representation of sexual acts through visual images, written text, and/or audiovisual recording, for the primary purpose of sexually stimulating its audience. It has been the subject of longstanding controversy within US feminism and constitutional law.
Positive Political Theory
Authors: Diermeier Daniel
Published: August 2023

Positive political theory studies politics with mathematical methods. Positive political theory is explanatory or predictive, rather than normative or prescriptive. Since its inception, it has been built on the foundation of rational choice theory, though more recent years have seen some interest in evolutionary or behavioral models.
Postcolonial Theory
Authors: Norton Anne
Published: August 2023

Postcolonial theory is an effort to understand the condition of nations, peoples, and individuals after the achievement of political independence from their colonial rulers.
Postmodernism
Authors: Orlie Melissa
Published: August 2023

An encyclopedia entry on postmodernism must begin by noting the irony of the enterprise. Although the meaning of postmodernism is controversial, it is generally agreed that postmodernism represents the end of the systemic generalizations, universal categorizations, and simple narrative accounts characteristic of the encyclopedia. However, since many judge postmodernism to be dead, it may be possible to define it more decisively now.
Poststructuralism
Authors: Choat Simon
Published: August 2023

“Poststructuralism” is a convenient label rather than a coherent movement or ideology. It refers to a collection of theories and ideas that were first developed in France in the 1960s and which began to rise to prominence after the student–worker protests of May 1968. Key figures within poststructuralism include Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze. Although these thinkers are all French, their work was only called “poststructuralist” after its reception and development in Britain and North America. They did not identify themselves as poststructuralists, and even rejected this name, not least because they used a diverse range of approaches and methodologies and were often highly critical of each other's work.
Power
Authors: Haugaard Mark
Published: August 2023

There is no single uncontested definition of power, but many theorists converge on a general characterization of power either as the
capacity
to make another do something that that person would not otherwise do or as the
exercise
of such a capacity. The reason for this lack of agreement is that power is either an
essentially contested concept
or a
family resemblance
concept.
Progressivism
Authors: Eisenach Eldon J.
Published: August 2023

The Progressive era spans the period between the 1880s and 1920s. The origins of Progressivism as a body of thought and as a political movement, however, lie in the Republican Party of the 1860s. Lincoln represented their highest civic ideals and attained a sacred status in a civil religion that defined America as a covenant nation pledged to bring democracy and justice to the world. The restoration of highly competitive partisanship in the gilded age brought with it, however, political machines and party bosses who battened on graft and corruption and on the dependencies of vulnerable immigrant populations flooding into northern urban centers. The withdrawal of the respect and recognition that reformers had received earlier through the Republican Party and its allied associations drove women, clergymen, and the educated middle class generally away from political life. The rise of an aggressive and aggrandizing business culture added to their sense of alienation and loss.
Protagoras (ca. 490–420 BCE)
Authors: Ray Clyde
Published: August 2023

Protagoras was a Presocratic Greek philosopher and founder of sophistic education whose doctrine of skepticism is criticized by Socrates in the Platonic dialogues. Believed to have been born in Abdera, Thrace, Protagoras was educated in philosophy by Democritus, a natural scientist and theorist of atomism. Aside from his career as a teacher, little is known concerning his life or career beyond brief biographical sketches provided by Diogenes Laertius and Sextus Empiricus. During his time in Athens, Protagoras associated with Pericles and other elites while composing a number of treatises on subjects ranging from the art of dialectic argument to wrestling. Diogenes has suggested that Protagoras was invited by Pericles to draft a constitution for the Athenian colony of Thurii in 443 bce. Protagoras’ professed agnosticism caused him to be expelled from Athens, and though tradition holds that his books were publicly burned, contemporary scholars have cast doubt on this claim. He died in exile.
Ptolemy of Lucca (Tolomeo Fiadoni) (ca. 1236–1327)
Authors: Blythe James M.
Published: August 2023

Ptolemy of Lucca (born Tolomeo Fiadoni) was a Dominican prior in Lucca and Florence and bishop of Torcello. Known largely for the republican political ideas inOn the Government of Rulers(De Regimine Principum), a work begun by his teacher, Thomas Aquinas, he also wrote other political works, histories, and biblical commentary.
Public Sphere
Authors: Ward Ian
Published: August 2023

In its broadest sense, “public sphere” refers to a class of political institutions, practices, and activities where participants exchange ideas about matters of common concern. Given the varied uses to which the term has been put in the humanities and social sciences, it has assumed different meanings, depending on which specific institutions, practices, activities, and participants are singled out for attention by the relevant thinker or theory. Political thought and practice thus feature a variety of alternative and competing conceptions of the public sphere; of particular importance are the roles these conceptions play in debates concerning modernization and democracy.
Punishment
Authors: Federman Cary
Published: August 2023

This entry explains the political theory of punishment. The definition of punishment is somewhat elusive, but among nations dedicated to the rule of law, it usually includes the following ideas: (1) an offender has violated a public law that carries with it a sanction; (2) there is an official governmental response that involves arrest and trial; (3) the offender has the right to counsel and a number of other procedural protections; (4) punishment follows a jury's or a judge's decision; and (5) the punishment deprives the offender of a right and is sufficient for the crime and not more so. To facilitate the investigation into punishment's meaning, the entry begins with an overview of ancient and medieval punishment and then discusses modern conceptions of punishment, by focusing on key thinkers who have written on punishment. Modern punishment differs from ancient and medieval punishment in important respects, principally through the use of the prison and other disciplinary techniques.
Puritanism
Authors: Moots Glenn A.
Published: August 2023

“Puritanism” is a term first used to refer to dissenters and nonconformists dedicated to ecclesiastical reform (and, most likely, constituent moral and political reform) in England and America. It is also sometimes applied to reformers in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland and on the Continent as well. Used first in England around 1564 and in Scotland in the 1590s, it was intended as a term of derision but then adopted by its targets as a badge of honor and tribute to their piety. As Puritan ecclesiastical demands were mooted through the creation of separate churches, the term “Puritan” came to indicate someone who opposes sensual indulgence, leisure, or celebration. It later became a term applied to literary style or moralistic social movements.
Putnam, Robert D. (1941–)
Authors: Blake Charles H.
Published: August 2023

Robert D. Putnam is a political scientist who has made contributions to the study of international relations, comparative politics, and US politics. From the 1990s forward, he has principally been associated with popularizing the application of the concept of social capital to the study of politics.
Race
Authors: Seth Vanita
Published: August 2023

The etymology of the word “race” traces its history back to the thirteenth century. By the sixteenth century it had entered most European languages. Its meanings included rage (
razen
in Dutch), a species, kind, stock descent, lineage (
razza
in Italian), horse breeding (
raza
in Spanish), power, authority, kingship, and kingdom (
rīce
in Old English), and in Middle English
ras
denoted swift course, speed, or current. By the nineteenth century “race” had come to take on the meaning we commonly associate it with today.
Radicalism
Authors: Thompson Michael J.
Published: August 2023

In its broadest sense, the term “radicalism” in political thought has meant a transformation of the basic or fundamental structures of social life and the value systems of any society. Although the substance of radicalism as a coherent tradition in political thought predates the term “radical,” it can be said that it is a concept that evolved, gained strength, and even gave rise to modernity. Radicalism can be understood on its surface as a kind of political doctrine that emphasizes a break with the prevailing institutions and values that govern any given social order in favor of one that is viewed as less corrupt. In this sense, radicalism should not be seen as intrinsically progressive or conservative in nature. Rather, it denotes a particular approach to the status quo of society and not a specific political doctrine.
Rancière, Jacques (1940–)
Authors: Chambers Samuel A.
Published: August 2023

Jacques Rancière is a French thinker, writer, and public intellectual who speaks widely in Europe, the UK, and North America. He is currently professor of philosophy at the European Graduate School in Saas‐Fee, Switzerland, and emeritus professor at the University of Paris (St. Denis). Rancière, like other well‐known French political thinkers such as Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, was a student of Louis Althusser, and Rancière's work first became visible when he, along with a number of Althusser's other seminar students, served as a co‐author onReading Capital.
Rawls, John (1921–2002)
Authors: Klosko George
Published: August 2023

John Rawls was a major twentieth‐century moral and political philosopher. His monumentalA Theory of Justiceprovides a powerful defense of the liberal welfare state and the priority of individual liberty over other values. InTheoryRawls claims that justice is the “first virtue of social institutions,” and attempts to establish principles of distributive justice to govern the workings of society's “basic structure,” its major political, social, and economic institutions. These are the proper focus of distributive justice, because of the decisive influence they exert on people's life prospects.Theoryis credited with reviving normative political philosophy among Anglo‐American philosophers and, since its publication, has served as a model for the practice of political philosophy.
Reid, Thomas (1710–96)
Authors: Hoffman Aaron D.
Published: August 2023

Thomas Reid was one of the major figures of the Scottish Enlightenment. He is often credited as the founder of Scottish common sense philosophy. Reid was a minister in the Church of Scotland and regent at King's College, Aberdeen, succeeded Adam Smith as professor of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow, and authored three major works of philosophy:
An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense
(1764),
Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man
(1785), and
Essays on the Active Powers of Man
(1788). Though often overlooked or underappreciated in the standard history of western philosophy, Reid and common sense philosophy had an influence upon the American academic community. Reid's philosophical work was a direct response to the skepticism of David Hume. Unfortunately for Reid, his reputation suffered in comparison to that other celebrated critic of Hume, Immanuel Kant.
Religious Freedom
Authors: Murphy Andrew R.
Published: August 2023

Religious freedom is one of the central elements of the liberal‐democratic tradition, and refers generally to the political liberty of individuals and groups to worship alongside like‐minded believers in accordance with the dictates of their consciences, and to enjoy the rights and privileges of citizenship regardless of their religious affiliations (or lack thereof). The term encompasses a variety of potential institutional arrangements, as authorities in different times and places have sought to balance the commitments of individuals and groups on the one hand, with the rule of law on the other.
Republican Political Thought
Authors: Gourevitch Alex
Published: August 2023

“Republican political thought” comes from the Latin wordrespublica, which means public thing or common property. Arespublicais a government that serves common rather than private ends. It is usually assumed that a republic must be self‐governing and that republican liberty is only possible in a free republic. While various traditions of political thought are built out of these simple ideas, “republican political thought” refers to a late modern scholarly paradigm that interprets or draws inspiration from earlier periods of reflection on the classical Roman and Greek republics. Neo‐republican scholars have rewritten the history of political thought in terms of the development and defeat of a classical, republican view of liberty. They have also attempted to revive some idea of “republican liberty” as an alternative to liberal theories of freedom and politics. Though a vital research program, republican political thought has not yet shown how its institutional program is strongly different from liberalism and it has been relatively quiet about economic questions.
Revolution
Authors: LeJeune John
Published: August 2023

Revolutions are forceful transformations of a society's political institutions, ruling regime, and social basis of political authority. A revolution's radical and noninstitutionalized character separates it from constitutional reform, and the combination of “(a) efforts to change the political regime that draw on a competing vision (or visions) of just order, (b) a notable degree of informal or formal mass mobilization, and (c) efforts to force change through noninstitutionalized actions such as mass demonstrations, protests, strikes, or violence” distinguishes revolutions from related events like coups, rebellions, and civil wars.
Roman Catholic Political Thought
Authors: Bradley Lewis V.
Published: August 2023

The New Testament says little about politics, forcing upon early Christian thinkers the necessity of working out political ideas based on their immediate circumstances and the available pagan philosophy. Four central notions that do have biblical warrant are (1) the distinction between spiritual and temporal power; (2) the divine sanction for political authority with a consequent obligation to obey on the part of Christians when the demands of government do not violate divine law, but to obey God rather than men when they do; (3) the brotherhood of all men transcending political allegiance; and (4) the notion of a natural knowledge of morality accessible to all men, believers and unbelievers alike, foundational for the idea of the natural moral law.
Rorty, Richard (1931–2007)
Authors: Voparil Christopher J.
Published: August 2023

A key intellectual figure of the late twentieth century and primary force behind the resurgence of American pragmatism, Richard Rorty gained notoriety for his sweeping critique of the western philosophical tradition in
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
. As he developed the consequences of his pragmatic philosophy over the next three decades in works like
Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity
,
Truth and Progress
,
Achieving Our Country
,
Philosophy and Social Hope
, and
Philosophy as Cultural Politics
, a deep set of democratic commitments and a vision for realizing them emerged. Rorty's thought depicts a mode of political theorizing that aims to move beyond “the entire cultural tradition which made truth a central virtue” of which political theorists have only begun to take full stock. Hope replaces transcendental knowledge, a lightly sketched possible future takes the place of appeals to an independent reality, stories supplant rational arguments, and abstract notions of humanity and rights are abandoned for felt, emotional identifications with particular communities. His work offers a large‐scale program for self‐criticism and reform of western societies by modifying their “self‐image” to make them more responsive to suffering and injustice, both at home and abroad.
Rosenzweig, Franz (1886–1929)
Authors: Morgan Michael L.
Published: August 2023

Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929) was born in Kassel. After two years in medical school, he entered the University of Freiburg in 1908 to study history and philosophy. He completed his doctorate under Friedrich Meinecke in 1912 with a dissertation on Hegel's political philosophy, an expanded version of which was published in 1920 as
Hegel und der Staat
. In 1910, after a summer conference in Baden‐Baden, he abandoned his allegiance to Meinecke's conception of the nation‐state and its historical accomplishments and turned to religion and specifically Judaism to find the foundations of a fulfilled human existence.
Rousseau, Jean‐Jacques (1712–78)
Authors: Johnston Steven
Published: August 2023

Rousseau is arguably the most profound and provocative democratic theorist in the history of political thought. Profound because the social and political questions he addresses trade in paradoxes productive to democratic thought; provocative because he deems democracy indispensable but impossible, what must but cannot be. Rousseau's work is nothing if not unique, perhaps especially in its ability to defy a single interpretive understanding and generate both passionate appreciators and detractors. Rousseau wrote incendiary texts that threatened the contemporary order of things (“Man was/is born free and everywhere he is in chains”); they also transcend their context of creation and speak to peoples, places, and times, including our own, that either aspire to democracy, suffering from its lack, or appear to be democratic, suffering from its distortion. Whether democracy triumphs or it disappears, Rousseau's thought retains relevance and urgency.
Roy, M. N. (1887–1954)
Authors: Manjapra Kris
Published: August 2023

Manabendra Nath Roy (1887–1954) was an Indian Marxist philosopher and an anticolonial revolutionary. He became a mid‐century exponent of philosophical cosmopolitanism. Roy is widely considered one of the first thinkers to develop a specifically Indian form of systematic Marxist thought (Ray 1998).
Rule of Law
Authors: James Stephen
Published: August 2023

The rule of law – a doctrine about how law constrains the arbitrary use of power – has been an important part of liberal approaches to law and government, especially since the nineteenth century. Historically, it has been summed up in the ideal of a “government of laws, not men,” a government under law, not above it. Its greatest influence has been on the jurisprudence, constitutional theory, and legal doctrine of countries of the British common law world, particularly England and Australia. Since England does not have a written constitution, while Australia has a fairly mechanical one that rarely mentions constitutionalist values, the doctrine of the rule of law has been most influential in those countries. In contrast, as a doctrine the rule of law has had less direct influence upon the jurisprudence of the United States where liberal‐constitutionalist values are spelt out in a written constitution with a Bill of Rights.
Santayana, George (Jorge Augustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana) (1863–1952)
Authors: Kinzel Till
Published: August 2023

As a philosopher, Santayana was a materialist and atheist. His early work, strongly influenced by Schopenhauer, concerned the sense of beauty (aesthetics). Later, this concern would also color his political philosophy. In political terms, Santayana gave preference to order above chaos to such a degree that he expressed a general sympathy for the domestic policies of early Italian fascism, even though he regarded Mussolini as an evil man and his warlike foreign policies as disastrous. In other respects, Santayana was opposed to the phenomena of modern mass political systems, including what he regarded as “Americanism” and “liberalism.” He maintained that aristocratic elements in society ought to be preserved, for these were eminently compatible with reason in society.
Schmitt, Carl (1888–1985)
Authors: Shapiro Kam
Published: August 2023

Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) was a German public jurist and political scholar who served as an advisor to leaders in both the Weimar government and the Nazi Party, which he joined in 1933. However, his incisive criticisms of liberalism, legal formalism, and global political institutions have influenced postwar thinkers from across the political spectrum. Long disregarded because of his affiliation with the Nazis, his writings gained renewed scholarly attention with their translation and publication in English, beginning in the 1980s.
Scholasticism
Authors: Hendrix Scott E.
Published: August 2023

Scholasticism developed as a method of critical inquiry and an approach to knowledge based on dialectical reasoning. Scholastics privilege the analytical tools developed by Aristotle (384–322
bce
) and later rigorously systematized by thirteenth‐century philosopher/theologians, most notably Albert the Great (1200–80) and his disciple Thomas Aquinas (1225–74). The term “Scholasticism” is derived from the Latin
scholasticus
, applied first to masters of the Cathedral Schools that began to spring up in Europe during the Carolingian renaissance of the ninth century.
Duns Scotus, John (1266–1308)
Authors: Scott Joanna Vecchiarelli
Published: August 2023

The “subtle doctor,” possibly born in Duns in the Scottish Borders, Duns Scotus, a Franciscan monk, lectured at Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, and Cologne. Controversial during his lifetime, Duns Scotus rejected both the authority of Thomistic Aristotelianism and Philip the Fair's control over local church property.
Secularism
Authors: Scherer Matthew
Published: August 2023

Secularism constrains religion to a sphere of private and individual belief, construed as the domain of conscience, thus clearing the way for the governance of public life by mechanisms devoid of religious origins and intentions, such as rational deliberation, competition of interests, and instrumental reason. It is both an ideological and an institutional formation that emerged within Europe and its colonies as the result of a process of secularization itself roughly coextensive with the modern age and culminating in the separation of church and state.
Self and the Other
Authors: Corlett William
Published: August 2023

“Self and the other” – a theme, a concept, sometimes a mere presupposition – expresses a relationship, a multifaceted relation between two contested concepts. This relationship traverses western political theory and other theoretical traditions. In fact, this expression is sometimes used to describe the relations between nonwestern and western traditions themselves. These traditions of political theory combine source materials from many eras and places. For this reason, “self and the other” provides an opening through which one can detect the scope and urgency of debates in political theory as they concern power relations between people, animals, and material things. Several times and places are revisited especially often for textual sources: ancient Greece, Enlightenment Europe, nineteenth‐ and early twentieth‐century Europe, and late twentieth‐century Europe and the Americas.
Sen, Amartya (1933–)
Authors: Bush Sasha Breger
Published: August 2023

Amartya Sen is a scholar, teacher and prolific author whose work ranges broadly over the fields of economics, political and moral philosophy, international development, public health, gender studies, and war and peace. Among Sen's most influential contributions are his Nobel Prize‐winning research with Jean Drèze on the causes of hunger and famine, the “capabilities approach” to international development developed with Mahbub ul Haq, and his reflections on the idea of justice. Sen is currently the Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.