bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Levinas, Emmanuel (1906–95)
Authors: Katz Claire Elise 
Published: August 2023

AbstractEmmanuel Levinas was born in Kovno, Lithuania, on January 12, 1906. In 1923 he left for France and enrolled at the University of Strasbourg, where he studied philosophy under a number of professors, including Charles Blondel and Maurice Halbwachs. There he met Maurice Blanchot, who not only became his lifelong friend but was instrumental in saving his wife and his daughter during the Nazi war years. In 1928–9 Levinas went to Freiburg, intending to study under the German phenomenologist Edmund Husserl; and he also met Martin Heidegger. Shortly after returning to France in 1930, Levinas became a naturalized citizen and took a position at the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU), an organization that focused on disseminating Jewish education in the countries of the Mediterranean and primarily in North Africa, for instance in Morocco and Tunisia. He later stated that he believed his French citizenship saved him from being sent to a concentration camp.
Lévi‐Strauss, Claude (1908–2009)
Authors: Kauppi Niilo 
Published: August 2023

Abstract

A founder of structuralism, the French anthropologist Claude Lévi‐Strauss has had a powerful impact on scholars like Louis Althusser, Roland Barthes, Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Julia Kristeva. Born in Brussels, Belgium, to a Jewish family originally from the Strasbourg area in Alsace, he studied law and philosophy at the Sorbonne, receiving his
agrégation
in philosophy in 1931. In 1955 he became an intellectual celebrity through the publication of his most accessible book,
Tristes tropiques
, which fuses autobiography, ethnographic analysis, and philosophical meditation. Lévi‐Strauss was elected to the prestigious Collège de France in 1959, where he taught until 1982. With Émile Benveniste and Pierre Gourou he founded
L'Homme
, the review of the French anthropological society, on the model of the journal
American Anthropologist
. In 1979 he was elected an “immortal,” becoming a member of the famed Académie française. He died of a heart attack in Paris in 2009.
Liberal Democracy
Authors: Spragens Thomas A. 
Published: August 2023

Abstract

Of the two terms, democracy is by far the older. The name was used to identify those city‐states in ancient Greece where the ruling class was the
demos
: the people, or the many, in contrast with regimes ruled by one (monarchy or tyranny) or by the few (aristocracy or oligarchy). Its central elements are popular sovereignty, political equality, and some form of majority rule. The term “liberal” descends to us from the Latin
liber
, meaning “free.” Its use to designate a form of political life or persuasion came only in the early nineteenth century, although the central tenets of the concept itself were developed and articulated in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Liberalism's principal elements include a dedication to individual freedom, limited government, and toleration.
Liberalism
Authors: Galston William A. 
Published: August 2023

AbstractIt is hard to find a survey of liberalism that does not begin by noting the multiple and diverse doctrines that have sailed under the liberal flag. This gives rise to the suspicion that nothing unites them other than a shared name, handed down from one epoch to the next and appropriated by thinkers and movements hoping to profit from their association with it. This suspicion is part of a broader hypothesis, famously advanced by W. B. Gallie, that all political concepts are essentially contested.
Lipsius, Justus (1547–1606)
Authors: Papy Jan 
Published: August 2023

AbstractThe sixteenth‐century humanist Justus Lipsius, renowned above all as a gifted philologist and antiquarian scholar, promoted Taciteanism and is considered the founding father of Neostoicism. His political program, envisaging a centrally governed state in which religious and civil peace would flourish, was mainly based on the views propagated by the Roman historian Tacitus.
Love
Authors: Abbas Asma 
Published: August 2023

AbstractAn intense feeling that serves as an adhesive for individuals and groups, love entails both desire – understood as a movement towards what one deems beautiful or wants to be near – and attachment. It is a transformative human power, capacity, and practice that takes many forms. With its role in organizing relations within and across bounded collectivities and its function in human judgment, love is significant in determining the nature and possibility of politics.
Lukes, Steven (1941–)
Authors: Sypnowich Christine 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
Steven Lukes is an internationally renowned political theorist and sociologist at New York University and has a significant presence as a left‐wing intellectual. His work on Émile Durkheim, concepts of power, and Marxism constitute important contributions to political thought. Lukes combines a radical sociological sensibility, a commitment to Enlightenment reason and moral individualism, and good humour and wit.
Luxemburg, Rosa (1871–1919)
Authors: Cornell Drucilla 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
Rosa Luxemburg was born in the year of the Paris Commune, 1871, in the small Polish city of Zamość; in 1873 her father, who was a timber merchant, moved the family to Warsaw. She grew up in a family of “enlightened” and assimilated Jews, spoke German, and was introduced to the cosmopolitan ideas of the Enlightenment. She went her own way politically from a very early age.
Lyotard, Jean‐François (1924–98)
Authors: Browning Gary 
Published: August 2023

Abstract

Lyotard's
The Postmodern Condition
(1979) is a classic statement of postmodernism. It critiques modernity, in particular modern theory and modern politics, and in anticipating a condition of postmodernity it projects a new way of operating, in which differences and pluralities are embraced. If Lyotard's name is often associated with postmodernism, his career can be seen as a continuous probing and challenging of the rationalism of modernity. He rejects Enlightenment notions of reason and progress and deconstructs the affiliated politics of modernity in its liberal and socialist guises.
Machiavelli, Niccolò (1469–1527)
Authors: McCormick John P. 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
Niccolò Machiavelli would have undoubtedly secured enduring fame for any one of the roles he mastered during his life in and out of Renaissance Florence: historian, diplomat, military strategist, civil servant, poet, playwright. However, it was in his capacity as political philosopher that Machiavelli earned eternal renown, by sparking some of the most intense scholarly controversies in western intellectual history. Not without reason, many commentators consider Machiavelli the father of modern political thought or modern political science – some even ordain him the founder of “modernity” itself. Yet the specific content and the precise objectives of his political writings remain elusive. Was Machiavelli an advisor of tyranny or a partisan of liberty? A neutral technician of power politics or an Italian patriot? An anticlerical reviver of pagan virtue or a devious initiator of modern nihilism? Put simply, to what extent was Machiavelli a “Machiavellian”? These questions, among numerous others concerning the essence of Machiavelli's thought, will continue to generate contentious debates for as long as people will reflect seriously on political affairs.
MacKinnon, Catharine (1946–)
Authors: Heike Schotten C. 
Published: August 2023

AbstractCatharine MacKinnon is an attorney, a feminist theorist, and a legal critic. She is a longtime activist and campaigner for legal reform to redress women's subordination and is most well known for her antipornography work, although she has also agitated against sexual harassment, rape, prostitution, and war.
Market Socialism
Authors: Roberts Aaron B. 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
As the name implies, market socialism – one of the main contending variants of socialist thought today – seeks to fuse elements of a free market system with elements of socialism. On the face of it, however, it appears to be a contradiction in terms or at best a paradox, especially in that the predominant form of socialism today, orthodox Marxism, holds that the future socialist society would fully supersede market relations as one of its constitutive, dialectical movements.
Marsilius of Padua (ca. 1275–1343)
Authors: Sullivan Mary Elizabeth 
Published: August 2023

Abstract

Marsilius is most famous for his substantial political treatise,
Defensor pacis
(The defender of the peace).
Defensor pacis
is primarily concerned with the maintenance of peace in the civil realm. He addresses key political concerns, including the relationship between church and state, democratic political processes, and the value of diversity in the political community.
Marx, Karl (1818–83)
Authors: Browning Gary 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
Karl Marx has exerted a profound influence upon modern social and political theory and practice. Revolutions have been conducted in his name, states have purported to be governed according to his doctrines, and some of the most sophisticated and subtle theorists of the twentieth century, such as Adorno, Lukács, Gramsci, Althusser, and Negri, have self‐consciously theorized in a Marxist tradition. Marx combines intricate analysis of social and economic structures with revolutionary political rhetoric to develop and inspire mass support. He relates politics to the structures of social and economic power and offers a sweeping but penetrating analysis and critique of political economy, in which he focuses upon the production process, attending to the experience of work, control over its resources, and the distribution of rewards underlying it.
Marxism–Leninism
Authors: Oittinen Vesa 
Published: August 2023

Abstract

The concept of Marxism–Leninism was born in the internal discussions of the Bolsheviks soon after the death of Lenin in 1924. Until then, the distinctive traits of Bolshevism had developed more or less inadvertently, in the almost daily struggle against political opponents and rivals. Decisive moments in the formation of Lenin's distinctive theoretical views were, first, his party theory formulated in the booklet
What Is to Be Done?
(1903), where he stood up for an elite organization for professional revolutionaries, and, secondly, his struggle against the leftist views of Aleksandr Bogdanov.
Menshevism
Authors: Lindsey Jason Royce 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
Menshevism is a communist political ideology that was influential in the Russian Empire during the early twentieth century. The Mensheviks of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Party opposed Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks. During the party congress of 1903, the two groups openly split and became known by their positions during a critical vote, “Menshevik” and “Bolshevik” being derived from the Russian words for “minority” and “majority” respectively.
Mercenaries
Authors: Sullivan Benjamin M. 
Published: August 2023

AbstractAs a topic, mercenaries in political thought has been neglected, even though the best workers in the tradition have often made mercenaries essential to their projects. Since the Greeks, the consensus has been negative, but treatments have varied in their elaboration. An account must be diachronic, for more than most areas of political thought mercenary theory has flourished when stimulated by historical process. In most periods before the French Revolution, mercenaries were widely used in Europe. They fell into disuse only in the age of nationalism, the same period that saw an international norm against mercenaries crystallize. An unusual abeyance in theorizing accompanied this equally uncharacteristic dormancy.
Metaphysics and Postmetaphysics
Authors: Tampio Nicholas 
Published: August 2023

AbstractPolitical scientists often study things that can be examined, measured, and compared, such as human beings, political regimes, or international organizations. Political philosophers often think about things that cannot, as such, be empirically observed, such as human nature, moral codes, and theories of justice. The most profound activity of philosophy is metaphysics. Metaphysics, according to Aristotle, is first philosophy, the study of beingquabeing. In general, a metaphysics grounds and delimits what a philosopher thinks that political affairs are and can be. In other words, a metaphysics helps a philosopher explain actual political affairs and envision new political possibilities. This entry considers how several of the most important figures in the history of Euro‐American political theory conceptualize being, the privileged interpreters of being, and the political principles that accord with being.
Michels, Robert (1876–1936)
Authors: Rye Danny 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
Robert Michels was a man of contradictions: a Marxist and syndicalist from a bourgeois background; a German academic and pacifist who became an apologist for Italian nationalism and fascism. As such, he embodied the great political dilemma of his time between democracy and autocracy, which is reflected in his most important contribution to social and political science: the “iron law of oligarchy.” This theory elaborated concerns about the nature of elites and democratic organizations that remain salient today.
Mill, James (1773–1836)
Authors: Turner Brandon P. 
Published: August 2023

Abstract

James Mill holds a peculiar place in the history of political thought. Far better known for his personal associations than for his body of work, he forms one third – the least significant third – of the trinity of nineteenth‐century British utilitarianism: he became the close friend and intellectual comrade of Jeremy Bentham, and fathered the greatest British political philosopher of the nineteenth century, John Stuart Mill. In Mill's case, however, being known primarily for the company one keeps may have worked in his favor, for the reputation of his written work has suffered substantially since his death. However, Mill's oeuvre is worth studying: his
History of British India
remains an important if neglected work of philosophical history that illustrates in interesting ways the shift from the eighteenth‐century Scottish historiography of David Hume and Adam Ferguson to the more universalist and progressive utilitarian approach of nineteenth‐century liberals. More broadly, his political writings include important arguments concerning representation, democratic education, and the nature of political power, arguments that prefigure the methodology and insights of twentieth‐century social science.
Mills, C. Wright (1916–62)
Authors: Peschek Joseph G. 
Published: August 2023

AbstractSociologist and social theorist C. Wright Mills was one of the leading public intellectuals in post‐World War II America. As a scholar he is best known for his studies of the American power elite and the new middle classes and as the champion of a “sociological imagination” that linked individual experience to historical process. His normative vision of radical democracy influenced the New Left and his analysis of politics and society inspired scholars to employ power structure research, class analysis, and political economy in ways that challenged conventional pluralist assumptions about American democracy.
Moderation
Authors: Hintze Hannah 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
Moderation is easy to praise but difficult to define. Sometimes called “temperance,” it is traditionally reckoned among the four so‐called cardinal virtues (along with prudence, justice, and courage) upon which the remainder of the moral virtues are said to depend. Moderation is primarily a personal virtue aimed at rational self‐control of extreme appetites for food, drink, sexual satisfaction, and wealth but various thinkers from Plato to the present have extended it by analogy or directly to political and intellectual spheres.
Modernization
Authors: Choudhury Kushanava 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
Modernization theory is an umbrella term for a series of concepts and ideas of varying political ideologies, which all share a common faith in the progress of all societies to a particular industrial‐capitalist future that resembles contemporary Europe or North America. In the twentieth century it provided poor societies, particularly those forged from former colonies of Europe, a path by which to become less poor. Despite widespread challenges, modernization theory remains powerful in determining state policy and academic thinking across a wide range of political ideologies and nation‐states
Montesquieu, Charles‐Louis de Secondat, Baron de (1689–1757)
Authors: Carrese Paul 
Published: August 2023

AbstractMontesquieu was a French jurist and philosopher, a leading thinker of the moderate Enlightenment, and foremost influence on the framers of the US Constitution and more generally on the development of liberal constitutionalism and a globalized liberal politics. Montesquieu's chief work,The Spirit of Laws(1748), was praised in the latter eighteenth century as the standard of political science. While eventually eclipsed by the French Revolution and radical Enlightenment thinkers, its influence in Britain and America was enduring. His philosophy shaped thinkers ranging from Rousseau, Burke, and Gibbon to Madison, Hegel, and Tocqueville.
Motherhood
Authors: Schreiber Ronnee 
Published: August 2023

AbstractMotherhood can be understood in myriad forms – as a practice, a set of values, and/or an experience – all of which are shaped by political norms, public policies, and gender role expectations. Both Locke and Hobbes, liberal political theorists whose ideas were central to the development of US politics and political institutions, conceptualized motherhood to be within the realm of the private and thus apolitical, leaving the specific idea and practice of motherhood essentially unexamined. Others, like Rousseau, assumed that natural or biological differences between the sexes rendered women relatively incapable of political power and participation. Feminist thinkers have challenged these conceptualizations and have urged us to explore the ways in which political, social, and economic factors shape the experiences of, and beliefs about, motherhood. This latter body of work is not without tensions either, as scholars shift between critiquing and recuperating motherhood, arguing over its centrality to feminist politics. This entry examines political thought as conceived by liberal political thinkers as well as critics of their writings. It fast‐forwards to debates about motherhood in feminist theory and between feminists and conservatives from the 1970s to the time of writing, highlighting how scholars negotiate among competing values of individualism, community, gender differences, and equality. Of course, conceptualizations of motherhood are much broader theoretically and geographically, but in the space allotted here, the focus is on political thought that has directly shaped cultural beliefs and institutions that govern US practices and policies.
Multiculturalism
Authors: Thomassen Lasse 
Published: August 2023

AbstractMulticulturalism can refer to two things. It can refer to the sociological fact that, in a given society, there is more than one culture, that is, that the society is not mono‐ butmulti‐cultural. In this sense there is nothing new about multiculturalism. Multicultural societies have existed in some form for hundreds of years, even if the experience of this in western societies may have changed over the last decades with the arrival of greater numbers of people from nonwhite and non‐Christian countries. Multiculturalism can also refer to normative responses to the fact of multiculturalism. Here we can talk about multiculturalist policies, for instance public funding for ethnic festivals or exemptions from general laws for cultural minorities. While counteracting assimilation, these policies are aimed at equality. Taken in this sense, multiculturalism is a relatively new phenomenon dating back only to the 1970s, first gaining prominence in countries such as the USA, Canada, and Australia. Even in this sense, multiculturalism is not a distinctive ideology or political theory, but a loose set of ideas about how to respond to the fact that society is multicultural.
Nation and Nation‐State
Authors: Mostov Julie 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
Simply put, a nation is a group of people who recognize one another as sharing a common culture, history, and set of institutions and, according to some, the same language, ethnicity, and religion, and a nation‐state is a political entity with sovereignty over a defined territory. But, there is nothing simple about either the term “nation” or the term “nation‐state.” Indeed, while the term nation is also confusingly used to refer to a particular state or country, its evolution, shifting meanings, and rhetorical uses in political discourse and statebuilding practices are highly contested, dynamic, contingent, and gendered. The term nation‐state appears less controversial as a designation of political space, yet its meaning and status are increasingly questioned today as notions and spaces of national sovereignty are practically and theoretically challenged by contemporary globalizing trends. Ethno‐national conflicts, transnational rights regimes, and crossborder movements of capital, information, pollutants, viruses, and people, call into question national control over territory and the feasibility or desirability of such defined units of political association.
Necessity
Authors: Feldman Leonard C. 
Published: August 2023

AbstractNecessity is something of a shadowy concept within the history of political thought. It is most explicitly treated within the tradition of reason of state and tends to involve a claim of compulsion or force linked to survival, either individual or collective. Necessity is often invoked to undergird a claim for the suspension of a legal rule – hence the saying “necessity knows no law” and the criticism that necessity is a “lawless” doctrine. Whether invoked by the state or by an individual (as in the necessity defense), necessity places pressure on the rule of law.
Object Relations Psychology
Authors: Flax Jane 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
Object relations theorists insist on the centrality of interpersonal relationships in the constitution of human subjectivity. Like other psychoanalysts, they call people objects, because they believe our relations with and experiences of others are never unmediated. Rather, they are shaped by many factors including idiosyncratic desires, fantasies, past relations with the object and others, and feelings about ourselves. Hence, everyone's experience of objects is unique, and our constructs of them may have little resemblance to how they or others construct them.
Ochlocracy
Authors: Marquez Xavier 
Published: August 2023

Abstract

In ancient Greek political thought, “ochlocracy” (literally “mob power”) referred to a “bad” or “corrupted” form of democracy (“the power of the people”). The term was apparently coined by the Greek historian of Rome and political thinker Polybius (ca. 200–118 bce) in his
Histories
, though earlier thinkers had also distinguished between good and bad forms of democracy depending on whether the people respected the laws (Plato) or acted in the common interest (Aristotle), and had occasionally referred to the dangers posed by the “mob” (
ochlos
). Polybius extends their analysis, though he only refers unambiguously to Plato, by introducing a term that explicitly distinguishes the bad form of democracy from its good form.