Goodwin Ch1 on Political Theory
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POLITICS POL110
Subject
Political Science
Date
May 12, 2024
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24
Uploaded by GrandChinchilla3636
1
CHAPTERl
WHAT IS POLITICAL THEORY?
This chapter
sets out to define terms such as political
theory, political philosophy and ideology, and to clarify the
meaning
of
various
specialist
terms
used
by
political
theorists. It offers examples of contentious or fallacious
arguments to illustrate the fact that any political argument
advanced can be contested from a different ideological
perspective and to demonstrate the importance of political
theory for evaluating the validity of ideological arguments.
Should people be more equal? Is the state more important than
the individual?
Can a socialist
society
be free?
Is political
violence ever justified? Must we tolerate the intolerant? Can the
majority dictate to the minority? Is it right that the rich should
also be powerful? Such questions are the concerns of political
theory. Although they sound deceptively simple, susceptible to
'Yes' or 'No' answers, when we try to answer them it becomes
evident that each conceals a wealth of disputable assumptions
and
that
the
meaning
of
its
key
words
is also
disputable. Furthermore, the answers inevitably express
opinions on what ought to be the case, rather than describing
what is the case. Political values and ideals are at stake here, and
choices between ideals must be made. I may give priority to
freedom rather than equality because I think it more vital to
human happiness, you may judge the opposite. Most of us are
influenced by political ideology, whether we knowingly
subscribe to it or unconsciously
2
absorb it as part of received opinion, so not only do the answers
to political questions vary according to individual opinion, they
also differ with the individual's ideological position.
The practice of political theory helps us to set about answering
such questions logically, and to criticize the answers which
others give, by dealing with political matters at a more abstract
and general level than does political science. Take the question
'Is political violence ever justified?' A 'scientific' answer would
be an emphatic negative since violence is outlawed both legally
and constitutionally. But political theory asks if justification
might not be advanced according to circumstance. Does not an
oppressed minority, denied the freedom to state its case, have a
justification for using violence? Does not the validity of that
justification further depend on what sort of violence and against
whom it is directed? And so on. The usefulness of political
theory is that it allows us to consider such problems without
always returning to the factual replies of the constitutionalist or
lawyer. It frees us to think critically, normatively, speculatively
or idealistically, instead of being trapped into describing what
exists as if it could never be changed. A critical approach rests
on the ability to escape from the existent.
At first it appears that most 'great' political theorists are
engaged not in criticism but in a permanent struggle to legitimize
rulers or governments and to justify the phenomenon of power.
Plato looked to absolute justice to justify his Guardians as
rightful rulers, Christian theologians of the middle ages looked to
God's intentions to sanction the rule of kings, while contract
theorists such as Hobbes and Locke saw government as founded
on the people's rational choice. But Plato, Hobbes and Locke
were also among the foremost critics of the politics of their own
societies and voiced this opposition in their descriptions of
government as it should be, ideal government. Naturally, there
have also been theoretical apologists for most existing regimes,
but propagandists are intrinsically less interesting except to the
3
social historian, and rarely end up on political theory syllabuses.
Political theory is a technique of analysis which can be used to
overturn, as well as to uphold. Departing from fact and detail, it
describes and explains politics in abstract and general terms,
which allow scope for the critical imagination.
Political theory may theref ore be defined as the discipline
which aims to explain, justify or criticize the disposition of
power in society. It delineates the balance of power between
states, groups and individuals. 'Power' is used broadly here:
even obedience is an aspect of power, for it connotes deliberate
self-restraint by citizens who might otherwise resist the
government. Essentially, power lies where resources (personal,
economic, moral, ideological, etc.) lie, and operates through
inducements as much as through threats and through the
withholding as well as the deployment of resources. Sociologists
often analyse power in terms of individual interaction, as A's
capacity to get B to comply with her (A's) desires; political
theory sets these familiar, everyday machinations in a formal
power structure. However, even theorists observing the same
phenomena may conceptualize the power structure differently
(where liberals saw equality and social harmony, Marx saw
conflict and oppression). Different conclusions result: for
example, a constitutionalist who views politics in terms of
institutions might consider that unions should not be politically
active, while someone viewing politics as pressure group activity
would think it inevitable that they should be. Diverse
conceptualizations of power therefore generate diverse political
ideals and problems.
The reader new to political theory might raise the fallowing
objection to the subject: surely it would be better to study
political institutions rather than abstract concepts, since ideas
must be incarnated in institutions if they are to have any
meaning. We can best discover the meaning of 'democracy', it
might be thought, by examining the institutions of our own and
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4
other democratic countries and extrapolating their crucial
features, rather than by reading Plato et al. This raises a
fundamental problem which haunts all social science subjects:
which comes first, concept or fact, theory or reality? Is there an
essence of democracy, or is it constituted by a configuration of
the institutions observed in Western-style democracies? This is a
modern reiteration of the most ancient philosophical controversy:
does reality reflect ideas, or vice versa?
This perennial question cannot be answered satisfactorily here,
but it provides an opportunity to define some of the mysterious
labels which are tied to various arguments in political theory.
Plato's view, also associated with Descartes and others, that
reality approximates to unchanging transcendental ideas, is
labelled idealist (not to be confused with the more familiar
'idealistic' which means 'promoting ideals or values'). In social
science, an idealist approach means that ideas and theory precede
factual observation. The opposing view, originally associated
with Locke, that our concepts derive from our observation of
physical or material reality, is generally called materialist (again,
differing from 'materialistic', which means 'concerned with
material wealth or goods').
A materialist outlook is often associated with the empirical and
inductive scientific method, although not invariably. Empiricism
requires that the natural or social scientist should first observe
reality and then induce a general theory based on a large number
of instances or facts. It is associated with positivism, which
insists that the only meaningful statements are those which are
verifiable by reference to the real world; moral, religious and
metaphysical statements are, as a consequence, held to be
meaningless and empty. Empiricism is the dominant scientific
method in the Anglo-Saxon world. The Greek root of 'empirical'
means 'trial', which suggests that the empiricist rejects
preconceptions and acts as a naYve observer who makes
discoveries through experiment: this contrasts with the procedure
5
of the rationalist, who starts with a theory. The conflict between
the empiricist and rationalist viewpoints is one of epistemology -
that is, it is concerned with the criteria by which knowledge can
be established and so with truth, falsehood and proof. This
debate, although philosophical, is closely related to issues in
political theory, as we shall see.
Meanwhile, the objector who wants to define democracy by
observing democratic states still awaits an answer. She is
evidently advocating an empirical approach which would supply
the general principles of democracy by investigating its
organizational features. The obvious drawback is that to analyse
the idea by examining countries or institutions which are
reputedly democratic leaves us with no independent criterion to
judge whether they are so or not. And how would this approach
cope with non-Western, self-proclaimedly democratic countries
which seem authoritarian to the Western observer, such as
Singapore and Tanzania? It has no obvious justification for
excluding them from its analysis. To define 'democracy' through
a study of existing, so-called democracies begs the question of
what democracy means. A theory so formed can only mirror
observed phenomena, whereas a theory which is to have critical
power needs to make reference to the ideal composition of
democracy.
The case against the empirical or 'concrete' approach to
political concepts was well put by the left-wing philosopher
Marcuse. He contended that our political vocabulary has become
increasingly 'closed', with key words being defined in concrete,
factual terms (for example, 'democracy means one-man-one vote,
the secret ballot, equal constituencies ... '), so that critical usages
have become impossible.
Such nouns as 'freedom', 'equality', 'democracy', and 'peace'
imply, analytically, a specific set of attributes which occur
invariably when the noun is spoken or written
The
ritualized concept is made immune against contradiction.
1
6
In other words, political concepts have become like the minor
characters in Dickens' novels, each with his or her distinguishing
trait. We cannot imagine freedom without consumer choice any
more than we can picture Mrs Gamp without a gin bottle, hence
we have a 'one-dimensional' view of freedom. Marcuse cited
research about factory workers' grievances in which the
researchers made the complaints concrete, transforming vague
grumbles about conditions and pay into specific complaints
about dirty washrooms or the financial problems of particular
workers. By such devices (which employers also use), heartfelt
alienation is dissolved into concrete trivia and the critical
element of the grievances is banished. Marcuse's general thesis
was that the concrete approach to political matters deliberately
precludes the proper use of abstract concepts as open-ended tools
for criticism and protest. Even if Marcuse's attack on capitalism
is rejected, his point, that the critical dimension is essential to
thought and argument, is indisputable.
The term 'criticism' is frequently given a pejorative undertone,
but in defining criticism as the central task of political theory, I
view it in the neutral sense in which Enlightenment philosophers
saw it, as the tool by which our reason appraises the social order.
Only by taking an abstract, conceptual approach, starting from
ideals or theory, can we achieve an appraisal which is detached
from existing society, even if it cannot be entirely impartial.
Political science and political sociology often lack detachment;
political theory is important because it can offer this perspective.
Such arguments may convince the sceptic that political theory
is indeed worthwhile, but she may still doubt its relevance to real
life. Is it not an ivory-tower subject of no interest to ordinary
citizens, a subject whose detached approach prevents it from
influencing the world below? The next few pages are intended to
show not only that political theory can sharply analyse current
political controversies, but also that even the crudest political
argument relies on the fundamental concepts and ideals supplied
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7
by theory. Often these are unvoiced, but their role in determining
the forms which political argument and Realpolitik take is
crucial. Consequently, the political theorist has the important
task of exposing these hidden mechanisms.
The debate about workers' participation in management, alias
'industrial democracy', appears to concern industrial relations
but is really a contemporary rehearsal of age-old arguments as to
the best form of government. The advocates of workers'
management (including some employers) see participation as a
positive good. It increases the number of viewpoints considered,
gives the workers the sense that they are controlling their own
destinies, increases the acceptability of decisions and emphasizes
workers' responsibility to follow management policies. (The idea
of workers' representatives on Boards of Directors could in this
sense be said to draw implicitly on Hobbes' view that the elector
has a duty to abide by what his/her representative decides.
2
)
Against this, opponents assert the value of specialist and expert
management, reflecting the justification of elite government
which, since Plato's time, has often rested implicitly on an
assumed division between mental and manual labour. In the
context of this argument, workers are said to be preoccupied with
their own short-term wellbeing, and unable to make the strategic
industrial choices which require economic know-how and
managerial experience. By contrast, a board of experts, managers
and informed outsiders would supposedly make unself-interested
decisions benefiting both firm and employees.
3
The two underlying principles in this debate were familiar even
in classical times, when both government by experts and
participation by the people were tried in the Greek polis or city
state of ancient Athens. The former emphasizes the benefits that
knowledge and wisdom bring to mankind, while the more
egalitarian principle spells out the subjective importance for
individuals of having a voice in public affairs. Expertise and
efficiency or participation
and greater satisfaction? These rival
8
values are incommensurable, and cannot be simultaneously
realized; a choice about worker participation (or, more generally,
about good governance) requires an ordering of priorities. A
change of priorities, or values, changes the social institutions
which embody the values, so the ability to identify and evaluate
the old and new values is important for participants in such
political debate.
I now turn to a set of arguments based on less reputable
principles. It is often argued that immigrants in Britain have no
right to be here, even 'third-generation immigrants', and that
they consume resources to which indigenous British people are
entitled. Underpinning this assertion is a view of 'natural'
justice, which deems that being born in a country gives one a
special right to its resources, including a right to welfare and a
right to work. This is an instinctive or 'gut' conception of justice,
hence the epithet 'natural', a term often invoked when rationality
offers no support to an argument.
In times when there was little transport or mobility and people
lived in village economies which were locally self-sufficient,
there was some basis for the view that they had a primary claim
to the local resources which they themselves processed and
relied on (although there were also traditions of generosity
between communities in hard times). Now that migration is
common and mobility almost universal, at least in the West, and
economies are not local or national, but global, how could we
substantiate such a claim to natural entitlement? Anyone who
maintained that only native Mancunians had the right to work in
Manchester or consume its precious manufactures would rightly
be found guilty of absurdity. But this patently absurd argument
differs only in degree from the claim that immigrants should not
live or work in Britain. A series of acts restricting immigration
(1971, 1981, 1988), which turned on a controversial notion of
patriality, made plain the incongruity of the idea of natural
entitlement. In what sense is a 'patrial', someone with at least
9
one British grandparent, entitled to come to Britain and work?
Grandpaternity may be a natural relationship, but it is also
arbitrarily chosen - why not cousinhood, or aunthood? - and
bears a tenuous link to the right or need to immigrate. The
principle of labour mobility established by the European Union
has established a different kind of entitlement to immigrate, also
at odds with natural justice - an entitlement which the West
European countries are striving to restrict as the farmer
communist countries gain access to the EU.
If, on the other hand, there is a principle of natural justice, it
might equally support immigration. Much immigration since
World War II has been a consequence of the colonization which
created the British Empire: the extension of British nationality to
inhabitants of the colonies gave them a right, and an incentive, to
migrate to Britain. Britain's present wealth, it could be argued, is
substantially derived from its exploitation of those colonies'
resources, to which the forebears of today's immigrants may
have considered that they had a natural entitlement. Does not
natural justice therefore decree that their grandchildren should
come and share our prosperity? This argument may be as poor as
the opposing one, but it shows that citing natural justice to
substantiate a moral and non-legal claim against someone is a
double-edged process, because the notion of entitlement by birth,
geography or similar accident can usually be countered by
another, equally 'natural', claim. There may be pragmatic and
tactical reasons for limiting immigration, but we should refrain
from thinking that such a limitation is necessarily based on
justice.
The emotional and intuitive appeal of claims to natural justice
is evidently strong, but the concept collapses under scrutiny.
Bentham argued in the eighteenth century that 'natural rights' are
nonsense, the only rights being those established in positive law.
He would have said that the same goes for natural justice.
Malthus wrote of the pauper, 'At
Nature's mighty feast there is
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10
no vacant cover for him. She tells him to begone.' In one respect,
Malthus was right: in no sense does the world 'naturally' owe us
a living, even less does a particular corner of the world owe
some people, rather than others, a livelihood. The fact that such
claims have been established by social and legal convention does
not make them naturally just. There is no justice in nature,
although we have contended against the intractability of the
natural world and its imperviousness to our needs by creating the
idea of human rights and, more recently, those of 'welfare rights'
and the 'social minimum'. But crucial to the idea of human
rights is their universality, i.e. every individual's claim to life and
livelihood - a claim which 'natural justice' arguments often
reject.
Prominent among contemporary political movements are
nationalism, separatism, regionalism and devolutionism. Kurds,
Basques, Armenians, Kashmiris, the IRA and many other
minority groups demand, or fight for, autonomy, and many such
groups in the former USSR and Eastern Europe have succeeded,
such as the peoples of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and the
Croatians. The justifications for these demands and struggles all
rest on an ideal of self-determination, supported by a notion of
the 'natural' geographical, racial or cultural unit. The axiom
'what is natural is good' prevails. When we consider how
arbitrarily and for what Machiavellian and strategic reasons
many national boundaries were drawn, especially in colonial
Africa or post-1918 and post-1945 Europe, it is small wonder
that internecine wars and separatism are now rife. At first, the
idea of the natural social unit seems valid, because members of
racial or language groups, for example, clearly have salient
cultural characteristics which unite them and differentiate them
from others. But it is not easy to devise a general political
principle on this basis of natural affinity. 'The people's right to
self-determination' which created free Balkan states in 1919 also
provided justification for Hitler's march into Austria and his
11
invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland to 'protect' German
speaking citizens. Similar problems have arisen again in Eastern
Europe, where each country contains minorities whose ethnic
allegiance is to a neighbouring state. The most aggressive forms
of nationalism are often based on a dogmatic assertion of the
naturalness of the national unit. Certainly, many nations today
suffer from unsuitable or inconvenient boundaries, or are
unhappy agglomerates of different cultural groups (as was the
former Yugoslavia), yet the destruction of their territorial
integrity might have worse consequences for everybody,
separatists included. In the face of such intractable problems,
political theory can at least analyse the arguments about 'natural
units', to see whether they are well founded or universally
applicable. It can also offer alternative ways of conceptualizing
such situations, which may be more appropriate or fruitful.
Nationalism is discussed further in Chapter 11.
The goodness of what is natural is an adage which has not lost
its appeal in our highly artificial civilization. In politics, it is
used to sanction gut convictions and propositions for which no
evidence can readily be advanced. But the implication that
society is as natural as trees and rocks is totally misleading.
Certainly, human beings are part of nature, subject to the same
needs and aging processes as other mammals, but society is an
artificial environment not subject to inexorable natural laws: we
can manipulate and change society. However fond some
politicians may be of the analogy of the Body Politic, society
does not function like a living organism. So claims about what is
natural in society are misleading. Equally, it is wrong to cite
nature as the moral yardstick by which to measure our social
arrangements: there is no morality in nature, and not much that is
natural in society.
One of the tasks of political theory must be to dispel popular
delusions of the kinds just described and to expose misleading
ideas. In this connection, it is relevant to consider briefly the
12
other misleading idea so often accorded final authority in
political arguments, human nature. Often, in debate, an
insubstantiable hypothesis about human nature is invoked to
refute a theory or ideology. (How often is it argued that
socialism is impossible because people are greedy by nature?) In
common with other social science subjects, political theory itself
must make suppositions about people's character or motivation,
or, at least, minimal assumptions about regularities in their
behaviour. This is necessary for a consistent explanation of
political life. But such assumptions, whether covert or explicit,
hypothetical or well grounded in fact, determine from the start
which form a theory will take.
Mediaeval Christian theorists, convinced of mankind's original
sin and depraved, bestial nature, saw the power hierarchy as the
curse of imperfect humanity: heaven would need no politics.
Hobbes, believing in people's natural aggressiveness, depicted
political institutions as barriers against a flood tide of violence.
But optimists of the Enlightenment and after, among them
Rousseau, the utopian socialists and various anarchists, viewed
the individual as a tabula rasa (blank sheet) at birth, innocent of
evil and only corrupted later, by invidious social institutions. In
consequence, they imagined ideal societies resting on the natural
faculty of reasoning and requiring no political or legal control.
Some even believed that in ideal circumstances people could
become morally perfect: hence they were labelled
'perfectibilists' or 'optimists' by contrast with the pessimists
who thought humankind irredeemably corrupt.
By contrast with these moralistic accounts of human nature,
the fundamental liberal assumption that our natural inclination is
to maximize our own wellbeing seems morally neutral, until we
recognize that the scarcity of resources may mean that one
person's maximization is necessarily another's minimization.
This unpalatable implication is often ignored, although many
liberals contend that it is inevitable anyway because people are
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13
'naturally competitive'. The evidence offered is that they
compete in competitive situations, which is hardly conclusive.
(An interesting twist has been given to the human nature
argument by some feminists who argue that politics is virtually
an all-male activity and political theory nearly an all-male
subject because men, the dominant partners in society since time
immemorial, have shaped both in the image of their own salient
characteristic: aggressiveness. Hence the emphasis on power,
competition, assertiveness, and domination, with the correlative,
despised 'female' counterparts of obedience, conciliation and
acquiescence. Negotiation and peaceful compromise are
regarded as loss of face in politics and political language reflects
this contempt.)
Arguments from behaviour do not constitute evidence for there
being an innate human nature and individuals are surely
moulded by institutions, rather than vice versa. Most theorists
derive their generalizations about human nature from how
people currently behave in society: this is by definition socially
determined behaviour, so it does not necessarily reflect a
fundamental 'human essence'. Vandalism and violence are not
proof of original sin - or are they? This debate is a species of the
more general controversy as to whether we are farmed by
heredity or environment, nature or nurture. Different political
consequences stem from whichever assumption is made. My
own preference is for the environmental explanation, partly
because of the scientific evidence supporting it, partly because of
the impossibility of even conceiving of a human being outside
society who could serve as an exemplar of untainted human
nature, and partly because it has positive implications for social
amelioration. We can change and improve our environment
more easily than our genes. Indeed, the most radical and
revolutionary socio-political theories date from Locke's
promotion of the tabula rasa concept, which implies that
individuals will improve if their environment is improved. For
similar reasons, Marxist
14
theorists say that it is reactionary to claim that human nature is
fixed; they argue that the individual is formed by socio-
economic factors and can change or be changed. As this brief
account of the 'human nature' debate suggests, we should beware
when confident claims are made about what people are 'really'
like, and should carefully scrutinize any political argument or
work of political theory for concealed assumptions of this kind.
Theorists as well as politicians must make some such
assumptions, but at least we can uncover them and evaluate their
validity, to some extent.
The arguments of the last few pages illustrate that political
theories, ideologies and opinions conceal a wealth of
assumptions and arguments, not always well founded, which a
student of political theory is better equipped to uncover than a
bystander. In this respect, academic political theory is more a
technique than an end in itself: it cuts sharply through the
verbiage and factual confusions of political debate to the core of
beliefs and prejudices, and raises such questions as 'Is this
assumption tenable?' and 'Do these values really represent what
is valuable?'
In common with other philosophical subjects, political theory
has various inner logics which need to be exposed and a number
of conventions which must be inwardly digested before the
subject can be fully intelligible and stimulating. Unfortunately,
many writers use shorthand to denote familiar theoretical
positions, which may confuse or annoy the uninitiated.
References to idealism, naturalism, relativism, etc., which carry
a wealth of connotations for the habitue, have zero, or negative,
explanatory force for the newcomer. I shall try to demystify
some of these obscure terms. Idealism, materialism, empiricism
and rationalism have already been mentioned. Most such
concepts come in contrasted pairs and supposedly exhaust the
logical possibilities between them. One such pair is descriptive
and evaluative, adjectives used of statements or theories. This
15
distinction was implicit in earlier paragraphs of this chapter
where political science, which describes reality and builds
explanatory theories on the facts, was contrasted with political
theory, which analyses and evaluates ideas by reference to other
concepts and values. Similar to this is the descriptive-normative
distinction, which may generate confusion for anyone familiar
with the sociologist's use of 'normative' to mean 'conforming to
a norm or average'. In political theory 'normative' simply means
'bearing or promoting norms (in the sense of "values")', as
opposed to 'descriptive'.
The opposition between the descriptive and evaluative
approaches is mirrored in the distinction which is often made in
political debate between facts and values. Facts which are
established empirically are said to be beyond dispute - as if
nobody knew how to lie with statistics, or present a one-sided
case! Values, by contrast, are often considered insubstantial and
unverifiable, mere opinion, and therefore inadmissible as
evidence in debate; it follows that an evaluation is merely an
expression of opinion. In social science, it is now more generally
acknowledged that facts are not such innocent entities, since any
framework of social investigation dictates which facts shall be
singled out, and which ignored. Indeed, some philosophers
would argue that the fact/value distinction has been conceptually
dissolved. However, political polemics, both academic and
popular, are frequently conducted as if facts were facts and
values were values, and never the twain should meet.
The fact-value dispute relates back to the choice of
methodology in social science: an empiricist approach naturally
purports to deal in facts, whereas a theoretical method admits
insubstantiable, even metaphysical, theses and values. (An
empiricist approach could not have achieved the Copernican
revolution.) Two other terms which also relate to this
fundamental methodological division are appearance and
essence. These
terms
had
strongly
technical
connotations
for
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16
scholastic philosophers and others such as Kant, but in the
present context they denote differing approaches to the analysis
of a political idea. The imaginary objector who contended that
democracy could be defined by studying the attributes of
democratic countries was recommending an empirical
examination of the appearance, the contingent or accidental
characteristics, of democratic systems, such as the secret ballot,
regular elections and the existence of at least two parties. The
alternative is to consider theoretically the essence of democracy,
its necessary or defining characteristics (abstractly conceived)
such as political equality and the responsiveness of government
to the will of the people. In practice, one approach to political
analysis needs correction by the other and the distinction
between appearance and essence becomes blurred, but for the
purposes of argument they are often presented as irreconcilable
opposites, as are facts and values.
The meaning of relativism is further discussed in Chapter 2.
Relativism is an epistemological position which repudiates the
view that objective, universal or timeless knowledge is possible.
It asserts that there are no absolute, indisputable criteria for truth,
and hence for knowledge; such criteria are relative to time, place
and culture, and knowledge is only valid within the context
which generates it. This doctrine undermines some of the
distinctions already made - today's value may be tomorrow's
fact. Relativism can be intellectually liberating, but it can also
culminate in total uncertainty or unwillingness to adhere to any
principle or position.
The distinction between subjective (personal, individual) and
objective (impartial, impersonal) often plays a pivotal role in
political theory, as when Rousseau argues that in an ideal
democratic assembly men would put forward their subjective
interests in discussion but vote according to the objective good
of the community, thus becoming part of the General Will.
Important
parts
of
Marx's
political
argument
turned
on his
17
assertion that the proletariat, objectively the most exploited class
under capitalism, had no subjective awareness of its situation,
and so had not yet become a revolutionary force. Political theory
is usually concerned with the nature of the 'Good Society' and
thus, directly or indirectly, with human happiness, and so the
subjective aspects of life cannot be ignored by theorists, although
they sometimes are by political scientists.
Political theory is a close relation of moral philosophy. Both
are normative and evaluative and, although not all political
values have moral origins (tradition, which Burke valued, and
efficiency seem to be non-moral), they rely on moral language,
since a value is something we would consider good, and would
prefer to have more, rather than less, of. Although an ideal such
as democracy is primarily political, its supporting values,
freedom and equality, are as pervasive in moral as in political
philosophizing. This shared area of concern and similarity of
language is appropriate, since both moral and political
philosophy attempt to define the Good Life, the first on an
individual level, the second for the community at large. So the
importation of moral terms into political theory is both
permissible and necessary.
Is there also a necessary connection between political theory
and ideology? Ideology, as will be argued, is crucial in forming
the political theorist's own view of the world. It would be
convenient if we could distinguish clearly between ideology and
theory - if we could label theory 'ideological' whenever values
and prescriptive or persuasive elements are visible. But many
ideological influences affect theory invisibly, pre-selecting
which data the theory will explain, and dictating its conceptual
vocabulary from the start. Likewise, much theory contains
ideological bias without having ideology's express aim of
persuasion. So I shall assume that all political theory and
theorizing is susceptible to greater or lesser ideological bias, and
that a necessary task for commentators and students is to identify
18
and evaluate that bias - and, of course, their own bias. The next
chapter of this book sets out to analyse the concept of ideology:
Part II gives a critical account of the major political ideologies
and the problems which they encounter.
Political theory is an umbrella term. It comprehends the
persuasive and normative doctrines called ideologies; it also
embraces the analytical activity known as political philosophy,
which styles itself 'value-free'. Rather than propounding
grandiose theses about the nature of political society and the
Good Life, this examines the units of which political theory,
including ideology, is composed, the concepts. Hence, it is
sometimes called 'conceptual analysis'. It has been held that its
main endeavour is to 'clear up confusions' which result from
unclarity or inconsistency in the use of concepts such as freedom
and equality by providing a clear and coherent account of their
proper use.
4 This activity often employs the methods established
by the school of philosophy called 'linguistic analysis', which
flourished for several decades after World War II but has more
recently been generally rejected as too narrow and barren. A
more normative and engaged kind of philosophy is now
favoured. The other task of political philosophy is said to be to
provide generally acceptable definitions of central political
terms. These self-ascribed functions also rest on the conviction
that even value-laden concepts are capable of a constant and
definite meaning. Formulae such as 'justice is giving every man
his due' and 'democracy means "one man one vote"' summarize
attempts at comprehensive, foolproof definitions which appear to
be factual and to describe justice, democracy and so on in terms
of behaviour or institutions. But these formulae can be shown to
be disguisedly normative and therefore contentious. (The
endeavour to provide such definitive analyses also falls foul of
the linguistic philosophers who condemn any attempt to define
values
as ill-founded.) In recent decades some political
philosophers
have
been
sceptical
about
the
search
for
fixed
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19
meanings and have argued that political concepts are 'essentially
contested' - that is, that their meanings are necessarily disputed
and vary according to the meaning of a cluster of related
'contextual' concepts, and are ineradicably dependent on values
and ideologies} A postmodernist approach would also contend
that concepts have no fixed meaning, and no meaning at all
outside the 'discourses' or 'narratives' in which they are
deployed. If no final definitions are possible, it would seem that
political philosophy has no useful role to play. But it can still be
maintained that the discipline deals with problems that are in
principle open to theoretical solution, despite the contestability
of the concepts which are its tools. In any case, the logical basis
of the 'essential contestability thesis' has itself been called into
question.
6 Part III of this book illustrates how such disputes may
arise by showing the range of meanings which political ideas can
have in different ideological contexts.
Newcomers to the subject deserve two cautions. The first
concerns values and value-neutrality. Political philosophy
sometimes appears unsatisfactory because it fails to deliver
decisive answers to political questions. It can analyse the logic of
liberalism and the concept of tolerance but cannot determine
whether we should tolerate the intolerant because this requires an
ordering of values, which is said to be the task of the committed,
ethical individual. Political ideology is an artefact, in which
priorities are ordered and values asserted, but political
philosophy strives to be a neutral tool of analysis and appraisal -
so argue its partisans, although opponents see this neutrality as
mere pretence. The 'neutral' approach associated with liberalism
leads to the unsatisfactorily inconclusive character of much of
the political theory of the mid-twentieth century, and its
concentration on the secondary or 'meta' level of debate and
avoidance of substantive questions. However, not all political
theorists seek to be neutral, and indeed the current fashion is for
more committed theory which seeks to influence, stimulate and
20
provoke.
The second caution concerns the idiosyncratic way in which
political theorists argue. A case is stated and evidence offered,
then various objections are raised and sustained with apparent
conviction, only to be elegantly disposed of, whereupon the
theorist reverts to a modified version of the original proposition.
The process manifests a degree of showmanship, and the reader
has the impression of receiving a guided tour of cul-de-sacs,
fallowed by a smug arrival at a predetermined destination. The
reason for this form of argument is that political theory, like
other philosophical subjects, originated in the oral, dialectical
tradition whose essence was argument, objection, modification,
restatement and so on, and whose intent was to move rationally
towards a final definition of a political idea such as justice.
Plato's Republic, of which Socrates is the intellectual hero, is
one of the earliest examples of this approach, and the dialogue
farm was still employed in some philosophical writing as late as
the eighteenth century, long after oral debate had been replaced
by printed polemics. Today, the writer of theory, unlike Socrates,
has no troublesome Thrasymachus to interrupt and contradict,
and so she must anticipate, state and refute all likely objections
to the theory. But the dialectical process, though circuitous, is
essentially one of explanation and proof, rather than dogmatic
assertion, and so these rehearsals of criticism and self-criticism
are vital to political theorizing.
I have suggested that the political theorist cannot be value-free,
and is not immune to ideological infection. Readers may
therefore rightly wonder what the hidden values of this book will
be, and where its bias lies. No doubt this becomes clear in the
course of the book! I would, however, like to state one of my
reasons for writing such a book, and to say where I believe its
value lies. In my view, we in the West are all, as individuals,
enmeshed in a complex socio-politico-economic-military
network
(which
comprises
states,
superstate
bodies
and
the
21
global economy) against which there are few weapons except
reason, information and intelligence. (The same is equally true
of the citizens of the former communist countries and of
countries in the developing world, which are willy-nilly
embroiled in global politics and finance capitalism.) Our
progress to advanced industrialism has created a farm of socio-
political organization which is neither manipulable nor
controllable by individuals or groups and has its own logic and
momentum. However, our compliance is necessary for its
continuance and success. Compliance is as much a mental as a
physical act: the ideas supporting and validating advanced
industrial society must be propagated and internalized for it to
survive. The study of political theory should make us more
defensive and more sceptical of the justifications of the system
which nourish our compliance, and more willing to contemplate
alternative political and social farms. This book advocates a
critical appraisal of political ideologies, concepts, habits of
thought and prejudices: this in turn may lead readers to consider
critically the political behaviour which certain political ideas
generate - and even to behave differently.
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22
NOTES
1.
. H. Marcuse, One Dimensional Man, Sphere, 1968, pp. 79- 80.
2.
T. Hobbes, in C. B. Macpherson (Ed.), Leviathan, Penguin, 1968, pp. 218-19.
3.
M. Kiloh, 'Industrial democracy', in D. Held & C. Pollitt (Eds), New Forms of Democracy, Sage, 1986.
4.
A. Quinton (Ed.), Political Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 1967.
5.
W. B. Gallie, 'Essentially contested concepts', Proceeds of the Aristotelian Society, 56, 167-98 (1955-6). For a later exposition, see W. E. Connolly, The Terms of Political Discourse, Martin Robertson, Oxford, 1983, p. 225ff.
6.
For example, J. Gray, 'Political power, social theory and essential contestability', in D. Miller & L. Siedentop (Eds), The Nature of Political Theory, Oxford University Press, 1983 and
K. Dowding, Rational Choice and Political Power, Edward Elgar, 1991, pp. 167-73.
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23
FURTHER READING
K. Graham (Ed.), Contemporary Political Philosophy,
Cambridge University Press, 1982. Of historical interest: this
collection illustrates the more committed approach of political
philosophers in the 1970s and 1980s (c.f. Partridge and
Plamenatz in A. Quinton, Ed.).
J. Gray, Straw Dogs, Granta, 2003. Gray offers a challenging
argument which questions the humanist assumptions
underpinning all major political ideologies.
P. Kelly, 'Political theory - the state of the art', Politics, 26(1),
2006, pp. 47-53. A useful and readable article about the past,
present and future of political theory.
P. Laslett et al. (Eds), Philosophy, Politics and Society, Series
1- 5, Blackwell, 1956-79. These volumes are a useful
collection of classic articles on political theory in general, and
on specific political concepts.
N. O'Sullivan (Ed.), Political Theory in Transition, Routledge,
2000. A collection of essays on the many debates about
contemporary political theory.
R. Plant, Modern Political Thought, Blackwell, 1991. An
excellent introduction to the subject.
A. Quinton (Ed.), Political Philosophy, Oxford University Press,
1967. Another collection of classic articles, useful for those
interested in how political theory has developed. See especially
the articles on political theory by P. H. Partridge and J. P.
Plamenatz, which reflect the problems of the discipline at the
time.
D. D. Raphael, Problems of Political Philosophy, 2nd edn,
Macmillan, 1990. This shows how philosophical thinking and
critical reflection can assist our understanding of political ideas.
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24
P. Roberts & P. Sutch, An Introduction to Political Thought: A
Conceptual Toolkit, Edinburgh University Press, 2005. A useful
and engaging introductory university text covering both concepts
and political thinkers.
L. Strauss, What is Political Philosophy?, Greenwood Press,
1973. The essay of the same title is a classic reflection on the
purpose of political philosophy.
A. Swift, Political Philosophy: A Beginners' Guide for Students
and Politicians, Polity, 2006. An accessible introduction to a
range of political ideas geared to the needs of a wide readership.
J. Wolff, An Introduction to Political Philosophy, revised
edition, Oxford University Press, 2006. Another excellent
introduction to the practice of political philosophy.
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