User:Jasmine verma

= POLITICAL THEORY =

INTRODUCTION
Politics  is  the most important activity of organized life in society. Whatever you do or don’t is political one way or another way or the other you like it or not.

In order to resolve various problems related with politics, political scholars from time to time, scientifically and philosophically examined the problems and the problems gave prescriptions to over come those problems. In this way collected complete data and then bring conclusion .thus the entire process results into theory building.

The word THEORY is  derived from Greek word ‘theoria’ it means sentimental thinking. It means to see and realize the things which is beyond physical and sensory perceptions.

According to David weld “Political theory is a network of concepts and generalizations about political life including ideas, assumptions and statements about the nature, purpose and key features of government, state and society, about the political capabilities of human beings.”

Andrew hacker defines it as “a combination of a disinterested search for the principles of good state and good society on the one hand, and a disinterested search for knowledge of political and social realty on others.”

According to Zimmerin, “the first valuable contribution the Greeks made to political theory was that they invented it.”

CHARACTERISTICS OF POLITICAL THEORY

 * A political theory is generally the creation on individual thinker based on his moral and intellectual position and when propounding his theory he is looking explain the events, phenomenon and the mysteries generally of mankind's political life. the theory may or may not be accepted as true but it always can be regarded as one more theory. generally we find the political theory of an individual thinker is put forward in a classic work the thinker like Plato did in his republic or Rawl  in "A Theory of justice."
 * A political theory attempts to provide explanations on questions relating to mankind, the societies he formed and history and historical events generally. it also suggests ways of resolving conflicts and sometimes even advocates revolutions. there are also often predictions made about the future.
 * Political theory thus is also sometimes not only providing explanations and predictions but also sometimes actively influencing and participating in historical events particularly when they propose political action of a particular kind and that line of action is widely adopted. the great positive liberal thinker Harlod Laski had commented that the task of political theorists is not merely of description but also of prescription on what ought to be.
 * political theory is also usually discipline based and thought his subjects of study remains the same the theorist might be a philosopher historian, economist, theologian or a sociologist etc.
 * political theories are often also the basis for a whole ideology. the liberal theories became the basis for liberal and marxian socialist ideology. a political theorist proposed by a thinker is usually always reflecting the political ideology of thinkers too. That is also the reason why when there are conflicts between ideology it leads to debate the theories underlying those ideologies.

NATURE OF POLITICAL THEORY
The methods adopted by political thinkers in theory- building, places them in a special position. we generally term them as traditional thinkers .this includes not only earlier thinkers but also some of the modern thinkers because they also adopted the same method for investigation, collection of data, and providing solutions.

In order to understand the nature of political theory it is imperative for us to study both the approaches adopted by the traditional and modern thinkers.

NATURE OF TRADITIONAL OR CLASSIC POLITICAL THEORY :-

 * ESSENTIALLY DESCRIPTIVE STUDIES : The salient feature of traditional political theory studies is that they re essentially descriptive, or in the other words, they are satisfied only with the descriptions of political institutions.Thus they are neither explanatory nor analytical, nor though then they were able to resolve political problems.these studies have remained far away from the formation of political theory and remained confined to pre-establish concepts and assumptions.
 * PREDOMINANTLY NORMATIVE OR IDEAL STUDIES : While examining the writings of traditional politics we gather that they had a tendency to accept certain ideals as not only taken for granted but also they tested the political institutions and government structures on such ideals and assumptions as to whether they are viable or not.