Does Normative Behaviourism Offer an Alternative Methodology in Political Theory?

This paper aims to advocate a Williamsian approach to political realism and contends that contemporary realist political theory is built on an ‘a-theoretical core’ that the paper will call ‘political realism’ in the broader sense (for a very different approach to Williams, see Hall, 2013). The central tenet of this thesis is that contemporary realist political theory fundamentally differs from mainstream political theory not only in its political outlook, but also in its views about the tasks and prospects of theorizing. In other words, ‘political realism’ imposes severe constraints on theorizing in a realist key and makes contemporary realist political theory especially vulnerable to criticisms coming from mainstream political theory. This paper contends, however, that the inherent limitedness of contemporary realist political theory is a fair price that is worth paying for a more realistic understanding of politics.The argument of the paper is built on the Williamsian assumption that mainstream political theory is ultimately a sort of ‘applied morality’ and that the fundamental problem with mainstream political theory as ‘applied morality’ is not so much its strong commitment to pre-political moral principles as its being fundamentally shaped by an ethical theory.

This ambitious and lively book argues for a rehabilitation of the concept of 'human needs' as central to politics and political theory. Contemporary political philosophy has focused on issues of justice and welfare to the exclusion of the important issues of political participation, democratic sovereignty, and the satisfaction of human needs, and this has had a deleterious effect on political practice. Lawrence Hamilton develops a compelling positive conception of human needs: the evaluation of needs must be located within a more general analysis of institutions, but can in turn help to justify forms of coercive authority that are directed toward the transformation of political and social institutions and practices. His argument is animated throughout by provocative and original discussions of topics such as autonomy, recognition, rights, civil society, liberalism and democracy, and will interest a wide range of readers in political and social philosophy, political theory, law, development and policy.

Historical analyses of the relations between political theory and time often hinge on two claims. The first is that political theorists have until recently put less emphasis on the future than the past when debating political legitimacy and obligation. The second is that the history of political theory draws a fundamental distinction between theories that invoke time to legitimate political structures and theories that reject temporal considerations in favor of timeless principles. This chapter disputes these two claims by maintaining that competing languages of legitimacy harbor different and interrelated conceptions of temporality. A survey of time conceptions in the history of political philosophy shows that normative political theory is inherently multitemporal, involving double regard for the past and the future. And, since even tenseless principles of legitimacy often depend on temporally related forms of formulation and application, considerations about time seem inescapable in normative political theory.

Freedom concept in the perspective of (Arendt)’s political philosophy and theory has a place and a special important, that in the way of (Arendt)’s thinking in political appearance’s Greece and Romanian ancient, criticism in the ancient philosophy about view, cristian philosophy, westerns philosophy custom, political theory and moderns phenomenon concerning freedom concept formalized. (Arendt)’s freedom passes the philosophical picture to freedom, all beliefs metaphisics about this concept are neglected, philosophical freedom as will freedom is pictured far from inner feeling in the political really world. In the opposite, (Arendt) sees action and speech as political freedom activity in the way individuals meeting in the public sphere is produced in the opposite problem and general issues. In this way, revolution as an arena, or public sphere in the doing politica freedom has crucial importance in the Arendt’s perspective, and in here political theory especially about American and French revolution has stood; in this way, the aim of this research is to answer and deal research main problem in the way of this question: what is the act of the revolution as arena in doing political freedom in Arendt political theory? We can to the conclution that revolution is like an arena in Arendt’s perspective, so new beginning foundation and public sphere of doing political freedom, which in it relation, discussion, and exchanging different opinion among equal individuals should provide, and participation of political citizenship afford in it.

Normative political theory over recent decades has focused mainly on what ought to be done as far as migration policies are concerned. It faces a basic challenge, which stems from two competing, yet equally fundamental, ideals underpinning liberal democratic societies: a commitment to moral universalism and the exclusionary requirement of democracy. The objective of this special issue, ‘New Challenges in Immigration Theory’, is to provide a conceptual overview of (some) immigration theories and to highlight the challenges new streams of immigration pose for normative (political) theory and liberal democratic practice. The issue will consider how to reconcile state-based exclusion with a commitment to equal moral concern for all persons, by focusing on the non-standard immigration questions that have so far been ‘neglected’ by normative political theory. In line with this objective, the issue will discuss some of the inadequacies of the dominant political theories of immigration and show how such theories can be expanded to take account of new migration challenges such as brain drain, climate migration, detention of irregular migrants and asylum seekers, rights of labour migrants, transnational networks of movement, and so on.

Political theorists, generally non-experts in the language sciences, whose principal aim is often to advance normative theories on desirable states of affairs within liberal democratic states, tend to deal with language as a stable nominal category, as something that one ‘has’ or ‘doesn’t have’, that can be labeled as one thing (e.g., English) or another thing (e.g., French), that may be learned for defined purposes, that has instrumental and symbolic value, that is used principally as a modality for interpersonal communication, with ‘speakers’, possibly with associated geographic territories, and with cultural affiliations and traditions ‘attached’ to named languages and varieties. The fact that situated language practices and behaviors are far more complex and messier than this description suggests is often not taken into account by political philosophers engaged in normative theory construction that involves language(s). I argue in this paper that the complexities of language acquisition, use, and ascribed values need to be seriously taken into account by political philosophers in their theorizing about languages, which will impact how they think about and evaluate extant, or prospective, language policy approaches and frameworks.

Introduction: Interpretation and the Politics of Meaning

The editor ofPolitical Theory asked us to respond to the question, ‘What is political theory?’This question is as old as political theory or political philosophy. The activity of studying politics, whether it is called science, theory, or philosophy, always brings itself into question. The question does not ask for a single answer, for there are countlessways of studying politics and no universal criteria for adjudicating among them. Rather, the question asks, ‘What comparative difference does it make to study politics this way rather than that?’Political theory or philosophy not only spans three millennia of studying politics in innumerable ways but also threemillennia of dialogues among practitioners over various approaches, their relative merits, and the contestable criteria for their comparison. Because there is no definitive answer, there is no end to this dialogue. Rather, it is the kind of open-ended dialogue that brings insight through the activity of reciprocal elucidation itself. Dialogue partners gain insight into what ruling, being ruled, and contesting rule is through the exchange of questions and answers over different ways of studying politics and different criteria for their assessment in relation to how they throw light on different aspects of the complex worlds of politics—and what counts as the ‘different aspects of the complexworlds of politics’is also questioned in the course of the dialogue. With this horizon of the question inmind, Iwish to respond by introducing one amongmanyways of studying politics and to initiate its reciprocal eluci-

Ethics and the Orator: The Ciceronian Tradition of Political Morality

Bernard Williams?s papers collected in the volume In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument had a great influence on contemporary normative political theory. Williams not only revived the topic of realism in political theory, but also defended the approach of political realism that he contrasts to the approach of political moralism. This paper will focus on the distinction between political realism and political moralism. Moreover, the question of legitimacy will be considered in the light of this distinction. After examination of the distinction between political realism and political moralism, we will be in a position to address the main question that this paper aims to answer: does political realism set any limits on political philosophy?

A History of Political Theories, Recent Times: Essays on Contemporary Developments in Political Theory. Contributed by Students of the late William Archibald Dunning, Ph.D., Litt.D., LL.D., Lieber Professor of History and Political Philosophy in Columbia University. Edited by Charles Edward Merriam, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Political Science in the University of Chicago, and Harry Elmer Barnes, Ph.D., Professor of Historical Sociology in Smith College. (New York: Macmillan Company. 1924. Pp. xii, 597. $2.25) A History of Political Theories, Recent Times: Essays on Contemporary Developments in Political Theory. Contributed by Students of the late Dunning William Archibald, Ph.D., Litt.D., LL.D., Lieber Professor of History and Political Philosophy in Columbia University. Edited by Merriam Charles Edward, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Political Science in the University of Chicago, and Barnes Harry Elmer, Ph.D., Professor of Historical Sociology in Smith College. (New York: Macmillan Company. 1924. Pp. xii, 597. $2.25.) Raymond G. Gettell Raymond G. Gettell Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 30, Issue 3, April 1925, Pages 574–576, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/30.3.574 Published: 01 April 1925

Two important methodological debates in political theory concern (i) the place of historical research and interpretation in normative inquiry; and (ii) the importance of comparing different cultural traditions of political thought. The first question animates a long-standing controversy over the relative importance of ‘history of political thought’ versus ‘philosophy’ in political theory, while the second has been central to the recent growth of ‘comparative political theory’. Despite both debates being concerned, in fundamental ways, with history and comparison, they have remained surprisingly disconnected from broader debates in the humanities and social sciences about the use of comparative history and, in particular, of the prominent methodological approach in political science known as ‘comparative historical analysis’. This may reflect the fact that the debates over history of political thought and comparative political theory have fundamentally revolved around thought—history as the history of thought and comparison as the comparison of thought—whereas comparative historical analysis is more centrally focused on the study of political behaviour. In this paper I suggest that this neglect of comparative historical analysis in political theory represents a missed opportunity. Like other forms of social scientific inquiry, comparative historical analysis can yield important empirical knowledge for political theorists. But I wish to more ambitiously suggest that comparative historical analysis can also be adapted for conducting normative political theory itself. I summarise the key features of comparative historical analysis for political theorists, and explain how its use of historical cases can supplement both the use of imaginary thought experiments and the study of contemporary politics. I then delineate three specific ways in which comparative historical analysis might be used to support normative inquiry: deductive testing, inductive construction, and casuistic elaboration. All three, I argue, can help meet recent calls to bring the study of real political behaviour more centrally into political theory research.

The problem ofjustifying democracy arises when a society sees the need for cooperative, collective action. Collective action may be needed to solve coordination problems, public goods problems, Prisoner's Dilemmas, and other structural problems of human interaction or perhaps to realize common ideals of justice in concrete political institutions. Once the need for collective action is established, one must ask how the goals of a cooperative endeavor are to be secured. Cooperation requires that individuals, at least over a specified range of activity, pursue a joint strategy. To assure voluntary compliance in a joint venture, cooperation must be to each person's advantage. However, each person may have an incentive to induce others to cooperate and to defect from the joint strategy in the hope of enjoying the fruits of cooperation without incurring the opportunity costs of compliance. This is the essence of the Prisoner's Dilemma, and considerations of this sort suggest that if collective action is to succeed, policies or strategies formed collectively must be coercively enforceable. Coercion, however, requires justification. Because solving the problem of rational noncompliance requires that collective decisions be coercively enforceable, the rules by which collective decisions are reached require justification. Douglas Rae neatly puts the problem of justification that emerges when political solutions are coercively enforceable as follows: "Once a political community has decided which of its members are to participate directly in the making of collective policy, an important question remains: 'How many of them must agree before a policy is imposed on the community?"" This is essentially the question to which the principle of democratic rule provides an answer: by what process are collective decisions to be made? Answering Rae's question requires a normative framework. We could say that a procedure for making collective decisions is justified if and

In recent decades political theory has been an area of undoubted strength in Australian political studies. Across fields such as deliberative democracy, republicanism, feminist theory, and environmental political theory, the Australian contribution to international debates has been considerable. Yet telling the story of the development of Australian political theory involves grappling with certain definitional challenges, which stem both from the nature of political theory as an intellectual endeavour as well as its ambiguous location within the academy. First, although the identity of political theory as a distinct academic sub-field is closely related to the development of political science it in fact draws on a range of intellectual disciplines including philosophy, history, sociology and law, and political theorists can be found in university departments in all of these disciplines. The second point concerns the political philosophy versus political science divide (with the corresponding division between ‘normative’ and ‘empirical’ theory) which has not been as sharply drawn in Australia as it has been, especially, in the United States, with its strong behaviouralist and positivist traditions. The dominance of a behaviouralist conception of political science — ‘the American Science of Politics’ in Bernard Crick’s phrase — gave rise to the oft-repeated story of the death of classical or normative political theory in the 1950s and 1960s, only to be revived by Rawls and Nozick in the early 1970s.KeywordsPolitical SciencePolitical TheoryAustralian StudyPolitical TheoriseDeliberative DemocracyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

The purpose of this article is to examine the assumption, encountered in some recent discussions of eighteenth-century English literary history and political and religious thought, that a belief in “natural law” is central to Samuel Johnson's political, social, and general moral thinking. In particular, one meets the assumption in the numerous recent attempts to demonstrate, first, that Edmund Burke's political thinking is based on this concept, and, second, that Johnson's political thinking was fundamentally that of Burke. The first of these propositions may be left for specialists in Burke to deal with; some of them have already dealt with it fairly unsympathetically. The second seems so paradoxical, in view of the amount of abuse Johnson and Burke are recorded to have hurled at each other's political attitudes — they appear never to have said a good word for each other's politics in their lives — that a formal answer to it hardly seems necessary. But quite apart from the nexus with Burke, the assumption raises some interesting and important questions, and deserves to be investigated.The most obvious reason for skepticism about the importance of the concept of “natural law” in Johnson's political thought is the simple one that in the fairly voluminous political writings of Johnson, extending over a large part of his life, the expressions “natural law,” “the laws of nature,” and the like almost never appear; and this is striking in an age when few writers managed to compose a pamphlet on political theory, or even on a question of practical politics, without dragging them in in some form.