Political Theory, History of

Bjorn Wittrock, Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden
2001 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 17, pp. 1170611712, 2001, Elsevier Ltd.

Abstract

Historically, the focus of political thought has been on a triad of related problems, namely those of constituting a community
bound by a normative order, of establishing the legitmacy and terms of enforcement of such an order, and of articulating
criteria for allocations of resources and entitlements. In early modern Europe political thought was largely concerned with the
nature and legitimacy of new forms of normatively binding orders and their terms of enforcement. The concern with the
constitution of political community became the central one in political thought from Hobbes and Pufendorf over Locke all
the way to Rousseau. The intellectual transformation of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries entailed a shift in
the thinking about human beings, about society, and about the very nature of political order. The end of World War I and the
interwar years marked the triumph and crisis of liberal political thought and the emergence of a range of forms of political
thought that transcended liberal traditions. The history of political thought towards the end of the twentieth century has been
characterized by efforts to reconceptualize the nature human agency, whether in a rationalistic-deliberative form or in
a linguistic-interpretative form. The rst stream of research has led to formulations of the nature of political community in
contractual terms. It has also sought to establish normative criteria for the proper allocation of resources. The second stream
has resulted in programs for the writing of conceptual and contextual intellectual histories. It has also involved efforts to
position political thought in a wider global context.

Reection about political phenomena in a wide sense of the Afro-Eurasia in the last centuries of the rst millennium BCE
term is as old as human community itself. It focuses on a triad also gave rise to a range of texts about the nature of political
of related problems that might be broadly delimited as follows. order. This is equally valid for texts about the Roman and
First, there is the problem of constituting a community bound Byzantine empires in the Mediterranean region to texts high-
together by a normative order, secondly that of establishing the lighting features of rulership in Parthian and later also
legitimacy and the terms of enforcement of such an order, and, in Sassanian Persia, in Maurya India, and in the Han Empire
thirdly, that of nding criteria for a proper and just allocation of China.
of resources as well as of entitlements. Jointly these three sets of The recording of political thought in the form of the writing
problems entail that political theory and the history of political of histories of such thought is however a much more recent
theory, as distinct from, say, a theory of scientic validation or phenomenon. At its focus it is the relationship of community-
a theory of argumentation, will be characterized by an inherent wide rules to forms of enforcement and an effort to arrive at an
duality. Thus it will not only, as these other types of theory, be understanding of the historical context in which particular
an account of rules of contestation and signication. It will also types of such relationships occur. The emergence of clearly
have to involve an account of which such rules are and which articulated forms of historical thought is largely coterminous
are not upheld by a normativity that is, in the last instance, with the emergence of history and social science as forms of
enforceable by violent means. Put in everyday language, scholarly activity performed within reformed or newly created
political theory will in its core be a theory both about meaning universities and higher education institutions from the early
and communication and a theory about power, enforcement, nineteenth century onwards. In order to understand the key
and, ultimately, violence. It is easy to see that different political features and characteristics of the writing of histories of polit-
theorists have come to emphasize different strands in this ical thought it is rst of all necessary to bring out key conditions
duality, but the duality itself is irreducible and constitutive of of political thought in the region in which such an early
political thought. disciplinary condition rst occurred, namely in Europe.

Political Thought in Historical Context Political Thought and Early Modernities

Thought about such matters is found in clearly articulated form In a broad sense political thought in early modern Europe was
from the middle of the rst millennium BCE onwards in all the a way to understand the nature of ruling in human commu-
major civilizations of Afro-Eurasia. Thus it is manifested in nities and to grasp the conditions of normative argumentation
written texts in the sixth century by Confucius and two centu- and enforcement in such communities. The need for new
ries later by Mencius, in China and the writings during the same understandings of these types of phenomena was itself directly
period in India, as well as in the prophetical age of Jewish related to the gradual decline and eventual demise of the two
religion and during the era of classical philosophy in Greece. most prominent institutional forms of medieval Europe. Those
The emergence of imperial-like political orders across were, rst, the cultural world of Western Christendom,

480 International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 18 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.03043-9
 Political Theory, History of 481

epitomized rst by the all-embracing Christian Church and as a viable political ideal and that religious diversity was not to
second by its secular counterpart, namely the pervasive, but be overcome.
elusive, political order of the Holy Roman Empire. By the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, however, city republican rule,
particularly in the northern half of Italy, had emerged as a new Political Thought as the Constitution of a Political
form of political order. Originally it was often modeled on Community
trading communities and was created out of a sense of the
necessity of mutual support and protection in areas exposed to In this unfamiliar context, there was an urgency about nding
incursions and with little or no protection provided by the ways of granting legitimacy and meaning to the new order that
nominal Imperial rulers. emerged in the wake of the Westphalian peace treaty and the
Similarly, incipient national monarchies were starting to provisional end of a century and a half of bloody civil wars in
assert their authority vis--vis both pope and emperor. In this Europe. Thereby a sea change occurred in political thought,
secular process the French king played a pioneering role. In namely a deep-seated shift from a concern with the enforce-
particular, he had earlier than most other kings and rulers ment of normative political order to a concern with the nature
demonstrated his ability to strengthen his own position and and very emergence of political community in the rst place.
nancial basis, e.g., by conscating lands and goods of the The concern with the constitution of political community
order of the Templars. This example was to be followed by becomes the central one in political thought from Hobbes and
kings across Europe in their conscating the lands and riches of Pufendorf to Locke all the way to Rousseau. Within this wide
monasteries and religious orders in centuries to come. range of answers there is, however, a recurring and predomi-
In this sense, the Reformation and the Counterreformation nant concept, namely an inquiry into the conditions for the
meant that in Protestant and Catholic countries alike, national establishment of a social contract. The existence of such a social
monarchies, normally of a composite nature (cf. Elliott, 1992), contract was normally seen also to entail an answer to the
were created or reformed. This occurred on the basis of the question of which types of enforcement of the normative order
previous dominant ideals of church, empire, and city republics, constitutive of the political community are legitimate. More
but in a form that synthesized parts that had previously been specically only those types of enforcement are sanctioned
separated. Furthermore, the new national and composite that, implicitly or explicitly, follow from the terms of the social
monarchies almost invariably involved efforts on the part of contract itself.
rulers to appropriate lands and resources that had previously Political theory from Hobbes onwards is centrally preoc-
been controlled by the church or religious orders. Thereby they cupied with the nature of and the consequences of a transition
were also able to secure a scal basis for the new forms of from an imaginary state of nature to the contractually consti-
political ruling, if often at a horrendous price of protracted tuted political community. Ultimately all such forms of theo-
religious civil wars and cleansings. rizing seem to depend on a limited set of assumptions about
Under these conditions the pre-eminent political questions human beings and the nature of their joining together in
became that of grasping the nature and legitimacy of societies. One such set of assumptions refer to the assignment
a normatively binding communal order and to outline the of some kind of human rights, i.e., rights that accrue to human
range of legitimate means for upholding and enforcing that beings irrespective of their origins and other accidental traits
order. Many of the early modern classical political thinkers, and characteristics. Furthermore, there is a set of assumptions
from Machiavelli to Jean Bodin, provide answers to these very that refer to the thought-experiment of society being created
questions. They have, however, signicantly less to say about through a process, normally described in terms of a contract,
the two other sets of questions discerned above and that were whereby human beings agree about their association in polit-
to become prominent in later political thought. These were the ical form.
questions of the very constitution of a community of human Questions about enforcement, separate from an answer to
beings and of the principles underlying decisions about the question of the constitution of a political order, based upon
the allocations of resources or the granting or withholding legitimately agreed upon contractual arrangements, were of
of entitlements. subordinate and derivative importance relative to this over-
All this was to change with the nal breakdown of the old riding concern. The same is true of questions pertaining to the
political and cultural order in Europe in the middle of the allocation of resources and the assignment of entitlements to
seventeenth century. In China, even in the embattled transition the members and subjects of a political community. Thus such
from the Ming to the Ching dynasty at roughly the same time, matters have to be dealt with and negotiated in accordance
the general linguistic and political order was preserved. In with the terms of those agreed upon in the original contractual
Japan a long period of internal warfare and turmoil came to an arrangements.
end with the establishment of one of the most effective forms Thus European political theory in this classical form
of absolutist rule, namely the Tokugawa shogunate. Across the emerged in a particular historical context both in European and
Islamic world, the three parallel empires of the Ottomans, the world history. It also involved forms of theorizing that por-
Safavi, and the Mughals, constituted stable political entities. In trayed an imaginary contractual past as the point of constitu-
Europe, however, a new system of states took form and was tion of polities. However, it was not in itself characterized by an
promulgated in the Westphalian peace treaty of 1648, based on effort to reect on the history of political theory as a key
an explicit recognition of religious diversity and monarchical component of developing such a theory. This form of reexive
pre-eminence. It was also based on the tacit recognition that an consciousness was to become a key characteristic of yet another
all-encompassing imperial polity was no longer even possible major transformation in intellectual and political history.
482 Political Theory, History of

The Formation of Modernity and the Transition from as an organic totality. Such a conception would in a conserva-
Political Philosophy to Social Science and History tive version lead to theories of the necessity to restore an
organic political order. In a radical version it could, however,
The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are often also usher in demands for the overthrow of unnatural and
described in terms of the coterminous occurrence of major illegitimate order. In a more broadly dened liberal or repub-
transformations of both technological and economic practices lican tradition, it might and would be compatible with ideas of
and of political order. Often these transformations are captured the type that thinkers, often inspired by Durkheim, would
with terms such as the industrial revolution and the political propound toward the end of the nineteenth century in their
transformations inherent in the French and American revolu- combat against the ideological enemies of the republic. Thus it
tions. However, in this period there also occurs a major could support the idea that modern society was not an atom-
restructuring of ideas about nature and society and, more istic and distorted form of human community but could relate
broadly, in the forms of knowledge and beliefs about the to an organic solidarity compatible with the life of free citizens
world. This intellectual transformation had deep repercussions in a free republic.
for the emergence of new forms of political thought and Third, and often in relation to historical and linguistic
reection about the historical context of such forms of thought thought among representative of German philosophical
and for the decline of other forms of political thought. idealism, a conceptualization of human beings took form in
In this period broad genres of thought about the world terms of the linguistic-interpretative nature of human agency
gradually gave way to more differentiated forms of knowledge. and of society as an historically emergent totality. In this sense,
Slowly natural philosophy and political philosophy came to be political community did not have to derive its legitimacy from
replaced by a variety of different natural and social sciences. At dynastic tradition but from the historically grown experience of
the core of this transformation were epistemic shifts where a community. Such communities in turn were constituted by
ideas about biological and historical processes, about language human beings sharing a language and a history and where the
and interpretation, about human beings and their capacities community of shared life forms was seen as deeper, more
and bonds were created or reformulated. Some scholars have genuine, and more real than the articial boundaries of
even spoken of this period as a second scientic revolution, a minor princely state. It is easy to see that demands for
where modern disciplines emerge in rudimentary form and national self-determination and for both popular rule and
where there is a shift in the institutional locations of scholarly a nation-state easily ow from a conception along these lines.
and scientic activities toward new research laboratories and Finally, in parallel to the dramatic development of forms of
universities. In this process, society itself may even, to quote statistical analysis, there emerged a statistical-inductive way of
one scholar (Manent, 1994, pp. 8083), be said to have been representing the interactions of human beings and of society as
discovered in its modern form, as distinct from the political a kind of systematized aggregate. Such views did not immedi-
order of the prerevolutionary period, whether it had the form ately entail a specic form of legitimate political community,
of an absolutist monarchy or a constitutional one. Contrary to but it would mean that any such community would have at its
older forms of contractual reasoning, which postulated social disposal innitely more detailed knowledge of the polity
contract as the hypothetical medium that had created political and its members than even the most absolutist monarchy
order, the new forms of social thought were distinctly historical (cf. Brian, 1994).
and could also draw on anthropological experiences of Thus the great intellectual transition entailed a deep shift in
human beings and societies in different parts of the world (Fox the history of political thought which affected both concep-
et al., 1995). tions of the nature of a political community and the nature of
Broadly speaking, four distinct forms of thinking about legitimate and illegitimate enforcement. By virtue of this it also
human beings, societies, and political order emerged. These had profound implications for conceptions of the proper
new forms of reasoning and the transition from generalized distribution of entitlements. Thus it was simply no longer
moral and political philosophy to social sciences had deep possible, as observed most clearly perhaps by Tocqueville
repercussions for political thought. (1964, [1850]), to deny demands for popular participation
First, there was, with roots in the political economy and with reference to tradition or dynastic legitimacy. The thought
moral philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment, a view of of a right to the political entitlements belonging to all members
human beings as rational and deliberative individuals and of of a society, that had been manifested in the proclamations of
society as a compositional collective. This also made possible the revolutionary upheavals, could never again, despite all
a new way of thinking about political community and its efforts of the Vienna Congress and the Holy Alliance, be
legitimacy. More precisely, it provided the possibility for unthought. They were to pervade the political struggles rst of
thinking about political order as formed through the consent of European and American societies throughout the nineteenth
individual human beings. However it was not, as in older and the early twentieth centuries and eventually in the world
contractual thinking, a consent that would have ushered in at large.
a distant and hypothetical social contract but rather a consent
that could be assessed and rationally evaluated in terms of its
reasonableness in its present and historical context. Triumph and Crisis of Liberal Political Thought
Second, there emerged, often enough out of the experiences
of the relative inability of the French Revolution to create stable The end of World War I marked a sea change in world history. It
institutions, a conception of human agency as formed and spelt the end of European global pre-eminence. It also meant
constrained by structural and systemic properties and of society that the transition in Western Europe, normally from forms of
 Political Theory, History of 483

constitutional monarchical rule, to parliamentary democratic to entail the denitive demise of features of political thought
rule was dramatically increased. In the Eastern half of Europe characteristic of fascism.
all of the four imperial political entities, the Russian, the In the French context, the response to the challenges of
Habsburg, the Wilhelminian, and the Ottoman, crumbled fascism was to be found in several quarters. These would range,
under the impact of external military defeat and internal in political terms, from Marxism to radical Catholic political
revolutionary upheavals. However, the very triumph of liberal thought, and in scholarly terms, from sociology in the tradition
principles of representative democracy was coterminous with of Durkheim to the profound renewal of historical studies of
the emergence of new forms of political thought that tran- the Annales School. In the period after World War II, the French
scended the traditions of the prewar world. intellectual scene may have been the most important one in
Leninist political thought, which before and during the war Europe in terms of a renewal of political thought. Thus it would
had been a radical version of classical Marxism, gradually came comprise the nexus of contributions made by scholars elabo-
to take on the features of an ofcial ideology of the new Soviet rating a Marxian philosophical existentialist position, most
state. Precisely in its historical imaginary, Leninism differed importantly of course Sartre, but also thinkers such as Claude
from both revisionist and orthodox thought in a Marxist Lefort, who, starting out from such a position came to question
tradition, as epitomized by Bernstein and Kautsky respectively, the core of Leninist political thought. It would also comprise
of the Social Democratic mainstream of the Second Interna- some of the most articulated liberal political thought as epit-
tional in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Thus omized by Raymond Aron.
Leninism cast its own claims to legitimacy and its right to use In the interwar years, the new challenges to liberal
forms of violent enforcement, previously unthought of in late political thought had already given rise to a profound
nineteenth century socialist thought, in terms of an historical renewal of political thought in historical context. These were
account and of a projected visionary transition to a stateless the years when new standard histories of political thought
society of communism. were being written. The most prominent example in the
Experiences of the mass violence of the war itself, as well as Anglo-Saxon world might have been a book that was to
of the violent national and social struggles of the immediate become a classic for generations, namely George Sabines
postwar period, formed the environment out of which fascism (1937) majestic volume A History of Political Theory.
emerged as a violent rejection of both Marxism and of the Refugees from continental Europe made key contributions to
whole mainstream tradition of liberal political thought. Even if this debate. A classical example is the analysis of the meaning
fascism had roots in prewar forms of radical conservative of democracy in historical context that was articulated by
thought, it marked a form of transcendence of such traditions Joseph Schumpeter (1943) in Capitalism, Socialism, and
and indeed of the legacy of modernity itself. Thus even if Democracy. Most importantly, perhaps, Karl Popper tran-
fascism in power, and its radicalized form of National scended the bounds of philosophy of science and wrote one
Socialism, embraced technological modernization, it repre- of the most quoted works in political thought during the
sented a rejection of basic premises of political thought of twentieth century in his two-volume opus on The Open
modernity in the form it had taken since the late eighteenth Society and Its Enemies (Popper, 1966, [1945]). This was, of
century. In particular this is true of the basic presupposition of course, a work that was pre-eminently characterized by the
political thought of modernity of a principled equal right to links between historical analysis and political philosophy of
participation in governance. It is also true of fascisms rejection immediate and contemporary relevance.
of another basic presupposition of modernity, namely the In parallel, leading representatives of Scandinavian political
legitimacy of a public sphere with free access for all and and legal science made some pathbreaking contributions both
a principled freedom of every member of a polity to speak not to an understanding of fascism and of the nature of democracy.
only about but also to the rulers. In this respect the names of Herbert Tingsten and Alf Ross stand
In a sense fascist political thought was a form of political out, particularly with Tingstens pioneering studies of fascism
thought that invoked history, or rather historical mythology. and his and Rosss contributions to a political theory of
However, it was not in itself characterized by historical reec- democracy.
tion. In Germany, the challenge of fascism to the political order One prominent characteristic of antiliberal political
of the Weimar republic was manifested in a range of debates, thought of the rst half of the twentieth century was its
one of the most important of which concerned the nature of emphasis on the right of the polity to resort to enforcement and
legal order and of the state itself. It was in this debate that the violence against the enemies of the polity without being bound
contesting positions of the radical and pro-Nazi decisionism by any other constraints than those of pure convenience. Thus
of Carl Schmitt was confronted by the legal positivism of the constitutive boundary between members and enemies of
Hans Kelsen and the complex and sophisticated thought of the political community, between those chosen to fulll the
Hermann Heller. destiny of that community and those deemed to stand in the
The outlines of a radical rethinking of the history of Western way and worthy of being removed from community, and
philosophical and political thought can be discerned in the ultimately from life, became the most crucial one. The political
elective afnity between fascism and some forms of philo- community itself was seen as constituted in terms of a historical
sophical thought, in particular that of Heidegger of the late account, whether of the struggle of a class for its liberation
1920s and early 1930s. However, such a program was never against oppression or of a people for its legitimate sphere of life
elaborated or extended, nor was the decisive response and and domination. Resistance to such types of political thought
resistance to it on the part of a thinker such as Ernst Cassirer. of a historicist nature formed the core of the argument of
Instead the military defeat of fascism in World War II was seen Poppers political philosophy. It also formed the focus for
484 Political Theory, History of

a range of contributions criticizing totalitarian political or even the impossibility, of delimiting an unambiguous
thought. Among the main contributors to this critique were common good, whether arrived at with the help of a social
thinkers as different as Jacob L. Talmon, Hannah Arendt, and welfare function or of a majority decision. It is in this context
Claude Lefort. that John Rawlss (1971) A Theory of Justice appeared as
a pathbreaking book. Drawing on an individualistic and
contractual form of reasoning, succinctly criticised by several
Renewal and Critique in Political Thought scholars, most notably perhaps Michael Sandel, Rawls was
able to reintroduce discussions of justice and just distributions
The history of political thought in the rst part of the latter half and allocations into the core of political philosophy. Even
of the twentieth century is characterized by three parallel after decades of discussions and critique, both Arrows and
developments. First, political thought in this period cannot but Rawlss contribution retain their stature. However, both of
reect the deep tensions in a world with two superpowers in them signal a rupture with historical and contextual reasoning
a state of cold war. At the same time large parts of the Third rather than the opposite.
World were emerging out of the experiences of a colonial past In the broad tradition of linguistic-interpretative concep-
and seeking a place in this new world of fundamental tensions. tions of human action and of society as a form of emergent
One manifestation of this historical context, was the absolute totality in historical context, important new developments also
absence of publications in the tradition of liberal political occurred. Thus contributions by continental European
thought in the countries under Soviet dominance, but also the phenomenological and hermeneutic philosophers in the 1950s
relative absence of Marxist political thought at many universi- and 1960s came to merge with inuences from Anglo-Saxon
ties in the English-speaking world. Another indirect conse- linguistic philosophy in the tradition of Wittgenstein and
quence was a persistent interest in exploring the empirical basis Austin. Three forms of such thought, in particular, emerged and
of liberal democracy. In this sense, the contributions by have exerted a deep inuence on the ways of studying the
scholars such as Robert Dahl and some of his colleagues at Yale history of political thought.
university, not least Charles Lindblom, stand out as exemplary. In 1959, Reinhart Koselleck (1988, [1959]), drawing on
Second, a classical mainstream tradition of historically orien- a tradition of hermeneutic and historical scholarship, pub-
tated political philosophy made signicant advances. Isaiah lished a book on critique and crisis. This book had the deep
Berlin and Judith Shklar are pre-eminent representatives of this transformation of intellectual and political order at the turn of
type of scholarship, and the works of Charles Taylor and the eighteenth century as its focus but also contained the core
Norberto Bobbio should also be included here. Third, however, of a research program on the history of key concepts of society
philosophical and theoretical contributions were made that and political order in a long-term perspective. This program
were to reshape the history of late twentieth century political was realized through the publication during the following
thought. I shall highlight some of these contributions and their decades of a set of nine massive volumes tracing the history of
consequences in terms of two of the major conceptualizations a limited number of such concepts, primarily in continental
of human agency and of society that were discerned in the Europe.
section above about the rise of the social sciences at the turn of Roughly at the same time, Jrgen Habermas elaborated
the eighteenth century. another research program, drawing on the joint traditions of
In a rationalistic-deliberative tradition, a landmark was critical Marxist thought, hermeneutics, and speech act theory.
established by the publication of Kenneth Arrows (1951) In 1962 Habermas published a volume that had an analogous
Social Choice and Individual Values. A few years later, economic empirical focus as that of Koselleck (Habermas, 1989). Thus it
theorizing would enter political science at large with Anthony was a reinterpretation of the emergence of a new type of
Downss (1957) book An Economic Theory of Democracy, to be public sphere in the late eighteenth century. Habermass
followed in the early 1960s by a range of books applying game subsequent long-term program has consistently linked these
theory and social choice theory to political phenomena. different traditions and may in one sense be seen as a form of
(Incidentally, as testied by Gabriel Almond (1990, p.117) the historical positioning but also a radical generalization of the
institutional role of the Center for Advanced Study in the philosophical insights of linguistic philosophy and speech
Behavioral Sciences at Stanford was a crucial one for some of act theory.
the interactions involving Arrow, Dahl, and others. These This later tradition also inspired Quentin Skinners (1978)
interactions were of immediate importance to the very publi- two volume major opus The Foundations of Modern Political
cation of Downss book but also more generally to the break- Thought (a work, incidentally, written largely at the Institute for
through of rationalistic forms of analysis). Advanced Study at Princeton). Skinner came to be the major
A few decades later, what had once appeared as an inter- representative of a new school, often identied with his and
esting but rather marginal concern of some specialized polit- John Pococks old university, namely Cambridge. It involved
ical theorists had evolved into a broad tradition of rational the setting of new and signicantly more rigorous standards for
choice analysis with pervasive inuence on both the theory the writing of the history of political thought, particularly in its
and practice of political thought, particularly in North Amer- demand that the linguistic and intellectual context of the actual
ica. Society as a compositional collective was described not writing of major works be carefully brought to the fore of
just as an analytically convenient metaphor but as a represen- analysis. After decades of discussions, there can be little doubt
tation of societal order and with consequential claims con- that intellectual history has made advances in this period,
cerning the nature of legitimate political action. One thrust of inspired by the works of Skinner and several of his colleagues,
theorizing in this tradition was to demonstrate the limitations, that still by no means have been fully explored. At the same
 Political Theory, History of 485

time, it is also clear that these works still leave room for a more also stand out as possibly more urgent than at any time since
extensive inquiry into the relationship between long-term the emergence of social science itself in the end of the eigh-
institutional and intellectual change. teenth century.
Finally, links between political thought and political agency
are prominent in studies of mechanisms of inclusion and
See also: Democratic Theory; Enlightenment; Field Theory;
exclusion and on the granting and withholding of entitlements
Hermeneutics, History of; Integration, Social; Intellectual
for human beings. Gender studies has clearly entailed
History; National Socialism and Fascism; Scientic Disciplines,
a renaissance of the writing of the history of political thought
History of; Solidarity: History of the Concept.
with pioneering contributions by Carole Pateman and Seyla
Benhabib, just to mention two of the most distinguished
scholars on the late twentieth century.
Historically orientated scholarship has in recent years Bibliography
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