Strictly for Private Circulation Amongst PSIR Prep Members at University of

Delhi. Presentation by Dr Chandrachur Singh. Dated 05-09-20203

Topic No. 1-
Political Theory: Meaning and Approaches.
1. ‘Politics’, originates as adjective of Polis (city State) and means anything concerning or related
to state). In common parlance, things ‘political’ are generally associated with the problem of
governance. Institutions and processes of government have, therefore, been traditionally the
objects of political science.

2. ‘Theory’ comes from a Greek word called “theorema” which means comprehending or
understanding or explaining. By the way ‘Theoros’ in Greek means an intelligent observer, one
who looks at what is going on, asking questions about it and tries to understand it.

3. No Wonder- John Plamenatz described political theory as the ‘systematic thinking about the
purposes of government’. Political theory is, however, is normative in content generally as it is
primarily concerned with how things ought to be as opposed to how things actually are.

4. Political theory is significant because of the need of developing consistency and clarity of
thought and judgment about Politics.

5. In so doing Political theory develops and delves on concept which as tools are used for political
analysis, i.e. for thinking, criticizing, arguing, explaining and analysing political action.

6. According to David Held, “Political Theory is a network of concepts and generalizations about
the key features of government, state and society.

7. According to Weinstein, political theory can be viewed as an activity which involves posing
questions, developing responses to those questions and creating imaginative perspectives on the
public life of human beings

8. The term political theory has been defined in both “a broad” and “a narrow” sense. Thus,
Sabine defines it, “as anything about politics or relevant to politics”. This is his broad definition
of the term. He also gives a narrow definition as “the disciplined investigation of political
problems”. Similarly, Arnold Brechet provides both a broad and a narrow meaning of Political
Theory. According to him in the broad sense, the concept political theory means “a thinkers’
entire teaching on a subject,” while in the narrow sense it means only “an expression of a
thought”. Hence, to him it means a set of propositions.
Key Features of Political Theory

• The area in which political theory works extends to the realms of politics only – political life of the
citizen, his political behaviour, his political ideas, the government that he seeks to establish, and
the tasks expected from such a government.
• The methods, which political theory adopts, include description, explanation and investigation of
the political phenomenon.

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Strictly for Private Circulation Amongst PSIR Prep Members at University of
Delhi. Presentation by Dr Chandrachur Singh. Dated 05-09-2020
Topic No. 1-
Political Theory: Meaning and Approaches.
• Though political theory is all about what is ‘political’, yet it attempts to understand ‘political’ in
relation to ‘social’, ‘economic’, ‘psychological’, ‘ecological’, ‘moral’, and the like.
• The objective which political theory seeks to achieve is to build a good state in a good society, and
in the process, create processes, procedures, institutions and structures historically tested and
rationally attained.
• As a body of thought, political theory attempts to explain, evaluate and predict political
phenomena, and in the process builds not only scientifically testable models, but suggests values
as rules of human conduct.
• Political theory is both prescriptive and explanatory

Significance of Political Theory

1. Problem Solving. Uses knowledge from diverse and allied subjects such as history, ethics,
sociology, economics to explain political phenomena.

2. Allows us know our place in the system

3. Rationalizes Outlook and balances we vs others.

4. Enables an understanding of what is and what ought to be

5. Generates spirit of reasoning, which helps in making arguments or statements on the way
society needs to be organised.

Two Main Approaches: Normative and Empirical

There are two different intellectual paradigms in political science: a normative approach and a
‘positive/scientific/factual/empirical approach. While the normative approach is as old as reflection
about politics and seeks to discover an ideal social order, the ‘positive’ paradigm treats the scientific
study of politics as associated with a value neutral approach to the subject.

Normative Approach
The key question under this approach is on underlining what is a good political order? In answering
this political theorist have been generally guided by the philosophical insights developed since the
ancient Greek tradition.
Normative theory is concerned with norms or normative principles. In ethics norms mean moral
standards A normative principle can be defined as ‘a general directive that tells agents what (they
ought, or ought not) to do’.

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Strictly for Private Circulation Amongst PSIR Prep Members at University of
Delhi. Presentation by Dr Chandrachur Singh. Dated 05-09-2020
Topic No. 1-
Political Theory: Meaning and Approaches.
A normative theory tries to determine what standards ought to be followed in a political community
(domestic or international). Normative statements refer to an ideal standard or model and this
reference may involve a priori concepts that establish standards by which judgments can be made.
Normative approach is evaluative or prescriptive in the sense that such theories are concerned with
justification of norms.
Descriptively norms mean standards of behaviour of social and political action, while prescriptively
as reasons which dictate a certain choice of action.

• According to Isiah Berlin Normative Political Theory typically involves:

• Internal consistency and logical coherence of moral arguments through clarification of

concepts.

• Making use or borrowing concepts from other disciplines such as economics, history,
psychology, etc in order to check the accuracy of the empirical assumptions underlying
arguments advanced and to bring out the problems in moral arguments which are not
revealed immediately in abstract reasoning

• Examining conclusions of arguments in the light of their own intuition

Prior to the Second World War Political theory was overarchingly normative (with few notable
exceptions) and primarily built on the base of moral philosophy in its various forms.
Understandably apart from history it made good use of ethics philosophy and law. In so doing it tried
to examine the past events and drew some tentative conclusions about the contemporary political
activity.
It was state centric and was concerned with ‘ends’ like justice, welfare, freedom equality etc. It was
inherently speculative in nature as theorists as philosophers often argued on the basis of personal
speculations and biases.

Key Features of Traditional/Normative Political Theory

• According to Ernest Barker normativism deals with values largely because political ends determine
the value of other things which serves as their means. As such there are certain fundamental
questions of political theory that have remained since time immemorial and would forever remain
in human society.
• Some of these very fundamental issues include: (1) Why the state exists (2) the purpose and ends
of the state (3) the appropriate means for realizing the ends of the state and finally (4) political
theory determines the ends and ultimate values that govern the life of a society.

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Strictly for Private Circulation Amongst PSIR Prep Members at University of
Delhi. Presentation by Dr Chandrachur Singh. Dated 05-09-2020
Topic No. 1-
Political Theory: Meaning and Approaches.
• Traditional political theory aimed at acquiring reliable knowledge about matters concerning the
people, a philosophical pursuit to establish a rational basis for belief; a politically inspired pursuit
to establish a rational basis for action.
• It sought to identify the political with the public, the common: the Greek polis, the Roman
respublica, and the medieval age usage of commonweal – all denoted a sharing of what was common
among the people as partners.
• Its basic unit of analysis was always the political whole, the body-politic, the inter-related structure
denoting activity, relationship, and belief: activity relating to ruling, warfare, education, religious
practices; relationships involving those between social classes, between the rulers and the ruled,
between the superiors and the inferiors; belief, such as justice, equality, natural law and the like.
• Relating itself to the political whole, normative political theory laid emphasis on order, balance,
equilibrium, stability and harmony. That is why, it, in the process, dwelt on terms such as conflicts,
anarchy, instability and revolution.
• It laid stress on comparative studies for supplying a more comprehensive explanation of political
phenomena and a wider range of alternatives. That was the reason that classical political theory
developed a classification of political forms (e.g., monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, and their
variants) and a set of concepts such as law, citizenship, justice and participation so as to explain
differences and similarities between them.
• It was, largely, ethical in perspective. Its response was rooted in a moral outlook: Plato advocated
the ideal state; Aristotle, a state that can achieve the best possible; St. Augustine, the city of god.
It undertook to appraise the various constitutional forms, to determine the form most suitable for
a particular set of circumstances, and to decide, if any, absolutely the best form possible.

Summing Up

Critics argue that not all human beings can make meaningful moral choices. Also, NPT is too abstract
(utopian) and dealing with issues that are remote and far from realities of life.

Despite the criticism Normative approach has its own significance in the sense of presenting norms
that guides politics.