Political theory and political philosophy distinguished, with examples

Introduction

The two terms are often used as if they meant the same thing, but they name different activities within the study of politics. The question asks what separates them and requires illustrations. The short answer is that political theory explains and examines political life, using concepts and evidence, whereas political philosophy asks what ought to be and why, and it works at a higher level of generality.

Political theory and political philosophy

Political theory has two sides. On one side it explains: it looks at the attitudes and conduct found in everyday political life and generalises about them for a particular setting, which means it is always relating ideas to the circumstances in which they arise. On the other side it judges: institutions, processes and actual behaviour are measured against philosophical or ethical standards, and behind this lies the question of which political order is best and, ultimately, how people should live together. The concepts and explanations it produces are then taken up by political science. There is no single agreed definition: Sabine saw in it the factual, the causal and the valuational. Understood narrowly, a theory does not try to explain everything at once; it takes one kind of political phenomenon and accounts for it through a unifying principle.

Political philosophy works at a more general level. It answers questions such as what justice is, handles the distinction between is and ought, and tries to settle conflicts between theories that look equally acceptable. The two are therefore related by inclusion, not rivalry. A philosopher of politics is always also a theorist, though a theorist need not be a philosopher, and within normative political theory it is philosophy that works out how concepts bear on one another.

Examples that bring the difference out. (i) Asking why, in India, turnout differs between states, or whether a first-past-the-post system produces two-party competition, is a theoretical and empirical question about how institutions behave. (ii) Asking whether the state is ever justified in overriding a person's liberty, or what makes a distribution of wealth just, is a philosophical question about what ought to be. The two can meet in a single argument. A claim that every child is owed a fair start in life is philosophical; once it is joined to evidence on which children leave school early and why, and turned into a proposal for a scholarship scheme, philosophy and theory are working together. Recent normative writing has set out to make exactly this kind of link between its principles and empirical findings.

Neighbouring terms. Political science describes and generalises, political thought is the wider reflection of a whole community in speeches, policies and literature, and political ideology is a closed, action-guiding doctrine; ideology tends to justify one system of power and discourages the critical scrutiny that philosophy invites.

Points of difference

Further illustrations. Take the idea of equality. A theorist asks how far reservation in education changes who enters public office and how citizens have responded; this is a theoretical and empirical enquiry into a policy. A philosopher asks whether equality of opportunity or equality of outcome is the fairer ideal; this is an argument about values. The first can use data, the second must reason from principles. In practice the two are linked, since a theory of institutions always carries assumptions about what is good, and a philosophy of justice has to take account of how institutions operate.

Conclusion

Political theory and political philosophy are neighbouring and overlapping, not opposed. The theorist explains and criticises political life with concepts, evidence and standards; the philosopher inquires into the ultimate values on which those standards rest. A student of politics needs both: without philosophy, theory has no standard for criticism, and without theory, philosophy has no contact with political reality.