Meaning of political theory and its relevance

Introduction

Human beings can reason, reflect on their actions and communicate with one another; political theory grows out of these capacities, because it asks how we should live together and why. The question has two parts: what political theory means, and why it matters.

What political theory is

Political theory is the systematic study of the ideas and principles on which political life rests: the values that shape constitutions, governments and everyday social life, and the arguments by which thinkers defend or criticise them. Its work has three sides. It is constructive, proposing how institutions and policies ought to change to become more democratic; critical, testing whether the institutions we actually deal with live up to the values they profess; and conceptual, clarifying what values such as freedom, equality and justice mean and why they matter. Underneath all three lie the basic questions of collective life: what government is for, how a society should be arranged, and what rulers and citizens owe each other.

It is not the same as the everyday activity called politics. Politics, in its wide sense, is the continuing negotiation by which a society reaches collective decisions in the face of different visions of what is just and desirable; political theory is the reflection on that activity and on the principles that ought to guide it. The DU syllabus places exactly this question at its opening: what is political theory and what is its relevance.

Relevance

1. Ideals are never finally achieved. India is free and has a democratic constitution, yet equality may exist in the political sphere (equal votes) without existing in the economic or social spheres, so the questions never close.
2. Meanings change. Constitutional rights are continually reinterpreted as new situations arise: the right to life has been read by the courts to include the right to livelihood, and a right to information has been added by law. Theory supplies the reasoning by which such developments are judged.
3. New dimensions of freedom and new threats appear. Global communications help activists network but also criminals; internet commerce raises questions of privacy and regulation.
4. It trains citizens. Its stated objective is to train citizens to think rationally about political questions and to assess the events of their time. A citizen who can ask which constraints on freedom are justified? or which differences in treatment are fair? is better able to take part in public debate.
5. It connects ideas with institutions. The Indian Preamble's commitment to freedom and equality, the abolition of untouchability and the Directive Principles all rest on ideas first debated by thinkers.

Conclusion

Political theory is the reasoned examination of the values and principles of public life. Its relevance does not lapse with independence or with a democratic constitution: ideals have to be interpreted afresh, defended against new threats and checked against practice, and citizens who can reason about them are the best protection of a free society.