Political Thought

Other factors were equally important in shaping Greek political thought. Foremost among these were a sense of community and a spirit of camaraderie which have few modern parallels. The lives of Athenians were not as compartmentalized as ours often are. Distinctions between public and private interests melted away into a common concern for the community. … Read more

Greek and Roman cities were political communities, which possessed the institutions required for autonomous collective decision-making. This remained a characteristic of ancient cities from one end of antiquity to the other, even if under monarchical or imperial rule the autonomy of poleis and civitates was somewhat more restricted. The Greek City-State Although the political ideas … Read more

Ancient Theory of International Relations. Certain principles of interstate relations may also be found in ancient literature or may be deduced from the external dealings of early peoples. Although the modern idea of international law among sovereign and independent states did not develop until the rise of national monarchies at the close of the Middle … Read more

Hebrew Political Thought. Like most Oriental peoples, the Jews held a theocratic conception of the state, believing that political authority was divine in origin and sanction; but they early reached the conception of a single deity, worshiped in common by all their tribes. Their god, Jehovah, was not associated with a particular place; on the … Read more

Chinese Political Thought. In many respects, the political thought of the Chinese resembled that of the Hindus rather than that of the other Oriental peoples. China was isolated, fairly free from warfare, and never united under a monarch powerful enough to crush freedom of thought and local independence. The worship of Heaven, the supreme deity, … Read more

Hindu Political Thought. India, with an area as extensive as Europe minus Russia, and with a large and diverse population, has had an active political history. The existence of autonomous oligarchic city-states is recorded in the earliest Hindu tradition. As early as the fourth century B.c. a Hindu empire was established which included a more … Read more

Oriental Political Thought. The Oriental empires Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, and Persia were prevented by the general conditions of their social environment from creating a systematic political philosophy. A simple and predominantly rural economic system, superstitious and inflexible religious dogmas, social classes crystallized into castes, and minute regulation of everyday life gave a fixity and sanctity … Read more

Primitive Political Ideas. From the earliest times men have had ideas concerning the external control to which they submitted their lives and actions. While our knowledge of early thought is scant, yet certain principles that primitive men believed to underlie their political institutions may be discovered by reasoning back from later periods, by investigating the … Read more

Value of Political Thought.Political theory has been accused not only of being barren in practical results but even of being fertile with disaster to actual politics. Burke said that one sure symptom of an ill-conducted state was the tendency of the people to revert to theories. Leslie Stephen believed that political philosophy was generally the … Read more

Sources of Our Knowledge of Political Thought. Knowledge concerning the political thought of the past must be drawn from many sources. The theory of the state at any given time was not a simple and unanimous set of principles. On some questions there was such a consensus of political opinion as to justify one in … Read more