Political Science Archive

9.1 Introduction State authority — the power to make laws, demand obedience, and punish violations — is what we encounter as sovereignty in everyday life. Despite appearing simple, sovereignty is one of the most complicated notions in Political Science. A rudimentary understanding is insufficient because state power is not merely theoretical — it directly affects…

8.1 Introduction Citizenship denotes membership of a political community — a distinctive relation shared among relative equals in public life, conferring rights and privileges and generating duties and obligations. Societies such as ancient Greece, Rome, and medieval European city-states gave definitive legal and political expression to this relation. With the rise of modern liberal states,…

7.1 Introduction Rights discourse has been among the most prominent features of contemporary political philosophy — it argues that persons, mainly as individuals, are bearers of claims, liberties, and powers which the rest of society must acknowledge. This exaltation of rights has created deep unease regarding duties and obligations necessary for maintaining a just social…

6.1 Introduction Justice is of central importance in political practice and theory — invoked in defending or opposing laws, public policies, administrative decisions, civil disobedience, and satyagraha campaigns. The civil rights, civil liberties, dalit, feminist, and environmental movements are all essentially movements for justice. Justice is widely regarded as the first virtue of social institutions…

5.1 Introduction Equality is among the most confusing and baffling concepts of social, economic, moral, and political philosophy because it figures in all other concepts — justice, liberty, rights, property, etc. Over two thousand years, Greeks, Stoics, and Christian fathers each stressed different aspects. Under the impact of liberalism and Marxism, equality acquired new connotations.…

4.1 Introduction Gerald MacCallum (1967) defined liberty as a triadic concept — the freedom of an individual X, from an obstacle A, to do B. In other words, X is not restrained by A from doing B. MacCallum argued it was misleading to divide theorists into advocates of negative or positive liberty since all three…