Political theory lies at the intersection of the contemporary disciplines of philosophy and political science. Among philosophers, political philosophy is often distinguished by its preoccupation with practical matters. Among political scientists, political theory is often understood as the least practically relevant of the major sub-fields. In truth, self-identified political theorists are engaged in a wide range of activities, both normative and empirical, scientific and spiritual, esoteric and practical. In addition, the history of political thought encompasses many people who would not necessarily understand themselves to be primarily political thinkers or philosophers (e.g., Julius Nyerere, Sophocles, and the Buddha).
The meanings and purposes of political theory are contested within the academic discipline because a great deal of political theory involves thinking about the nature of politics itself. Therefore, rather than describing what political theory is, it is more appropriate to describe what it has been concerned with thus far, with the understanding that the contours of the history of political thought are also part and parcel of the discussion of what constitutes "politics."
In general, political theory attempts to understand and form the human character, with particular emphasis on how people coordinate their ways of life, aims, needs and desires, and their potential to act together as a collective. One of the most important insights of political philosophy is the notion that human beings have the capacity to explore, imagine, and implement associations configured in various ways. Across cultures and throughout recorded history, at least three important and interrelated themes recur in such configurations:
1. Femininity and masculinity. Notions of gender often divide labor, determine the distribution of goods, and create and order the public and private spheres.
2. The spiritual and material worlds. Understandings of the interplay between God or gods and human beings, along with the idea that the spiritual world does not exist, often shape the nature of authority and rule.
3. Human beings and the environment. Ideas about the place of human beings in the natural world, and the idea that people can be distinguished from it, typically undergird various political orientations.
As these themes suggest, political theory often intersects with philosophical perspectives in sociology, economics, ethics, and theology. However, political theory lays special claim to understanding and developing ideas about formal and informal rules of collective action and interaction, such as when and how decisions are made, who can and cannot speak, and what kinds of actions are required, sanctioned, or prohibited. This interest in institutions involves the study and development of certain concepts, including justice, power, consent, citizenship, duty, legitimacy, sovereignty, freedom, equality, punishment, property, oppression, rights, liberation, and deliberation. In the last two centuries, approaches to these concepts have often been framed in terms of ideologies, including nationalism, fascism, authoritarianism, democracy, theocracy, communism, secularism, socialism, liberalism, Islamism, republicanism, colonialism, and postcolonialism.
Such concepts form the parameters of governance and law, habits and customs, appropriateness, and virtue in a wide variety of groupings. Such groupings are themselves the subject and creation of political thought and include families, extended kinship relations, castes, factions, interest groups, tribes, parties, communities, cities, classes, ethnicities, nations, races, confederations, states, genders, caliphates, dynasties, empires, colonies, international organizations, and the relations between these entities. Indeed, the idea of "humanity" itself is a primary subject, and some would argue a creation of, political thought. Deconstructing and reconfiguring such arrangements is also an important task of political theory.
Political theorists often posit new ideas through the resuscitation and reinterpretation of old ideas, frequently by analyzing the thought of a particular thinker or thinkers. Examples include: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, in the ancient Greek tradition; al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Sohravardi, in the Islamic tradition; Saint Augustine, Nyerere, Nkrumah, and Sekou Toure in the African tradition; Confucius, Mencius, Mo-tzu, Chuang-tzu, Han Fei-tzu, and numerous thinkers influenced by Taoism and Buddhism in the Chinese tradition; Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Montesquieu, Wollstonecraft, Marx, and Mill in the European tradition; Bartolome de las Casas, Jefferson, Madison, Bolivar, and Jose Marti, in the American tradition; and the Vedas, written by many seers, as well as the Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) and Mahatma Gandhi, in the Indian tradition. A full accounting of influential contemporary political thinkers would include hundreds of names from various philosophical schools and political movements (e.g., existentialism, feminism, the Frankfurt school, postcolonial studies, and environmental philosophy). Listing individual thinkers also raises questions about the proper conduct of political theory and, in particular, its relationship to political action by necessarily excluding the oral traditions of many cultures both living and dead.
