Decline of Political Theory. (UPSC CSE Mains 2018 - Political Science and International Relations, Paper 1)
- Political theory is basically the study of concepts and principles that people use to evaluate, explain and predict political phenomena and its institutions. These theories are evolved by the Philosophers and Political Scientists over the ages after studying Politics from time to time.
- The decline of political theory reflects a changing landscape in political thought and governance. While traditional political theory remains valuable for understanding historical and philosophical foundations, contemporary politics increasingly relies on empirical analysis and pragmatic approaches. Nonetheless, normative political theory continues to play a significant role in ongoing debates about justice, equality, and the ethical dimensions of political decisions.
- Around 1950‟s and 1960‟s it was claimed by that „political theory is in a state of decline‟. The reasons are
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- Historical approach
- Logical Positivism
- Empiricism in Social Sciences
- Hyper- Factualism
- Marxism
- Growth Of Constitutional Law
- Cobban opined that political thinking itself has become directionless, and lacks purpose. In the past, all great thinkers were passionately worried about the fate of society, and seriously wanted to reform it through their creative ideas. They had full conviction in what they wrote or said. Now that passionate commitment has been substituted by the teaching of historical approach and the scientific attitude. However, blind adoption of scientific method, borrowed from natural sciences, resulted in the loss of criteria of judgement, and merely produced coldblooded passionless scholars.
- Dante Germino discovers „ideological reductionism‟ as the cause of decline of political theory. It reduced political theory to merely an ideology, such as, Marxism. The intellectual and political movements during the last one hundred and fifty years have contributed to its eclipse. Positivisation of social science or a mad rat-race to become “science‟ and political upheavals of democracy, nationalism, imperialism etc., have destroyed the environment necessary for the growth of political theory. Another cause according to Germino, separation of “is‟ and “ought‟ or “fact‟ and “value‟ or “being (reality)‟ and “meaning‟, brought about by Linguistic Philosophy and Logical Positivism. Max Weber attacked Marxism on this very difference between empirical knowledge and value judgments.
- Consensus of opinion regarding values and objectives of society in the West and success in achieving them in practice have also weakened the desire to have any new political theory. People have got everything. Patridge observes, „”If classical political theory has died, perhaps it has been killed by the triumph of democracy‟.
- Still, there is another view that political theory even in the traditional sense was never dead and continuity can be traced out. Plamenatz, Weldon and others do not accept that it has even declined or dwindled.‟ It has merely changed its form.
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