Comparative Political Theory

Comparative political theory is an emerging sub-field of political theory; it is a response to the dissatisfaction with the prevalent Eurocentric mode of political theorizing in the age of globalization. A methodological characteristic of comparative political theory is cross-cultural engagement through dialogue with foreign political ideas. The present paper argues that the dialogical mode of cross-cultural engagement is distinctively European. While the dialogical engagement with foreign worldviews constitutes a mainstream of the European literary tradition, it is largely absent, for example, from the Japanese counterpart. Despite its anti-Eurocentric motivations, comparative political theory is methodologically rooted in the European tradition.

Islamic political thought is a tradition of conceptualizing human affairs that originates with the Prophet Muhammad (570-632 CE) in seventh century Arabia. In his lifetime, Muhammad recited the Qur'an and established a precedent (sunna) that Muslims ever since have taken as guides for how to establish a just community. In the following centuries, Muslims spread the Islamic way of life (din) across the Middle East, North Africa, Southern Europe, Iran, Central Asia, and India, until today approximately one and half billion people, or one-fifth of humanity, identifies as Muslim. Islamic political thought has consistency insofar as certain terms—such as community (umma), justice ('adl), and struggle (jihad)—recur throughout the Qur'an and Prophetic narratives (hadith) and subsequent political texts. Throughout its history, however, Islamic political thought has incorporated, as well as modified and challenged, Arab customs, Jewish law, Persian statecraft, Hellenistic philosophy, Christian theology, and European and American culture. Muslims are currently debating how to reconcile (or not) Islamic notions of community, justice, and struggle with concepts that first appeared in ancient Greece or medieval Christendom, such as democracy, liberty, and secularism. This entry provides a background to that debate by focusing on how leading Muslim thinkers address questions of sovereignty and law, or who ought to govern according to which interpretation of sharia (divine law).

While numerous methodological and interpretive challenges confront the study of cross-cultural political theory, this essay examines a particular premodern Indian tradition as an example of such difficulties and one way in which they can be overcome. Exploring the problematic ways in which people have interpreted and made use of India's ancient past, it critically examines arguments for the existence of secularism, free elections, and democratic assemblies in the Vedas. Defending what I call a " critical revivalist " position, it is argued that predominant approaches to premodern traditions in contemporary Indian political theory place significant constraints on cross-cultural intelligibility and theory building within the Indian context. To elaborate this point, I shift from a " political " to rājan-oriented categorical register in an effort to reposition current understandings of self-rule (swaraj) in India within a broader rajanical tradition. Finally, this essay explains how contemporary Indian political theory can draw insights from this native tradition without necessarily reverting to familiar Western idioms.

With a particular focus on Chinese thought, this volume explores how, and under what conditions, so-called “non-Western” traditions of thought can structure generally applicable social and political theory. Reversing the usual comparison between “local” Chinese application and “universal” theory, the work demonstrates how Chinese experiences and ideas offer systematic insight into shared social and political dilemmas. Contributors discuss how medieval Chinese understandings of causal heterogeneity can relieve impasses within contemporary historiography, how current economic and social conditions in China respond proactively to the future configuration of world markets, and how hybrid modes of cross-cultural engagement offer new foundations for the enterprise of learning from cultural others. Each chapter works from Chinese perspectives to theorize the location of knowledge, its conditions of production, and the modes through which its content or adequacy is legitimated, challenged, and sustained. Rather than reproducing Eurocentric knowledge production in Chinese form, the mobilization of Chinese thought as a generally applicable body of theory actually breaks down clear boundaries between Chinese and non-Chinese thought.

This introduction to the volume "Ideology of Power and Power of Ideology in Early China" (eds. Yuri Pines, Paul R. Goldin and Martin Kern) explores the social, political, and intellectual background of the formation of early Chinese political thought and its major peculiarities in comparison with political thought in the West. Why do most studies of the so-called Hundred Schools of Thought ignore the political aspects of the thinkers’ ideas? Why does early Chinese political thought remain ignored—despite its undeniable richness and sophistication—in all but a few studies of political thought worldwide? The introduction tackles these questions and outlines several aspects of early Chinese political thought that make it particularly worthwhile for comparative analysis.

http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/yccp20?open=7&repitition=0#vol_7

This translation of Tosaka Jun's " The Philosophy of the Kyoto School " is as unembellished as possible. As far as is known, this is the original statement of the philosophical nature and scope of the Kyoto School. Making it available in English serves the purpose of documenting how the Kyoto School was conceived, not only in terms of philosophical themes and approaches, but also in terms of who was included. Returning to the first written source reveals that Tosaka's views on both what characterized the philosophy of the Kyoto School and who its leading thinkers were differ somewhat from the dominant postwar conceptions filtered through Tanabe and Nishitani, and disseminated by, among others, Takeuchi, Heisig, Ōhashi, and Davis. Thus this source can stimulate a rethinking of what the term " Kyoto School " meant historically and whether this has any implications for how Kyoto School studies are constituted today.

This article addresses the centrality of normativity to IR (International Relations) by engaging in an investigation of the meaning of a 'classical' approach (Bull 1969). It demonstrates how a classical approach, properly understood, might provide common ground for IR theorists. The substantive argument is that IR can benefit from reflection on the classical understanding of the relationship between theory and practice, and in particular on the understanding of this relationship provided by philosophical hermeneutics. Philosophical hermeneutics is an approach to the human sciences informed by Aristotle's conception of a practical philosophy. A practical philosophy in the classical sense sees theory as a moral and political inquiry involving a body of knowledge and a philosophy of practice engaging in reflection upon the nature of the good life and the means to achieve it.

While critiquing the dominance of the Western tradition in the discipline of political theory, recent methodological discussions in Comparative Political Theory (CPT) fail to move beyond the East-West dichotomy. More specifically, CPT does not offer the resources to deal with global convergence as embodied in the phenomenon of modernity. I focus on the emergence of the sovereign state in the modern period and argue that the universal acceptance of the state form creates a globally-shared institutional condition. This condition, in turn, necessitates a shared normative and conceptual apparatus centered on ideals like constitutionalism, rights, and democracy. Two implications follow from my argument. First, we should reconceptualize the history of political thought such that we move from an East/West division to a modern/pre-modern division. Second, alternatives to the dominant (" Western ") model are not real alternatives unless they transcend the sovereign state itself, charting a new course of multilayered local, regional, and global political arrangements.

Recent work on the history of political thought, exploiting digital resources, is challenging the idea that empirically and hermeneutically minded political scientists must work independently in silos. Work by students of the Cam-bridge School and work by textual data miners is showing the way toward a new hermeneutical circle—one in which empirically and hermeneutically minded political scientists can use digital resources to analyze diverse texts and make groundbreaking discoveries on relationships between textual uses of language and political change. I analyze this new trend toward different sorts of political scientists using digital resources to study ideas, to outline underlying paradigms relating language and politics in these respective fields, and to consider how they could be brought into productive conversation. I then consider how such conversation would enrich subdisciplinary under-standings of the role of language in politics. Ultimately, I use this analysis to generate a broader model for how empirically and hermeneutically inclined political scientists can benefit from collaboration in the age of digital humanities.

This essay begins by exploring the extent to which the narrative of secular-ization presented in Charles Taylor's A Secular Age might be complicated or otherwise challenged by taking account of parallel processes within Islamic thought and practice. It then considers whether Taylor's argument might nevertheless be applicable to, or illuminative of, contemporary struggles with modernity in the Muslim world.

THIS ESSAY ARGUES THAT JUDGMENTS ABOUT THE NATURE AND function of human reason play analogous (though not identical) roles in Catholic and Muslim arguments for political liberalism. Focusing on the works of John Courtney Murray and three contemporary Muslim reformers, I note three similarities. First, thinkers in both traditions argue that it is humankind's unique ability to reason about the moral law that constitutes our dignity and provides the foundation for the right to religious liberty. Second, this ability to reason is what allows us to provide the publicly accessible justifications that the liberal principle of reciprocity seems to require. Finally, all four authors argue that their attempts to reform or develop their traditions are dependent upon and required by the dictates of human reason.