Revival of political theory.

In 1950’s and 1960’s it was being that political theory is in a state of decline. The reason for this was the influence of historical approach, logical positivism, Marxism, hyper- factualism, growth of constitutional law, empirical political Sociology, on the minds of political thinkers. But Berlin says that political theory is neither dead nor in the state of decline. He challenges that there can never be any one kind of society and if even such a society exist the society’s goals would always carry different and incomplete meanings to different persons in different situations and he says that there can not be an age without political Philosophy.

Berlin said, “As long as rational curiosity existed political Theory would not die nor disappear from this earth”. Sabine also says that, “If political theory is systematic, disciplined investigation of political problems, then it is difficult to say that political theory was dead in 1950’s and 1960’s”. Political theory in the traditional sense was alive in the works of Arendt, Oakeshott, Leo strauss, Rawls, Nozick, Herbert Marcuse, Eric Vogelin etc.

Arendt rejected the idea of hidden and anonymous forces in history. Like other leading figures in the revival of political theory she also pointed to the essential incompatibility between ideology and political theory. She was aware of the loss of human experience in the modern world and desired a need to recover a sense of dignity and responsible freedom in human action, seeing it as a basis for the revival of political theory.

Oakeshott also stressed that philosophy served truth which was not determined by its historical setting. He wrote a book named “Introduction to leviathan” in 1946, a book of over 100 pages which is a pure philosophical work. He wrote another book “On rationalism” in 1962

John Rawls an American philosopher wrote two books “justice as fairness” in 1957 and “A theory of justice” in 1971, which are the important works on the revival of political theory

Henna Arendt also has written a book” On human conditions” in 1958 which is an important book of 20^th century. This book stands more important than theory of justice by John Rawls.

In 1954, Karl Popper wrote a book “Open society and its enemies”. The book is based on two volumes, first on Plato and 2^nd on Hegel. In this book he characterizes democracy as welfare society, enlightened society and made other modifications in it but he did not accept it as it was. He was critic of communism and called them enemies of open society.

Berlin has also written two books first “Two concepts of liberty” in 1958 and second “Does political theory still exist” in 1962. These are important philosophical works. He wrote another book “Concepts and categories” in 1978. He accepted that that it was the absence of commanding work and critical dimension that lead to the declaration that pol. Theory was dead or dying.

 Wolins masterpiece, “politics and vision: continuity and innovation in western political thought” in 1960 not only defends classical tradition from the attack of behaviouralism but also explains the beauty and usefulness in the tradition of political theory from Plato to contemporary times.

Nozic’s work “Anarchy, state and utopia” written in 1974 has rejuvenated political theory. This rejuvenation has been a return to the true tradition of the classics in which normative analysis uses empirical findings.

Since 1970’s similar approaches are being made by theorists in analysis and democracy. Since then political theory including critical political theory has been alive and has been using scientific politics to achieve progress. Thus political theory has not been killed by empirical analysis but has helped to progress better.