Notes on Political Theory Part B
Part Four
Outstanding Political Theorists
A political theorist is one who theorizes in politics or on
political matters. As explained in
earlier chapters, political theory came about following people’s quest or need
to meet the challenges of group or social life. Following this trajectory, Sabine and Thomson
(1973:3) defines political theory simply as “man’s attempt to consciously
understand and solve the problems of group life and organization.” Thus, we can say that any person who attempts
to consciously understand, explain and solve the problem of group life and
organization can safely be called a political theorist.
Classical Political Theorists
The most outstanding political theorists within the classical or
ancient period, before 500 BC to 410 AD, are mostly Greeks and to some extent
Romans. The most notable theorists of
the period that will be discussed are:
- Plato (circa
427-347 BC) and
- Aristotle
(384-322 BC)
Plato (Circa 427-347 BC)
Plato is undoubtedly one of the greatest political thinkers of all
times. He was born into an aristocratic
Athenian family about 427 BC. He was to
have taken up political career but turned to philosophy as a result of
circumstances and inclination. Following
the execution of his friend and teacher Socrates, (469 to 399 BC) at the hands
of Athenian democracy, Plato became highly disillusioned with the politics of
his time. This substantially explains
why he remained profoundly critical of Athenian democracy, together with its
institutions and liberalism, all through his life. His unsuccessful attempt into the foray of
real politics in the Greek city of Syracuse
Plato is noted for his dialogue which he wrote on a wide range of
issues with the main character almost always Socrates. This is so characteristic that it is often
hard to know whether the views of ‘Socrates’ are original to his teacher, the
historical Socrates or to Plato himself.
His main work Politeia in Greek often translated the Republic
is not only his first, but also considered the first and greatest work of
philosophic political theory. Other
works by Plato include Statesman (Politicus) and The Law. The Republic contains a detailed
discourse on the nature of justice and attempts to answer the question, “Who
should rule?” For Plato, a specially trained group of intellectuals whom he
called aristocrats should rule.
Differently put, the best fit should rule, that is rule by the best.
Aristotle (circa 384-322 BC)
Aristotle, now generally referred to as the first known political
scientist, was born in Stagira Thrace Greece
In 364, at about the age of seventeen, Aristotle came to Athens Athens Euboea where he died the following year at the age of
sixty-two.
Aristotle was highly influenced by his father. In particular, his father’s training and
practice as a physician helped direct Aristotle’s early thought and interest to
biological science and the development of the scientific method. This involved the use of techniques,
classification and comparison evident in his philosophical writings. He is often described as the first known
political scientist on account of this scientic approach and taxonomy as well
as practically.
Much unlike Plato, Aristotle believed that ethics and politics,
which he dubbed practical sciences, should be based on empirical data and
taxonomy. Putting this precept into
practice, Aristotle in is most famous work Politics mixes analysis, description
and prescription. In particular, he
based much of his account on one hundred and fifty-eight constitutions, which
together with his students he researched into their political structures and
history.
Medieval Political Theorists
Within the medieval political period (410-1500AD), the most notable
political theorists were also theologians.
Especially their writings or views centre on the Church and the divine
interpretation of political reality. The
period is also typified by the bitter struggle for power between the spiritual
and temporal authorities. This is best
illustrated by the great controversy of the mediaeval period between Pope
Gregory VII who ascended the Papacy in 1073 and the Papalists, on one hand and
Emperor Henry IV and the Imperialists on the other hand. The primary phase of the controversy ended
with the Concordat of Worms in 1122 AD (Sabine and Thomson: 215-230).
Their contributions to political theorization laid the necessary
foundation for modern political theory.
Some of the outstanding medieval political theorists are
* St Augustine
* St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
After the fall of Rome in 410 AD, St Augustine took upon himself the
onerous task of explaining not only the fall of Rome but indeed “the rise and
decline of all political societies built by man” (Bluhm:126). In his book, De Civitate Dei, that is
City of God God St. Augustine Heavenly
City St. Augustine Kingdom of Satan Kingdom of Christ
St. Thomas Aquinas (circa 1225-1274)
In specific terms, St. Thomas Aquinas considers the state natural,
just as the family is. To him the state
is not a conventional or optional institution such as a club or company. Being social animals, human beings need
society or state for survival as human beings and to guarantee their property
and cultural development. In St. Thomas
All powers, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, come from God. The
implication is that sovereignty, whether monarchical or parliamentary, is
natural. Without a governing body
capable of making binding decisions anarchy would result and people could
destroy each other. The sovereign or
government is thus representative of the governed multitudo, that is,
the governed or the people. The
implication is that power comes from God through the people, or multitude. Sovereignty or power comes through the people
because whatever the form of government must reflect the wishes of the
governed.
On the relationship between the church and the state, Aquinas states
that the state is not dependent on the church.
Each has separate ends and thus separate roles. According to him, the church is a perfect
society, in no way subordinate to the state.
The end or goal of the church is loftier, and at the same time the
ultimate end of the citizen. Thus, the
state must take into account the interest of the church. With these in mind Aquinas likens the
relationship between the church and the state to that of the soul to the
body. Each has its own particular role
to play, but the soul is higher. The
unity of purpose comes about in the citizen who has one end but separate
spiritual and material needs.
Aquinas sees the relationship between the state and the citizen as holistic,
that is, as based on the principle that the citizen is subordinate to the state
as the part is to the whole. This
however, does not give the state unlimited power over its subjects.
Modern Political Theorists
The modern period, 1500 to 1900, witnessed a flurry of writings by
political thinkers and activists. The
beginning of the period is best represented by the writings of
Machiavelli. Some of the outstanding
political thinkers of the period include:
- Niccolo
Machiavelli, 1489-1527
- Martin Luther,
1483-1546
- Jean Bodin,
1528-1596
- Thomas
Hobbes, 1588-1679
- James
Harrington, 1611-1677
- John Locke,
1632-1704
- Charles
Baron de Montesquieu, 1689-1755
- Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, 1712-1797
- Edmund
Burke, 1729-1797
- Thomas
Paine, 1737-1809
- Thomas
Jefferson, 1743-1826
- Jeremy
Bentham, 1748-1832
- Glaude-Hegel,
1770-1831
- James Mill,
1773-1836
- John Scuart
Mill, 1806-1873
- Alexis de
Tocoqueville 1805-1859
- Karl Marx,
1818-1883
- Friedrich
Engels, 1820-1895
- Herbert
Spencer, 1820-1903.
However, a succinct discourse of some of the aforementioned will
suffice.
Niccolo Machiavelli, 1489-1527
An Italian political theorist, Nicolo di Bernado dei Machiavelli is
often regarded as the first modern political theorist. Machiavelli became the head of the second chancery of Florence
As a member of the Florence France Germany Germany France Florence
According to Machiavelli, the state needs a morality of its own, the
morality of success. He qualifies this
as success in defending itself so as to guarantee the safety of its people and
when this becomes necessary to protect its own interest. He also sees politics as a battle and a
constant struggle for power. To him
there are two ways of fighting, by law and by force. Machiavelli is a veritable advocate of a
strong state. He wanted a state that is
strong, sufficient and capable of imposing its authority, on a divided Italy
Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679
Hobbes received his early education at Malmesbury, in Wirtshire, his
birthplace. Before the age of fifteen he
had entered Oxford Oxford University
In his writings, Hobbes was highly influenced by Galileo and
others. In particular, he was struck by
the transformation of “the old dramatic and qualitative concept of the physical
world into the abstract, purely quantitative conception of colourless,
soundless particles moving with mathematical precision in accordance with
simple, determinable mechanical laws” (Jones:87-88). Another great influence on Hobbes’ thought
was violence and brutality and the attendant waste of human life and property
that accompanied the civil war in England
For Thomas Hobbes who anchored his political theory particularly in The
Leviathan, on the analysis of human nature, the human being is essentially
selfish. In the state of nature the life
of man is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”. Although he recognizes that some laws existed
in the state of nature, he argues that there was “such a ware, as if every man
was against every man” in other words, a perpetual struggle of all against all,
with competition, diffidence and love of glory as the main causes.
Hobbes was clearly inclined towards monarchical absolutism. Being an Englishman who lived during his
country’s most turbulent period, the fact that he perceived man in a state of
nature as selfish and wicked and yet advocated an absolute monarchy can easily
be conjectured. Simply stated, Thomas
Hobbes wanted a stable England
John Locke, 1632-1704
Despite the vagaries cast
upon Locke by life and by living through a period of civil disturbance and revolution,
Locke, unlike Hobbes, still held the view that “men are basically decent,
orderly, socially minded, and quite capable of ruling themselves” (Jones, 1975:152).
John Locke was born in 1632, the oldest son of a small country
lawyer in Somerset Westminster Christ Church College
Locke left Oxford London
Locke’s major task was to justify the English Glorious Revolution of
1688. With Two Treatises of
Government (1690) as his major work, he argued that in the state of nature
men are free and equal. It must be
emphasized that unlike Hobbes, Locke’s state of nature and law of nature
stressed the freedom and preservation of all men. Here men were cooperative and sympathetic
towards each other. His goal was to
justify the ultimate authority of the people over their ruler. While supporting the Glorious Revolution, the
deposition of King James II and King Williams’s ascension to the throne of
England, he propounded a version of social contract that hinges on two aspects
(a) contract to form a community and (b) contract between society and
government.
The most important contribution of Locke’s philosophy to political
theory is his tackling of the fundamental problem of consent. Before now, the idea that the authority of the
kings derived from God, otherwise known as the Divine Right of Kings, was
widespread and accepted. Although the
notion had received some attacks from Hobbes, it remained controversial that it
was Locke, more than any other theorists who overthrow the belief in the Right
of Kings. To Locke, the authority of the civil ruler is never absolute, it is
entrusted. Being entrusted, it is held
in trust, and is therefore revocable. Thus,
on the basis of Locke’s doctrine of consent the basis of political obligation
is that a society has the right to rid itself of a ruler who betrayed the trust
reposed in him, that is, the right to rebellion.
Karl Marx, 1818-1883.
Karl Marx was born in the city of Trier, then in Prussia, to a
Jewish German father on May 5, 1818. By
twenty-three when he completed his doctoral dissertation in 1841, Marx had
become a leftist Hegelian idealist, drawing revolutionary conclusions from
Hegel’s philosophy. Marx was
substantially influenced by Ludwig Feuerbachs philosophy, which particularly
after 1836 began to criticize theory and turn to materialism” (Lenin, 1978:2).
On graduation, Marx wanted to become a professor, but the
reactionary policy of the government of the day forced the young man to abandon
academic life. With the appearance of a
local opposition paper Rheinische Zeitung in January 1842, Marx became
alongside Bruno Bauer major contributors.
Later in October, Marx became the chief editor and consequently moved to
Cologne from Bonn. Under Marx’s
editorship, the revolutionary democratic trend of the paper became more and
more pronounced. His editorship and
indeed the paper itself as a result were short lived. The government subjected the paper to multiple
censorship, and in March 1843, the paper was closed down. This was a few months after Marx resigned his
editorship. On account of the
journalistic experience which he gathered as an editor, Marx realized “that he was not sufficiently
acquainted with political economy and he zealously set out to study it (Lenin,
1978:2-3).
At twenty-five, Marx married Jenny von Westaphlen in Kreuznach from
a noble but reactionary family and they had three surviving daughters: Eleanor,
Laura and Jenny.
In 1847, Marx produced his first major work, Poverty of
Philosophy. In it, he demolished
Proudhon’s doctrine and the doctrine of petty bourgeois socialism. Marx left Paris in 1845 for Brussels after he
was banished by the authorities on the grounds that he was “a dangerous
revolutionary.” Two years later, Marx
and Engels joined the Communist League, a secret propaganda society, Later the
same year, the duo took an active part in the Second Congress of the League, at
whose instance Marx and Engels produced in February 1848 The Manifesto of
the Communist Party. The manifesto,
among others, outlined the doctrine of development and the theory of the class
struggle.
Between 1848 and mid-1849 Marx was visibly and severely harassed by
the authorities as they considered him a big torn in their flesh. First, following the February 1848
Revolution, he was banished from Belgium, charged to court and later acquitted
in February 1849 in Cologne, then banished in May 1849 from Germany, only to be
banished again from Paris in June 1849.
Later the same year, he moved over and settled in London where he lived
the rest of his life. While in London,
Marx suffered dire poverty and had to be constantly supported by Engels. While residing in London he devoted his
attention to the study of political economy and produced his materialist
theory. In the process he also authored
most of his other major works notably Contribution to the Critique of
Political Economy (1859) and the first volume of Capital
(1857). The remaining two volumes were
completed and published posthumously.
By the early 1860s Marx again stepped up his revolutionary political
activities. He was instrumental to the
first international which took place in September 1864. In the face of various sects and petty
bourgeois schools, Marx maintained, indeed “hammered out a uniform tactics to
the working class in the various countries” (Lenin, 1978:5). After the fall of Paris Commune in 1871 and
the split within the International, the organization met in The Hague (1872)
and transferred its General Council to New York.
Gradually Karl Marx was weighed down by strenuous organizational and
theoretical preoccupations, which virtually undermined his health. Eventually, despite collecting enormous new
material and studying new languages, Marx was unable to complete all the three
volumes of Capital, on account of ill health. On 14 March 1883, at the age of 65, Marx
passed on peacefully in his armchair and was buried in Hoghgate Cemetery,
London.
For most of his life, Karl Marx was preoccupied with one thing -
stern critique of capitalism, particularly early capitalism which he
empirically analysed. The ultimate goal
of Marx’s political theory or Marxism is the replacement or transformation of
the existing society with his envisioned “perfect order”. Marxism itself is a product, successor and
indeed synthesis of nineteenth century German philosophy, English political
economy and French socialism. The three
sources also constitute or reflect the three major components or principles of
Marxism. Accordingly, Marx’s composite
theory has three distinct elements, namely
* Philosophical (history materialism) - theory
that regards material economic forces as the basis of social and political
institutions and ideas.
* Economic (surplus value) - the value
produced by the working class that is usually exploited by the capitalist
class, and
* Political (class struggle) – the resultant
effect of increased workers’ awareness of their political and economic power.
Contemporary Political Theories
The contemporary political period spans from 1900 to date. Most of the theorists of the period are
preoccupied with the realization or criticism of some of the grand theories
enunciated in the previous periods. They
are also concerned with issues of development and underdevelopment. Some of the outstanding political theorists
of the period are
- George
Sorel, 1847 – 1922
- Vilfredo
Pareto, 1848- 1923
- Emile
Durkheim, 1858- 1917
- Gaetano
Mosca, 1858- 1941
- Max Weber,
1864-1920
- Vladimir
Lenin, 1870-1924
- Joseph
Schumkpeter, 1883-1950
- Georg
Lukacs, (1885-1971)
- Antonio
Gramsci, 1891-1937
- Herbert
Marcuse, 1898-1979
- Jean-Paul
Sartre, 1905-1980
- Frantz
Fanon, 1925-1961
Others
contemporary political theorists include David Easton, Charles Merriam, Gabriel
Almond, G.B. Powell, Andre Gunder Frank, Mao Tse Tung, Claude Ake, Eddie Madunagu,
Kwame Nkrumah, Obafemi Awolowo, Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr and
Julius Nyerere.
Durkheim,
Émile (1858-1917)
Durkheim was
born in Épinal , France
Durkheim
believed that scientific methods should be applied to the study of society. He
proposed that groups had characteristics that were more than, or different
from, the sum of the individuals' characteristics or behaviors. He was also
concerned with the basis of social stability—the common values shared by a
society, such as morality and religion. In his view, these values, or the
collective conscience, are the cohesive bonds that hold the social order
together. A breakdown of these values, he believed, leads to a loss of social
stability and to individual feelings of anxiety and dissatisfaction. He
explained suicide as a result of an individual's lack of integration in
society. Durkheim discussed the correlation in Suicide: A Study in Sociology
(1897; translated 1951). In his studies and writings he made much use of
anthropological materials, especially those dealing with aboriginal societies,
to support his theories. Among his other books are The Division of Labor in
Society (1893; translated 1933), The Rules of Sociological Method (1895;
translated 1938), and The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912; translated
1915).
Max Weber
(1864-1920)
German economist and social historian, known for his systematic approach to
world history and the development of Western civilization. Weber was born April 21, 1864 , in Erfurt Heidelberg ,
Berlin
Challenged by
the Marxist theory of economic determinism, Weber combined his interest in
economics with sociology in an attempt to establish, through historical study,
that historical causation was not influenced merely by economic considerations.
In one of his best-known works, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism (1904-1905; trans. 1930), he tried to prove that ethical and
religious ideas were strong influences on the development of capitalism. He
expanded on this theme in The Religions of the East series (3 volumes,
1920-1921; trans. 1952-1958), in which he postulated that the prevailing
religious and philosophical ideas in the Eastern world prevented the development
of capitalism in ancient societies, despite the presence of favorable economic
factors.
Fanon, Frantz, (1925-1961)
French West Indian psychiatrist and political theorist whose
analyses of colonialism place him among the leading revolutionary thinkers of
his time. In the United States, where Fanon’s works became popular after his
death, he was a guiding figure in the black liberation movement, particularly
in the formation of the Black Panther Party. Fanon has become associated with
his advocacy of revolutionary violence to purge colonized peoples of their
colonial mindsets, often to the neglect of his other ideas.
Fanon was born in Fort-de-France on the island of Martinique. During
World War II (1939-1945) he served with the Free French forces in North Africa
and France. From 1947 to 1951 he attended medical school in Lyon , France
In 1953 Fanon was appointed chief psychiatrist at a hospital in Blida , Algeria France Algeria
Fanon published his first book, Peau noir, masques blancs
(1952) Black Skin, White Masks (1967) while still living in France Martinique , with values and schooling modelled after
those of France
Fanon's work reflects the intellectual influences of his years in
France, where he was drawn to the group of black intellectuals associated with
the journal Présence Africaine. He was also close to a group of French
intellectuals associated with the journal Les Temps Modernes that included Jean-Paul
Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Albert Camus. These two groups and the
writings of German philosophers Karl Marx and Georg Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel
strongly influenced Fanon's political and philosophical orientation.
Fanon's psychiatric work in Algeria
Mao Tse-tung (1893-1976)
Mao is the foremost Chinese Communist leader of the 20th century and
the principal founder of the People’s Republic of China December 26, 1893 , into a
peasant family in the village
of Shaoshan Hunan
In 1918, after graduating from the Hunan Teachers College in
Changsha, Mao traveled to Beijing and obtained a job in the Beijing University
library under the head librarian, Li Dazhao. Mao joined Li’s study group that
explored Marxist political and social thought and he became an avid reader of
Marxist writings. During the May Fourth Movement of 1919, when students and
intellectuals called for China’s modernization, Mao published articles
criticizing the traditional values of Confucianism. He stressed the importance
of physical strength and mental willpower in the struggle against tradition. In
Beijing, he also met and married his first wife, Yang Kaihui, a Beijing
University student and the daughter of Mao’s high school teacher. (When Mao was
14 his father had arranged a marriage for him with a local girl, but Mao never
recognized this marriage.)
In 1920 Mao returned to Changsha Hunan
In 1925 Mao organized peasant unions in his hometown of Shaoshan.
Because of his peasant background, he was named director of both the CCP and
KMT Peasant Commissions in 1926. In 1927 Mao wrote a paper titled “Report on an
Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan,” in which he declared that
peasants would be the main force in the revolution. Because this viewpoint was
contrary to orthodox Marxism, which held that workers were the basis for
revolution, and because peasant revolt would alienate the KMT, the CCP rejected
Mao’s ideas.
The KMT broke with the CCP in 1927 and KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek,
who had taken control of the KMT after Sun Yat-sen’s death in 1925, launched a
violent purge against the Communists. In battles that became known as the
Autumn Harvest Uprising, Mao led a small peasant army in Hunan against local
landlords and the KMT. His forces were defeated and Mao retreated south to
mountainous Jiangxi province where he established a base area in 1929 known as
the Jiangxi Soviet. There Mao experimented with rural land reform and recruited
troops for the Communist military, known as the Red Army. Working with Red Army
general Zhu De, Mao developed new guerrilla warfare tactics that drew the KMT
forces deep into the hostile countryside, where they were harassed by peasants
and destroyed by the Red Army. Mao married He Zizhen while in Jiangxi, after
his first wife was killed by KMT forces.
Chiang was determined to eliminate the Communists and in 1934
intensified his extermination campaign, surrounding the Jiangxi Soviet. Mao and
his followers burst through Chiang’s blockade and began the 9600-km (6000-mi)
Long March to the remote village of Yan’an in northern China. Along the way the
marchers stopped at Zunyi, where top Communist officials met to discuss the
CCP’s future. Those opposed to Mao’s plan of peasant revolt and Chinese
military strategy were criticized, while Mao and his supporters gained power
and prestige. The Zunyi Conference, as the meeting became known, was a crucial
turning point in Mao’s ascendancy to CCP leadership
From his base in Yan’an, Mao led Communist resistance against the
Japanese, who had invaded Manchuria in 1931
and China
In 1945, shortly after Japan surrendered in World War II, civil war
broke out between CCP and KMT troops. The CCP, who had mass peasant support and
a well-disciplined Red Army, defeated the KMT in 1949. On October 1 Mao
declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Tiananmen
Square in Beijing.
Mao and the CCP inherited a poverty-stricken country that was
scarred by war and in political disarray. As chairman of the CCP, Mao directed
the PRC’s reconstruction. Following the USSR model for constructing a socialist
society, Mao ordered the redistribution of land, the elimination of landlords
in the countryside, and the establishment of heavy industry in the cities.
Throughout this period Mao relied heavily on aid and expertise from the USSR.
The United States became Mao’s enemy, particularly in the Korean War
(1950-1953) in which approximately 1 million Chinese soldiers died fighting for
North Korea, including Mao’s own son, Mao Anying.
Mao feared enemy infiltration and sought to ensure political unity
in China
Mao’s early experiences with peasant revolution convinced him of the
potential of
peasant strength. He believed that if properly organized and
inspired, the Chinese masses could accomplish amazing feats. Beginning in the
mid-1950s Mao advocated the rapid formation of agricultural communes, arguing
that the energy of the people could help China achieve a high tide of Communist
development. This ideology exploded in the Great Leap Forward in 1958. Mao
called upon all Chinese to engage in zealous physical labor to transform the
economy and overtake the West in industrial and agricultural production within
a few years. Afraid to disappoint their leaders, peasants falsified grain
production numbers. Several poor harvests caused massive famine and the deaths
of millions of people throughout China.
Mao’s policies had failed, but those in the government who
criticized him directly, such as Peng Dehuai, were humiliated and purged from
office. Criticism of Mao from outside the government was also muted because the
educated elite remembered the turmoil of the “Hundred Flowers” and
“Antirightist” campaigns of 1957. Mao’s relationship with intellectuals was an
uneasy one, and he was critical of the gap between the lives of the urban
educated elite and the rural masses. These tensions were among the underlying
causes of the Cultural Revolution, a period of social unrest and political
persecution launched by Mao in 1966. Mao mobilized youth into the Red Guards to
attack his political rivals, including his chosen successor, Liu Shaoqi. With
the help of Lin Biao, the leader of the People’s Liberation Army, Mao established
himself as a godlike cult figure. All Chinese were encouraged to read the
Quotations of Chairman Mao (known as Mao’s Little Red Book), and Mao’s writings
were elevated to an infallible philosophical system called “Mao Zedong
Thought.” Although Mao became widely revered, his Cultural Revolution policies
led to cataclysmic death and destruction throughout China. He died of Parkinson
disease on September 9, 1976. At the National Party Congress in 1977, the CCP
declared the Cultural Revolution to have officially ended in October 1976.
Mahatma Gandhi
Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand (1869-1948), Indian nationalist leader,
who established his country's freedom through a nonviolent revolution.
Gandhi, also known as Mahatma Gandhi, was born in Porbandar in the
present state of Gujarāt on October 2, 1869, and educated in law at University
College, London. In 1891, after having been admitted to the British bar, Gandhi
returned to India and attempted to establish a law practice in Bombay (now
Mumbai), with little success. Two years later an Indian firm with interests in
South Africa retained him as legal adviser in its office in Durban. Arriving in
Durban, Gandhi found himself treated as a member of an inferior race. He was
appalled at the widespread denial of civil liberties and political rights to
Indian immigrants to South Africa. He threw himself into the struggle for
elementary rights for Indians.
Gandhi remained in South
Africa
Gandhi became a leader in a complex struggle, the Indian campaign
for home rule. Following World War I, in which he played an active part in
recruiting campaigns, Gandhi, again advocating Satyagraha, launched his
movement of passive resistance to Britain. When, in 1919, Parliament passed the
Rowlatt Acts, giving the Indian colonial authorities emergency powers to deal
with so-called revolutionary activities, Satyagraha spread through India,
gaining millions of followers. A demonstration against the Rowlatt Acts
resulted in a massacre of Indians at Amritsar
Economic independence for India, involving the complete boycott of
British goods, was made a corollary of Gandhi's swaraj (Sanskrit,
“self-ruling”) movement. The economic aspects of the movement were significant,
for the exploitation of Indian villagers by British industrialists had resulted
in extreme poverty in the country and the virtual destruction of Indian home
industries. As a remedy for such poverty, Gandhi advocated revival of cottage
industries; he began to use a spinning wheel as a token of the return to the
simple village life he preached, and of the renewal of native Indian
industries.
Gandhi became the international symbol of a free India. He lived a
spiritual and ascetic life of prayer, fasting, and meditation. His union with
his wife became, as he himself stated, that of brother and sister. Refusing
earthly possessions, he wore the loincloth and shawl of the lowliest Indian and
subsisted on vegetables, fruit juices, and goat's milk. Indians revered him as
a saint and began to call him Mahatma (Sanskrit, “great soul”), a title
reserved for the greatest sages. Gandhi's advocacy of nonviolence, known as
ahimsa (Sanskrit, “noninjury”), was the expression of a way of life implicit in
the Hindu religion. By the Indian practice of nonviolence, Gandhi held, Britain
too would eventually consider violence useless and would leave India.
The Mahatma's political and spiritual hold on India was so great
that the British authorities dared not interfere with him. In 1921 the Indian
National Congress, the group that spearheaded the movement for nationhood, gave
Gandhi complete executive authority, with the right of naming his own
successor. The Indian population, however, could not fully comprehend the
unworldly ahimsa. A series of armed revolts against Britain broke out,
culminating in such violence that Gandhi confessed the failure of the
civil-disobedience campaign he had called, and ended it. The British government
again seized and imprisoned him in 1922.
After his release from prison in 1924, Gandhi withdrew from active
politics and devoted himself to propagating communal unity. Unavoidably,
however, he was again drawn into the vortex of the struggle for independence.
In 1930 the Mahatma proclaimed a new campaign of civil disobedience, calling
upon the Indian population to refuse to pay taxes, particularly the tax on
salt. The campaign was a march to the sea, in which thousands of Indians
followed Gandhi from Ahmadābād to the Arabian Sea, where they made salt by
evaporating sea water. Once more the Indian leader was arrested, but he was
released in 1931, halting the campaign after the British made concessions to
his demands. In the same year Gandhi represented the Indian National Congress
at a conference in London.
In 1932, Gandhi began new civil-disobedience campaigns against the
British. Arrested twice, the Mahatma fasted for long periods several times;
these fasts were effective measures against the British, because revolution
might well have broken out in India if he had died. In September 1932, while in
jail, Gandhi undertook a “fast unto death” to improve the status of the Hindu
Untouchables. The British, by permitting the Untouchables to be considered as a
separate part of the Indian electorate, were, according to Gandhi,
countenancing an injustice. Although he was himself a member of the Vaisya
(merchant) caste, Gandhi was the great leader of the movement in India
dedicated to eradicating the unjust social and economic aspects of the caste
system.
In 1934 Gandhi formally resigned from politics, being replaced as
leader of the Congress Party by Jawaharlal Nehru. Gandhi traveled through
India, teaching ahimsa and demanding eradication of “untouchability.” The
esteem in which he was held was the measure of his political power. So great
was this power that the limited home rule granted by the British in 1935 could
not be implemented until Gandhi approved it. A few years later, in 1939, he
again returned to active political life because of the pending federation of
Indian principalities with the rest of India. His first act was a fast,
designed to force the ruler of the state of Rājkot to modify his autocratic
rule. Public unrest caused by the fast was so great that the colonial
government intervened; the demands were granted. The Mahatma again became the
most important political figure in India.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929-1968)
King Jr. was an American clergyman and Nobel Prize winner, one of
the principal leaders of the American civil rights movement and a prominent
advocate of nonviolent protest. King’s challenges to segregation and racial
discrimination in the 1950s and 1960s helped convince many white Americans to
support the cause of civil rights in the United States. After his assassination
in 1968, King became a symbol of protest in the struggle for racial justice.
Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta , Georgia Atlanta
King attended local segregated public schools, where he excelled. He
entered nearby Morehouse College at age 15 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree
in sociology in 1948. After graduating with honors from Crozer Theological
Seminary in Pennsylvania in 1951, he went to Boston University where he earned
a doctoral degree in systematic theology in 1955.
King’s public-speaking abilities—which would become renowned as his
stature grew in the civil rights movement—developed slowly during his
collegiate years. He won a second-place prize in a speech contest while an
undergraduate at Morehouse, but received Cs in two public-speaking courses in
his first year at Crozer. By the end of his third year at Crozer, however,
professors were praising King for the powerful impression he made in public
speeches and discussions.
Throughout his education, King was exposed to influences that
related Christian theology to the struggles of oppressed peoples. At Morehouse,
Crozer, and Boston University, he studied the teachings on nonviolent protest
of Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi. King also read and heard the sermons of white
Protestant ministers who preached against American racism. Benjamin E. Mays,
president of Morehouse and a leader in the national community of racially
liberal clergymen, was especially important in shaping King’s theological
development.
While in Boston, King met Coretta Scott, a music student and native
of Alabama. They were married in 1953 and would have four children. In 1954
King accepted his first pastorate at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in
Montgomery, Alabama, a church with a well-educated congregation that had
recently been led by a minister who had protested against segregation.
Montgomery’s black community had long-standing grievances about the
mistreatment of blacks on city buses. Many white bus drivers treated blacks
rudely, often cursing them and humiliating them by enforcing the city’s
segregation laws, which forced black riders to sit in the back of buses and
give up their seats to white passengers on crowded buses. By the early 1950s
Montgomery’s blacks had discussed boycotting the buses in an effort to gain
better treatment—but not necessarily to end segregation.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a leading member of the local
branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP), was ordered by a bus driver to give up her seat to a white passenger.
When she refused, she was arrested and taken to jail. Local leaders of the
NAACP, especially Edgar D. Nixon, recognized that the arrest of the popular and
highly respected Parks was the event that could rally local blacks to a bus
protest.
Nixon also believed that a citywide protest should be led by someone
who could unify the community. Unlike Nixon and other leaders in Montgomery’s
black community, the recently arrived King had no enemies. Furthermore, Nixon
saw King’s public-speaking gifts as great assets in the battle for black civil
rights in Montgomery. King was soon chosen as president of the Montgomery
Improvement Association (MIA), the organization that directed the bus boycott.
The Montgomery bus boycott lasted for more than a year,
demonstrating a new spirit of protest among Southern blacks. King’s serious
demeanor and consistent appeal to Christian brotherhood and American idealism
made a positive impression on whites outside the South. Incidents of violence
against black protesters, including the bombing of King’s home, focused media
attention on Montgomery. In February 1956 an attorney for the MIA filed a
lawsuit in federal court seeking an injunction against Montgomery’s segregated
seating practices. The federal court ruled in favor of the MIA, ordering the
city’s buses to be desegregated, but the city government appealed the ruling to
the United States Supreme Court. By the time the Supreme Court upheld the lower
court decision in November 1956, King was a national figure. His memoir of the
bus boycott, Stride Toward Freedom (1958), provided a thoughtful account
of that experience and further extended King’s national influence.
In 1957 King helped found the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC), an organization of black churches and ministers that aimed
to challenge racial segregation. As SCLC’s president, King became the
organization’s dominant personality and its primary intellectual influence. He
was responsible for much of the organization’s fund-raising, which he
frequently conducted in conjunction with preaching engagements in Northern
churches.
SCLC sought to complement the NAACP’s legal efforts to dismantle
segregation through the courts, with King and other SCLC leaders encouraging
the use of nonviolent direct action to protest discrimination. These activities
included marches, demonstrations, and boycotts. The violent responses that
direct action provoked from some whites eventually forced the federal
government to confront the issues of injustice and racism in the South.
King and other black leaders organized the 1963 March on Washington Washington , D.C.
The speech and the march built on the Birmingham demonstrations to
create the political momentum that resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
which prohibited segregation in public accommodations, as well as
discrimination in education and employment. As a result of King’s effectiveness
as a leader of the American civil rights movement and his highly visible moral
stance he was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize for peace.
King’s historical importance was memorialized at the Martin Luther
King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change, a research institute in Atlanta
Kwame Nkrumah
Nkrumah, Kwame (1909-1972), first prime minister (1957-1960) and
president (1960-1966) of Ghana Britain
Kwame Nkrumah was born in the town of Nkroful Ghana
While studying in the United States, Nkrumah was influenced by the
socialist writings of German political philosopher Karl Marx, German political
economist Friedrich Engels, and Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin.
Nkrumah formed an African students organization and became a popular speaker,
advocating the liberation of Africa from
European colonialism. He also promoted Pan-Africanism, a movement for cooperation
between all people of African descent and for the political union of an
independent Africa. In 1945 he went to London, England, to study economics and
law. That year he helped organize the fifth Pan-African Congress, in Manchester , England
This congress brought together black leaders and intellectuals from
around the world to declare and coordinate opposition to colonialism in Africa . At the congress, Nkrumah met many important
African and African American leaders, including black American sociologist and
writer W. E. B. Du Bois, future president of Kenya Jomo Kenyatta, and American
actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson. In 1946 Nkrumah left his academic
studies to become secretary general of the West African National Secretariat,
which had been formed at the fifth Pan-African Congress to coordinate efforts
to bring about West African independence. That same year, Nkrumah became vice
president of the West African Students Union, a pro-independence organization
of younger, more politically aggressive African students studying in Britain.
Nkrumah returned to the Gold Coast in 1947 when the United Gold
Coast Convention (UGCC), a nationalist party, invited him to serve as its
secretary general. In this capacity he gave speeches all over the colony to
rally support for the UGCC and for independence. In 1948 a UGCC-organized
boycott of foreign products led to riots in Accra, and Nkrumah and several
other UGCC leaders were arrested by British colonial authorities and briefly
imprisoned. In 1948 Nkrumah split with the UGCC leadership, which he viewed as
too conservative in its efforts to win independence, and formed his own
political party, the Convention People's Party (CPP). After organizing a series
of colony-wide strikes in favor of independence that nearly brought the
colony’s economy to a standstill, Nkrumah was again imprisoned for subversion
in 1950. However, the strikes had convinced the British authorities to
establish a more democratic colonial government and move the colony toward
independence. In 1951 elections for the colonial legislative council, the CPP
won most of the seats and Nkrumah, while still in prison, won the central Accra
seat by a landslide. The British governor of the Gold Coast released Nkrumah
from prison and appointed him leader of government business. The following year
he named Nkrumah prime minister. Re-elected in 1954 and 1956, Nkrumah guided
the Gold Coast to independence in 1957 under the name Ghana, after an ancient
West African empire.
His thoughts centeres greatly on Pan-Africanism - philosophy that is
based on the belief that African people share common bonds and objectives and
that advocates unity to achieve these objectives
Kwame Nkrumah’s legacy in African history is an uneasy dichotomy. On
the one hand, he was a hero of African nationalism; on the other, he was one of
Africa’s first postcolonial dictators. Despite the authoritative tone his
regime took on, Nkrumah’s positive achievements of guiding Ghana to
independence and helping other African colonies achieve the same are
undeniable. Nkrumah was also a prolific writer; his published books include
Autobiography (1957), Towards Colonial Freedom (1962), Neo-Colonialism: The
Last Stage of Imperialism (1965), and Dark Days in Ghana (1968).
Nyerere, Julius Kambarage (1922-1999)
Nyerere is the first president of Tanzania Tanganyika Uganda
A strong supporter of indigenous African culture, Nyerere promoted
the use of the Swahili language. Under his leadership Tanzania became the only
country on the continent with a native African official language. He also
translated the works of Shakespeare into Swahili. His government emphasized
ujamaa (“familyhood”), a unique form of rural socialism. Nyerere stepped down
as president in 1985, but he continued as head of the ruling Revolutionary
Party of Tanzania (formed by the merger of TANU and another party in 1977)
until 1990. At the time of Nyerere's retirement from party leadership, Tanzania
faced major economic problems arising from his attempt to build an agrarian
socialist economy during his presidency. Nevertheless, the country maintained
an expanding educational system and a strong sense of national unity unmarked
by ethnic unrest. Affectionately addressed throughout Africa as Mwalimu
(Swahili for “teacher”), Nyerere remained active in international politics
until the final months of his life.
In view of the foregoing there is no gainsaying the fact that
prospects for continued vitality in political theorization abound. The text and context of political
theorization may continue to change and abiding interest in the sub-field will
subsist as long as social life continues to exist.
Part FIVE
The Contemporary relevance of Political
Theory
This section draws heavily from Biereenu-Nnabugwu’s (2003) Political
Theory – An Introductory Framework. According to the above book, since the
middle of the twentieth century, the debate has been hot on whether political
theory was alive, dead or in between.
Scholars such as David Easton (1969) and Alfred Cobban (1969) in their
respective papers. “The Decline of
Modern Political Theory” and “Ethics and the Decline of Political ‘Theory”, and
“Ethics and the Decline of Political ‘Theory”, argued that political theory was
rapidly declining. Others such as Peter
Laslett (1956), Robert A Dahl (1958) and Neal Reiner (1961) considered
political theory even dead, or at least in the doghouse. These opinions were formed on the grounds
that since Marx, Mill and to some extent Laski; there has hardly been any
outstanding political philosopher or theorist.
In Easton
- Parasitic
historicism
- Moral
relativism
- Confusion
between science and theory
- Hyper-factualism
- Unfavourable
societal conditions
- The nature
of political science itself
- Ideological
reductionism
- Politicization
of the social sciences
- Post-war
complacency
- Changing
form of political theory
The above
will be discussed in brief.
- Parasitic
Historicism
Many contemporary
political scientists live parasitically on the ideas of the past, and this has
been responsible for the apparent decline of political theory. According to Easton
- Moral
Relativism
Since David
Hume (1711-1776), Auguste Comte (1794-1857) and perhaps up to Max Weber
(1864-1920) attempts to detach values from facts or the growth of relativist
attitude towards values have been high.
This no doubt, has also contributed to the apparent decline of political
theory.
Moral
relativism treats values as the mere expression of individual or group
preferences reflecting the life experience of an individual or group. Although this should not be, this perception
enabled moral relativists to detach political values from empirical
research. Yet, Karl Mannheim and some
social scientists rightly argue, “values are an integral part of personality
and cannot be shed in the way a person removes his coat. They influence us at all stages of our
research work. …in other words a
political scientist is not only an analyzer of values but also a value bu9lder”
(in Varma: 119:120). Thus, it is impossible and indeed unnecessary for a
political scientist to cut himself away from the burning political problems of
his time. This is because if he does or
indeed if a social scientist carried on research in an environment which was
hermetically sealed from value influences there was always the danger that he
might spend his time in dealing with problems which hardly had any relevance
for society.”
- Confusion
Between Science and Theory
Another
reason often adduced for the apparent decline of political theory is that since
the taxonomic stage, that is, about the beginning of the twentieth century, is
the wrong use of both science and theory.
We do not only confuse science with theory, we also forget that theory
actually goes beyond science and qualification.
Whereas the application of the scientific method in a research is
important, evolving a theory out of such a research, despite its scientific
character is a different ball game.
Theory building is much more complex, and is in reality not as
straightforward as scientific process.
This explains why despite profound scientific efficiency in political
science in much of the twentieth century it has not led to substantial or
significant theoretical effectiveness in political theory and theorization. Many political scientists have generally
tried to accumulated facts and to evolve attentive mechanisms for improving
political structures and processes. This
attempt, Easton
- Hyperfactualism
Recourse to
facts is not new in political science.
Aristotle, for instance, built his political view on the facts available
to him. Although political science has
for long been dominated by factualism or even hyperfactualism, it is James
Bryce (1838) – 1922) that is generally accused of dispassionate emphasis on
hyperfactualism. Being a product of late
nineteenth century’s historical positivism which emphasized the accumulation of
positive data as a means of re-creating the past, Bryce, found it difficult to
rise above this level. Unlike Hegel and
Marx and others who tried to evolve a philosophy out of history, Bryce on his
part remained satisfied with restricting himself to “crude empiricism”, (in
Easton, 1969).
No doubt
political science has made rapid progress in evolving sophisticated techniques
for the understanding of voting behaviour, public opinion, legislative
leadership and so on, they have not been able to give theoretical orientation
to their studies. This has lead to what
Easton (1969-28) refers to as “theoretical malnutrition and surfeit facts”,
that is, a situation of overflowing facts yet little or no theory. In this stance, rather than being useful,
fact becomes detrimental to theory building.
In this way ultimate value of factual research is lost.
- Unfavourable
Societal Conditions
The main argument here is that societal conditions during the
twentieth century did not favour the growth of political theorization. According to Cobban (in Gould and Thursby,
eds, 1969-289) the conditions inimical to political thinking in the modern world
include:
* Irresistible expansion of state activities
* Irresistible expansion of state activities
* The overwhelming control by the bureaucracy of all the activities
of society.
* The creation of huge military machines.
In his opinion, the contemporary is reminiscent of the Roman Empire .
During the heyday of the empire when virtually all these circumstances
existed, political thought almost ceased to exist. Whereas a high system of codified law evolved
during the Roman epoch, the Greek and Medieval times were certainly more
eventful for the growth of political theory.
In like manner, Gobban (1969) observes that while democracy, for
instance, was developed in the eighteenth century as a living political idea, in
the nineteenth there was hardly any attempt to recast it in accordance with the
changing requirements. As a result of
this, democracy has ossified into a sort of incantation, a shibboleth that can
no longer be served. “Political ideas,”
he contends, “need periodical recoining if they are to retain their value”.
(Cobban: 294).
6.
The Nature of Political
Science Itself
In addition to the unfavourable societal conditions, the declining
fortune of political theory is also attributable to the nature of political
thinking itself . According to Cobban there is “some inherent misdirection in
contemporary thinking about politics”.
In particular, that lack of purpose in many present-day political
scientists is largely responsible for the apparent decline of political
theory. Unlike the present political
thinkers, the great political theorists of the past notably Plato, Aristotle,
Machiavelli, Rousseau, Locke and Marx, wrote with a practical purpose in mind. They sought to influence actual political
behaviour, to condemn or support existing institutions, to justify a political
system or persuade their fellow citizens to change or retain it. It has to be, because “in the last resort,
they were concerned with the aim, the purposes of society” (Cobban: 297). The great theorists of the past were men of
passion, committed to the proper social order, to changing and recreating
society. They used all the force of
ideas and language to preach and propagate what they consider morally right.
7. Ideological Reductionism
Many contemporary writers can be located within the spectrum of
ideology reductionism. For Dante Germino
(1967), the decline of political theory particularly in the nineteenth century
is attributable to political doctrines or ideological positioning of the
triumvirate that dominated the scene in the nineteenth century. These are ‘Tracy, Comte and Marx.
In his work, Elements d’ideologie, Desturt de Tracy (1817) initiated
a thought movement which culminated in the ideological reductionism of
Marx. According to Tracy
It is against the backdrop of Tracy
8. Positivization of the
Social Sciences
As a term, positivism denotes the rejection of value judgments in
social science. To Comte (in McLean ed;
394) positivism is simply “the application of empirical and scientific methods
to every field of enquiry.” By the second
half of the nineteenth century and up to the early twentieth century however,
positivism had become synonymous with “methodical purification”, setting the
pace for the powerful growth of an intellectual movement which believed in a
complete separation of ‘is’ and ‘ought’ or ‘facts’ and ‘values’ (in Varma: 130)
There is therefore no way, in which political theory can grow with
positivism.
9. Post-War Complacency
With the end of the Second World War in 1945, the emergence of
communism in the world’s most populous country, China
Writing further, Verma attributes the absence of new political
theories to the fact that no new social class struggle to run or share power
appears to be emerging. Particularly in
the United States, the age-old search for the good society has been
shortchanged for “we have got it now” consciousness, now approximately
associated with democracy, as it exists in the present day Western world. As Lipset (1960:197) rightly observes, in the
West, democracy approximates closely to or is taken as “the good society itself
in operation”. The fundamental political
problem, they reason, has been solved leading to what he aptly refers to as
“the very triumph of democratic social revolution in the West”. In other words, the approximation of
democracy with the good life itself has been responsible for the decline of
political theorization.
10. The Changing Form of Political Theory
Finally, the changing form of Political theory has also been admitted
as another reason for the apparent decline of political theory. Unlike in the past when political theory
comprised two activities or levels, practical and philosophical, present-day
political theory is moving towards the practical at the expense of the
philosophical. A direct consequence of this is the apparent decline of
political theory, which in the past has been mostly philosophical.
Useful
Resources
Biereenu- Nnabugwu (2003)
Political Theory – An Introductory Framework, Enugu
Qunintagon
Publishers
Thursby,
eds, Contemporary Political Thought, Issues in Scope, Value and
Direction
New York
Forsyth M. and Keens-Soper, M.
(1992) The Political Classics: A Guide to essential
Texts
from Plato to Rousseau, Oxford Oxford University
Frohock, F.M (1967) The Nature of
Political Inquiry, Homewood
Gamble, A. (1981) An Introduction
to Modern Social and Political Thought. London
Macmillan.
Johart, J.C. (1987) Contemporary
Political Theory, New Delhi
Jones, W.T. (1075) Masters of
Political Thought Machiavelli to Bentham, London
Harrap.
Kirilenko, G and Korshunova
(1985) What is Philosophy? Moscow
Publishers
Kolawole, Dipo (1997) Readings Ibadan
Lenin (1978) Marx-Engels-Marxism,
Peking : Foreign Language Press
Mimiko (1995) Crises and
Contradictions in Nigeria
1986-1993,
Akure; Stebak Printers.
Rodee, C.C. et al (1983)
Introduction to Political Science. New
York
Books.
Sabine, G.H. and T.I. Thomson
(1973) A History of Political Theory, Calcurta:
Varma, S.P. (1975) Modern Political
Theory; New Delhi
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