Constitutional and Political Reforms in the UK. The nineteenth century was an era of reforms in England. These included central administration, local government, the electoral system, civil liberties, free trade, rapid industrialization, reduction in the monarch’s powers, growth of cabinet system, the decline in the privileges of the House of Lords, etc. The century also … Read more

Burke and the British Condition. A section of the British ruling class supported the cause of American independence. Burke said that the Americans were fighting to achieve these aims, which are recognized as the English Constitution’s basic principles. It was commonly agreed that no tax should be imposed without the consent of the taxpayers or … Read more

Absolute Monarchy of the Tudor Period. England became a modern nation-state under the Tudor monarchs, the nobility was disarmed, the church nationalized, overseas trade and colony-taking encouraged. It was a period of war, of enormous change and progress; new worlds of many different kinds were opened up. Make sure you have an overview of the … Read more

Most modern political ideals such, for example, as justice, liberty, constitutional government, and respect for the law-or at least the definitions of them, began with the reflection of Greek thinkers upon the institutions of the city-state. But in the long history of political thought, the meaning of such terms has been variously modified, and always … Read more

British Liberal Political Tradition. The most important contribution to the growth of the liberal political tradition in the west has come from England’s people. The English political system is a product of slow and gradual evolution. Unlike France, Russia, and China, no successful violent revolution ever interrupted the steady development of Britain’s unique political system. … Read more

The Invention of Political Philosophy. It is important to stress that Greece was peripheral to Egypt and Mesopotamia but not isolated from them. India, by contrast, was substantially more isolated and China nearly wholly separated. Although they started later, the Chinese seem to have, in many respects, moving through stages of development similar to that … Read more

The Development of Civilization Before the Greeks. Archaeological research over the last several decades-and this research has by no means come to an end-has greatly increased our knowledge of the ancient world. While the man in the broad sense seems to have been born in Africa, a threshold crucial to our discussion was crossed somewhere … Read more

Political Theory as an Attribute of the Western Cultural Tradition. As the preceding discussion clarifies, political theory is no primarily part of a poetic, musical, or artistic tradition. On the contrary, it is, for the most part, to be associated with a philosophical, scientific tradition and style of discourse. Indeed, political theory is more often … Read more

Political Theory and Political Institutions. Political theory as the “disciplined investigation of political problems” has in the main been the province of philosophical writers, most of them distinguished in philosophy and literature considered more generally. Thus, Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hegel, and Marx are great names in Western intellectual tradition … Read more