Answers to the Question: What is Political Theory?

Abstract

The only legitimate answer that can be given to the question ‘what is political theory?’ is that no definitive answer can be given to this question. This has been the case for some time. In 1968 McDonald noted that ‘political theorists are not agreed among themselves about what political theory is or what its uses should be.’ (1968: 2) In 1976 Miller observed that ‘political theorists, are notorious for their disagreement about the proper object of their study.’ (1976: 1) In 1981 Gunnell wrote that ‘it has been difficult, since at least the mid-1970s, to specify the content of political theory as a sub-field of political science … and to distinguish a definite set of issues’. (1981: 440) Nothing has occurred since 1981 to suggest that political theorists have come any closer to being able to provide a single definitive answer to the question ‘what is political theory?’