26 The Nature of Political Theorylinking past and present normative political philosophy. Indeed, in thinking seriously
about the present state of political philosophy, and its future, it is worth considering
whether political theory has a clearly-identifiable past.
The term ‘political theory’, and the practice of being a political theorist, are
relatively commonplace now. However, they became commonplace only in the middle
of the twentieth century in particular professional academic settings. We can now self-
define ourselves as ‘political theorists’ or ‘political philosophers’ without too much
trouble in being understood. We also commonly assume that there always have been
such creatures, from the Greeks to the present. It appears,prima facie, to be a reas-
onable assumption to make. Yet, if we pause for a moment, and ask the question:
did Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Montesquieu, Machiavelli, Burke, Adam Smith,
Hume, Kant, Herder, Hegel, or T. H. Green have any conception ofthemselvesas, dis-
tinctively, political theorists? Did they clearly separate out, or demarcate, the separate
realms of moral philosophy, political economy, history, psychology, and metaphysics,
as distinct from political theory? Did they have the same understanding of politics?
The rapid answer to the above questions is an emphatic no. Neither Hume, Burke,
Kant, Hegel, J. S. Mill, nor T. H. Green, saw themselves as political theorists, or
even primarily, as political philosophers. They were rather philosophers (or, con-
versely, they might not in some cases even have seen themselves as philosophers),
who addressed, as part of their theorizing, an area called politics—which might
not, in fact, be our understanding of the term. Politics was often—but not always—
intimately connected with morality, political economy, and psychology. There was,
thus, little sense of a wholly-discrete or exclusive area called political philosophy or
political theory, which could be clearly demarcated in the manner that we now do.
The exclusive sense of political theory as a discrete discipline, which had a canon
of esteemed thinkers and clear curricula, is largely an invention of the twentieth
century. The idea of the canon of ‘great theorists’ began to be articulated in the mid-
to-late nineteenth century and developed in the twentieth century. It was not until
the mid-twentieth century that it became more academically established, and not
until the 1970s did political theory acquire its first independent journals and wider
institutional recognition. Thus, the vision of an articulate consistent enterprise that
was temporarily lost or died and then was refound or resurrected is not convincing
(see Bourdieu 2000: 30). It is more of a present imposition. Political philosophy, as
it arose in the 1970s, as a wholly discrete academic activity and profession, was very
much a unique enterprise.
This whole process of gradual consolidation of the subject was strengthened by the
academicization and professionalization of political studies in universities in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The ‘action orientation’ of political theory
was often sloughed off in the academic setting. Thus, the general relation between
political studies and actual politics has remained a perennial worry to the present.
There is consequently a difference between, on the one hand, the aggregation of
concerns, loosely grouped under the heading political philosophy or political theory
in the ancient, pre- and early-modern eras, and, on the other hand, the twentieth
century wholly university-based academic profession and specialism called political