Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra
https://selforum.blogspot.com/2026/07/which-political-theory-won-argument.html
https://savitrieraparty.blogspot.com/2026/07/state-exists-to-protect-rights-not-to.html
https://sepact.blogspot.com/2026/07/sri-aurobindos-cultural-conservatism.html
4. Modern Theories of Justice
4.1 Utilitarianism
- Jeremy Bentham, J.S. Mill: Greatest happiness of the greatest number
- Problem: Cannot prevent sacrificing individuals for aggregate welfare
4.2 Rawlsian Liberal Egalitarianism
Already covered in §3.1(b). Key legacy: justice as fairness, what would rational beings agree to if they didn't know who they'd be?
4.3 Entitlement Theory
Nozick, already covered.
4.4 Capability Approach, Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum
This is the most influential non-Western contribution to contemporary political theory.
Sen's critique (The Idea of Justice, 2009, and earlier Development as Freedom, 1999):
- Rawls focuses on primary goods (means). But people convert means to ends differently, a pregnant woman, a disabled person, a pastoralist in Ethiopia each needs different resources for the same functioning
- Measure justice by capabilities, substantive freedoms people have to do/be things they have reason to value
- Development = expansion of capabilities (not GDP, not utility)
Nussbaum's 10 Central Capabilities:
- Life
- Bodily health
- Bodily integrity
- Senses, imagination, thought
- Emotions
- Practical reason
- Affiliation
- Other species
- Play
- Control over one's environment (political + material)
Impact: UNDP's Human Development Index (1990, Mahbub ul Haq + Sen) operationalizes the capability approach. India's National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREGA, 2005), Food Security Act (2013), Right to Education (2009), all reflect capability-expanding logic rather than pure welfare or pure market.
4.5 Luck Egalitarianism
- Ronald Dworkin, G.A. Cohen, Richard Arneson: Distinguish option luck (we consent to) from brute luck (we don't). Justice should neutralize brute luck while respecting responsible choice.
- Critique (Elizabeth Anderson, What Is the Point of Equality?, 1999): This turns the state into a humiliating judge of who "deserves" help.
4.6 Global Justice
- Thomas Pogge (World Poverty and Human Rights, 2002): The global institutional order actively harms the poor; rich countries owe compensation, not charity
- Cosmopolitanism vs statism: Do duties of justice extend across borders? (Kant's Perpetual Peace is the ur-text.)
5. Democracy, Theoretical Models
Indian synthesis: The Constitution embeds ALL of these at different levels. Rajeev Bhargava calls this "principled distance", the State engages each sphere as the value requires, not with doctrinaire neutrality.
Contemporary democratic crisis
- Larry Diamond: "Democratic recession" since 2006
- Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt (How Democracies Die, 2018): Four warning signs, (1) rejection of democratic rules, (2) denial of opponents' legitimacy, (3) tolerance/encouragement of violence, (4) readiness to curtail civil liberties
- V-Dem Institute: Annual Democracy Report, India classified as "electoral autocracy" in some recent editions, contested by Indian scholars (Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Kaushik Basu, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay)
6. Power, Theories Beyond Government
- Max Weber (Politics as a Vocation, 1919):
- Three types of legitimate authority: traditional (custom), charismatic (personality), rational-legal (rules)
- State = monopoly on the legitimate use of violence within a territory
- Steven Lukes (Power: A Radical View, 1974):
- 1st face: Decision-making power (A gets B to do what B wouldn't otherwise)
- 2nd face: Non-decision-making (A keeps issues off the agenda)
- 3rd face: Ideological power (A shapes B's preferences such that B doesn't know what's in her own interest)
- Michel Foucault:
- Power is not held but exercised; it is capillary, diffuse, productive (not just repressive)
- Disciplinary power: Schools, prisons, hospitals, asylums train docile bodies
- Biopower: State regulation of populations (health, birth, death)
- Governmentality: Rationalities of rule beyond the state
- Pierre Bourdieu: Economic, cultural, social, symbolic capital; fields of struggle; habitus (internalized dispositions)
- Hannah Arendt (The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951; The Human Condition, 1958; Eichmann in Jerusalem, 1963): Distinguished labour / work / action; politics = space of appearance between plural humans; "banality of evil", totalitarian horror arises from thoughtless bureaucratic conformity, not monstrous intent; power ≠ violence (On Violence, 1970).
- Alexis de Tocqueville (Democracy in America, 1835/1840): Democratic equality produces both liberty AND a new "soft despotism" of mass conformity; civil society associations as the antidote; "tyranny of the majority."
- Carl Schmitt (Political Theology, 1922; The Concept of the Political, 1932): "Sovereign is he who decides on the exception." Politics = friend/enemy distinction. Influential but politically compromised (Nazi jurist). Important for understanding emergency powers, Agamben's state of exception.
- Jürgen Habermas (Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, 1962; Theory of Communicative Action, 1981): Public sphere as a space of reasoned debate between state and society; deliberative democracy; ideal speech situation.
Why this matters: Contemporary Indian debates about Aadhaar, surveillance, algorithmic governance, caste in institutions, emergency provisions, media/public-sphere capture, all require moving beyond "government = power" to thinking about dispersed, structural, normalizing power and the conditions of democratic reason.
https://deepmentor.co/guides/polity/political-theories
Benevolence and Inequality: The Ethics of Moral Indebtedness
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Social scientists and public intellectuals have widely documented how populist leaders and reactionary groups actively undermine democratic institutions. We are seeing the dismantling of the public sector, increases in election fraud and voter suppression, as well as delegitimizing of the media, in many democratic countries around the world. While political science has illuminated the strategic mechanics of this authoritarian encroachment (e.g., Eatwell & Goodwin, 2018; Hetherington & Weiler, 2009; Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018), institutional scholars have highlighted the underlying insidious processes of “institutional drift” (Mahoney & Thelen, 2009; Voronov et al., 2022)—through non-strategic, incremental changes in everyday practice that gradually decouple institutions from their founding ideals. Yet, with the rise of far-right populism across Europe, the Brexit debacle, civil society’s tepid response to an emboldened Trump, and the right-wing, anti-public health insurgency during (and since) the pandemic, we are witnessing an escalation of institutional drift toward institutional erosion. Together, these movements undermine core democratic norms and weaken institutional commitments to collective welfare, equality, and truth.
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