All Political Philosophy

Philosophers principally known for theories of the state, sovereignty, law, justice, power and the legitimate relations among rulers, citizens and society. Belongs here: social contract theorists, theorists of sovereignty and legal order, critics and defenders of specific political and economic systems, and philosophers of colonial and post-colonial power whose central legacy concerns the polity rather than the individual alone. Does not belong here: philosophers whose primary legacy is a general ethical theory of individual right action without a central theory of the state, grouped under Ethics, or metaphysicians whose political writing is secondary to a broader metaphysical system, grouped under Metaphysics.