Introduction to Political Theory: Need for Political Theory

Introduction:

The pivotal role of politics today inevitably requires formulation and making of a scientific political theory. Developed countries need it to avoid the holocaust of a nuclear war, solve problems arising from affluence, techno­logical revolution, pollution and other human maladies. Developing countries, belonging to third and fourth worlds, necessitate it to organise their polity, get rid of illiteracy, squalor, disease and backwardness and find out a form of governance appropriate to their needs and requirements.

We, in particular, want to know the way to provide for the minimum needs of our people, adopt both democracy and freedom, and reconcile the competing demands of peace, security and development. As a fast growing economic and nuclear power of the twenty-first century, India’s responsibilities are global. In fact, the world as a whole requires an empirical political theory for its very survival, existence and progress. There is no way out. Let us not kill each other out of ignorance or be killed with our own weapons, violent or non-violent.

A discipline, unless it has its well-developed theory, cannot obtain the status of a mature ‘area of inquiry’. David Easton is still right when he says that Political Science is ‘in search of its identity’. According to him, theory alone accepts an overall responsibility for the coherence and direction of the whole discipline. As a subject, it has a retarded, amateurish, parasitic and abysmal growth. The lack of an advanced and postmodern political theory simply reflects its internal state of affairs.

It is still not Politicology or Polilogy but only Political Science and there is little harmony among its various segments or sub-fields. Some of them enviously compete with each other to become autonomous disciplines even outside the periphery of Political Science.

Few scholars of Political Science are in a position to explain and analyse political happenings scientifically, and/or guide policy-makers and citizens, and reasonably predict the coming events. They have no practical solutions to offer and bear no responsibility for them. Simple collection of facts and data cannot be enough. A scientific political theory is needed to deal with that and properly control and guide it towards a right direction.

Need for Political Theory:

A theory is an intellectual device to understand reality pertaining to a disci­pline. It offers a mental frame or a conceptual framework to pick up facts for study, analysis and evaluation. It is a kind of a ship to steer through the deep and high seas of complex social phenomena. In a theory, innumerable facts, having uniformities – concrete and analytical – are conceptualised. Further, concepts in them are, on the basis of observable reality, woven into generali­sations or general statements.

A theory is essential for a discipline for:

(1) Understanding the subject-matter;

(2) Its existence, survival and recognition as autonomous discipline;

(3) Developing the techniques and methods of study;

(4) Evaluating existent knowledge and for expanding it further;

(5) Finding out new areas of research;

(6) Predictability, control over environment, and policy-making;

(7) Integration of different branches, areas and sub-areas of a discipline; and

(8) Prestige and status of a discipline among other sciences.

It may be honestly pointed out that Political Science as a discipline does not have a broad political theory as such. It has only a growing modern political theory which is yet to mature. Robert A. Dahl also testifies that, ‘In the English-speaking world, political theory is dead. In the communist countries, it is imprisoned. Elsewhere, it is moribund.’ Karl W. Deutsch also accepts that ‘there is no such theory today.’

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