WESTERN POLITICAL THOUGHT

1. WESTERN POLITICAL THOUGHT

A. Plato

1. Comment: ‘Reality is a shadow of ideas’. (Plato) (1992)
2. Comment: “For, no law or ordinance is mightier than knowledge.” (Plato) (1993)
3. “Until philosophers are kings… cities will never have rest from evil.” (2000)
4. Explain Plato’s communism and compare it with modern communism. (2003)
5. Plato’s theory of education is the logical result of his conception of justice. Discuss. (2004)
6. Comment: “The State is Individual Writ Large.” (Plato) (2005)
7. Comment: “State is individual writ large.” (Plato) (2006)
8. Comment: “Plato’s communism is a supplementary machinery to give effect to and reinforce that spirit which education is to create.” (Nettleship) (2007)
9. Comment: “Western thought… has been either platonic or anti-platonic but hardly ever non-platonic.” (Popper) (2009)
10. “Plato was an enemy of the open society.” (Popper) Comment. (2015)
11. Trace the evolution of Western Political Thought from ancient to contemporary period. (2020)
12. Critically examine Plato’s theory of Forms. (2024)

B. Aristotle

1. Comment: ‘The aims pursued by revolutionaries… are the same…’ (1991)
2. Comment: “The authority of the master and that of the statesman are different…” (1994)
3. Comment: “Rule of law is better than rule of men.” (1995)
4. Comment: “Slavery is natural and beneficial…” (1996)
5. Comment: “Polity is the best practicable form of government.” (1998)
6. Comment: “Polity… may be described as a fusion of oligarchy and democracy.” (1999)
7. Comment: “The polis exists by nature and it is prior to the individual.” (2002)
8. Attempt a critique of Aristotle’s ideas on slavery. (2006)
9. Comment: “The state is a creation of nature and man is by nature a political animal.” (2011)
10. Central to Aristotle’s thought is his classification of constitutions. Evaluate. (2014)
11. Comment in 150 words: Aristotle’s Conception of Equality. (2015)
12. “Everywhere, inequality is a cause of revolution.” – Aristotle. Comment. (2017)
13. Explain Aristotle’s critique of Plato’s Idealism. (2019)
14. Explain the Aristotelian view of politics. Contribution to modern constitutional democracies? (2021)

C. Machiavelli

1. Comment: “The prince must be fox and the lion at the same time.” (1998)
2. Comment: Power is an end in itself… separates power from morality… (Ebenstein) (2000)
3. “Machiavelli’s political philosophy was narrowly local and narrowly dated.” (Sabine). Comment. (2003)
4. Discuss the importance of Machiavelli in the history of political thought. Is his theory ‘narrowly local and narrowly dated’? (2007)
5. Draw parallels between Arthashastra tradition and the Realist tradition represented by Machiavelli. (2012)
6. Explain how Machiavelli’s empirical method marks an important stage in political science. (2014)
7. Critically examine Machiavelli’s views on religion and politics. (2018)
8. Comment in 150 words: Machiavelli’s secularism. (2020)

D. Hobbes

1. Comment: “The end of obedience is protection.” (1993)
2. Comment: “The end of every man is continued success…” (1995)
3. “Hobbes relieved sovereignty completely from the disabilities which Bodin had left standing.” (Sabine) (1998)
4. “Rousseau’s Social Contract is Hobbes’s Leviathan with its head chopped off.” Discuss. (1998)
5. Consider: “Liberty… signifies properly the absence of opposition…” (Hobbes) (1999)
6. Comment: “Hobbes starts as an individualist but ends as an absolutist.” (2004)
7. Comment: Hobbes as an individualist. (2011)
8. Comment in 150 words: “Covenants without swords are but words…” (2013)
9. Comment on Laslett’s assertion that Filmer, not Hobbes, was Locke’s main antagonist. (2013)
10. Comment: “How would my fellow human beings behave in a state of nature…?” (Hobbes) (2016)
11. Comment on Hobbesian notion of Political Obligation. (150 words) (2017)
12. Individualism is inherent in Hobbes’ absolutist ideology. Comment. (2022)
13. Comment on State of Nature as State of War (Hobbes). (2022)

E. Locke

1. Comment: ‘The condition of human life… introduces private possessions.’ (1991)
2. Comment: “No man can be deprived of his property without his consent.” (1996)
3. “It is hard indeed to turn the Lockean doctrine into any kind of unqualified democratic theory.” (Macpherson). Discuss. (1996)
4. Comment: Joining a Commonwealth implies giving up power to the majority. (1997)
5. Comment: Preservation of property is the chief end of commonwealth. (1999)
6. Comment: Preservation of property as chief aim of Government. (2008)
7. “Where there is no law there is no liberty.” Give your view. (2011)
8. ‘Locke is an individualist out and out.’ Substantiate. (2012)
9. John Locke is the father of liberalism. Explain. (2018)
10. Write on Locke’s Social Contract. (2022)
11. Write approximately 150 words on Locke’s views on Revolution. (2024)

F. Hegel & Marx

1. Comment: ‘The anatomy of civil society is to be sought in its political economy.’ (Marx) (1992)
2. ‘Marx treats individual primarily as a member of a class.’ Critically examine ‘economic man’. (1992)
3. Critically examine the Marxian theory of social stratification. (1994)
4. Comment: “Contradiction is the very moving principle of the world.” (Hegel) (1996)
5. Comment: “Social being determines consciousness.” (Marx) (1997)
6. Comment: “… all human history is a process whereby ideas objectify themselves…” (Hegel) (1999)
7. Comment: “State is a march of God on the Earth.” (Hegel) (2000)
8. “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.” Comment. (2003)
9. Explain Hegel’s theory of dialectical idealism. (2004)
10. Comment: “… the anatomy of civil society has to be sought in political economy.” (Marx) (2006)
11. Examine Marx’s prescription for ending alienation and reaching de-alienation. (2009)
12. Discuss the relationship between base and superstructure. (2015)
13. Explain Marx’s understanding of human essence and alienation. (2016)
14. Discuss Karl Marx’s concept of class. (2020)
15. Marx’s concept of ‘alienation’ is an essential part of the reality in capitalism. (2021)

G. Lenin

1. Comment: Lenin’s theory of ‘Democratic Centralism’. (1991)
2. “Leninism is Marxism in the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolution.” (Stalin). Comment. (1998)
3. “Marx’s work could be seen as a compound of Greek philosophy, English political economy and French socialism.” (Lenin). (1999)

H. Hannah Arendt

1. Critically examine Hannah Arendt’s conceptual triad of labour, work and action. (2019)

I. Mill

1. Comment: “The worth of a state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.” (1995)
2. Comment: same as above. (1996)
3. Discuss how early radical liberalism was modified by John Stuart Mill. (1998)
4. Critically examine Mill on justice and law excerpt (1999)
5. Comment: “Mill was the prophet of an empty liberty and an abstract individual”. (Barker) (2004)
6. Comment: “The sole end for which mankind are warranted… is self-protection.” (2005)
7. Comment: “The worth of a State… is the worth of individuals composing it.” (2011)
8. Comment in 150 words: “All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.” (2014)
9. Comment in 150 words: John Stuart Mill is a ‘reluctant democrat’. – C. L. Wayper (2018)
10. Comment in about 150 words: J.S. Mill’s ideas on women’s suffrage. (2021)
11. “The legal subordination of one sex to another is wrong in itself…” (J. S. Mill). Comment. (2023)

J. Miscellaneous Thinkers

1. Comment: ‘The relation of the state and its parts to tranquility…’ (Marsiglio of Padua) (1991)
2. Comment: “Sin… is the mother of servitude, and first cause of men’s subjection to men.” (St. Augustine) (1997)

K. Political Culture / Political Systems

1. Comment: Agents of political socialization. (1991)
2. Comment: Tribalism in Africa. (1994)
3. Comment: Process of political socialization in Afro-Asian societies. (1997)
4. Write: Impact of modernisation and new communication technologies on political processes of Afro-Asian countries. (1999)
5. Do you agree that political culture is a highly significant aspect of the political system? Give reasons. (2006)