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Political Theory
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Political Theory
A Global and Comparative Introduction

February 2025 | 392 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
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This groundbreaking work presents a transformative perspective on political theory. This text is not just an introduction to political theory, it's a call to broaden the discipline's horizons, making it more globally aware and methodologically diverse. 

The authors introduce a novel approach to political theory that expands the scope of the discipline beyond traditional philosophical texts and Eurocentric perspectives. The text integrates canonical Western texts with diverse sources of political thought from a wide range of times and places – spanning the Vedas to the Quaran, the Upanishads to the Popol Vuh. This is the first introductory text to incorporate such a variety of texts and authors with each thinker (whether Plato or Laozi, Du Bois or Confucious) introduced in a way that’s both accessible and relevant today.

The text also demonstrates the possibilities for comparison and connections in teaching political theory. Cross-cutting themes of gender, race and colonialism connect disparate ideas across time periods and geographies, forging a comprehensive network of political thought.

This pioneering textbook reshapes the way political theory is taught and understood and is an essential companion for all undergraduate and postgraduate students of political theory as much as it will be for anyone interested in global political thought. This text is a must-read for anyone looking to understand the full spectrum of political thought and its application in today's interconnected world.

 

 


 
Chapter 1: What is political theory?
 
Chapter 2: Great texts
 
Chapter 3: The origins of politics
 
Chapter 4: War and violence
 
Chapter 5: The state and its alternatives
 
Chapter 6: Political action
 
Chapter 7: Property and territory
 
Chapter 8: Equality and hierarchy
 
Chapter 9: Ritual
 
Chapter 10: Development and progress
 
Chapter 11: Gender, race, and colonialism

Leigh Jenco

Leigh Jenco is Professor of Political Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has taught at universities all over the world, including Singapore, Taiwan, Germany and the US. Her research specialism is Chinese political thought, from the late imperial to the modern era. Her publications include Changing Referents: Learning Across Space and Time in China and the West (Oxford University Press, 2015) and Making the Political: Founding and Action in the Political Theory of Zhang Shizhao (Cambridge University Press, 2010). She is also co-editor (with Murad Idris and Megan Thomas) of the definitive Oxford Handbook of... More About Author

Paulina Ochoa Espejo

Paulina Ochoa Espejo is Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia in the USA. She has written on democratic theory, territorial rights, and Latin American political thought. She is the author of On Borders: Territories, Legitimacy and the Rights of Place (Oxford University Press, 2020) and The Time of Popular Sovereignty: Process and the Democratic State (Penn State University Press, 2011) co–editor of the Oxford Handbook of Populism (Oxford University Press, 2017) and of articles in Political Theory the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Political Philosophy and the Journal of Politics among others. She has taught... More About Author

Murad Idris

Murad Idris is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan in the US. He writes on war, peace, empire, anticolonialism, religion, and Islamic political thought. He is the author of War for Peace: Genealogies of a Violent Ideal in Western and Islamic Thought (Oxford University Press, 2019) and co-editor with Leigh Jenco and Megan Thomas of The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Political Theory (Oxford University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in Perspectives on Politics, Critical Times, Political Theory, Modern Intellectual History, and European Journal of Political Theory, among others. At the University... More About Author

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