Political Theory: State, Sovereignty, Liberty, Equality and Justice
Political theory questions test definitions and distinctions - state and sovereignty, liberty and equality, justice - and ask you to classify a policy or a thinker's claim.
State and sovereignty
- Elements of the state: population, territory, government, sovereignty.
- Austin: monistic legal sovereignty and command theory; pluralists (Laski, Cole, Duguit) deny that sovereignty is absolute; popular sovereignty locates ultimate authority in the people.
Liberty and equality
- Isaiah Berlin: negative liberty is absence of interference; positive liberty is self-mastery; Mill's harm principle limits interference only to prevent harm to others.
- Formal equality (equal treatment, Article 14) versus substantive equality (differential treatment to equalise); Rawls's difference principle permits inequalities only if they benefit the least advantaged.
- Justice: distributive, procedural, retributive, restorative; Amartya Sen's capabilities approach measures freedom by real opportunities.
Worked example: a scholarship for first-generation learners is substantive equality pursuing equality of opportunity. Reasoning: it treats unequal starting points differently so that effective opportunity, not merely formal access, is equalised - the logic of Rawls's difference principle.
Traps: liberty is not licence; equality of opportunity is not equality of outcome; negative liberty concerns interference, not resources; Austin's sovereign is legally unlimited but may be politically constrained.