This Encyclopaedia provides the student (whether professional or amateur) of political thought with a reliable guide to the major ideas and doctrines that influence the contemporary world; it outlines the thought of leading political theorists, past and present, and considers the ways in which thinking about politics has evolved historically. We have confined our attention largely to the western tradition of political thought—although we have included survey articles on Chinese, Hindu and Islamic political thought which we hope will introduce the reader to these non-western traditions, we make no claim to comprehensive coverage. We have included the thought of philosophers, historians, lawyers, economists and sociologists only when they have made some direct contribution to political debate. In order to keep entries on individual thinkers within reasonable bounds, we have made extensive use of survey articles to cover major episodes in political thought (e.g. the Greeks, the Renaissance) and major traditions (e.g. liberalism, Marxism); minor figures falling within the scope of such articles are given two or three lines and cross-referenced. Finally, we have not attempted to deal comprehensively with the specialist literature of modern political institutions, this being the purpose of a forthcoming companion volume, The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Institutions.

Writing about political ideas is in a small way itself a political activity. Our policy has been to select the best contributor for each topic regardless of academic or political allegiance, and to place no restrictions on choice of approach. We believe that the outcome is a collection of articles that are authoritative without being dull or stereotyped. But the attentive reader will soon become aware that few political ideas can be given a simple, straightforward definition; nor can there be uncontroversial readings of the works of political thinkers. This is uncomfortable terrain for those who believe that to every question there is one right answer. If, besides being informative, we have succeeded in communicating something of the open-endedness of political thinking in the articles that follow, we shall feel doubly pleased.

politicalthought.rar