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1. Liberalism

2. Political theory has been enriched with multiple approaches and traditions that tend to analyse and understand politics in different and often contradictory ways. Each of these approaches have certain core premises and postulates that define its identity. However, each of them is also extremely variegated and sometimes informed by the other traditions. This paper is a broad overview of major approaches/traditions in political theory- liberalism and conservatism.

3. Political theory involves systems of interpretation of political concepts-a system of political conceptions (Gaus 2000: 47). In this process, political theory also tries to link concepts (eg. liberty and equality) in ways not hitherto thought of. Gaus (2000) speaks of three “enduring political theories” in the past two centuries: liberalism, socialism and conservatism. Gaus clarifies that they do not entail monoliths; there is considerable diversity within each of these approaches. Alan Ryan’s suggestion of ‘liberalisms’ is a case worth mention (Ryan 2007). What is common to all these traditions is the wide diversity in each of them; however, all of them do have a set of ‘foundations’ that distinguish them from one another. That is, there are certain features that define each of them distinctively.

4. Waldron (2004) contends that liberals may show family resemblances, but otherwise they offer competing value conceptions. Yet these family resemblances are strong foundations of the liberal tradition. In fact, liberals have, despite their differences sought to define liberalism as distinct from conservatism and socialism (see Gaus 2000; Ryan 2007). Yet many identify different defining features for liberalism. A common feature which Gaus identifies with all strands of liberalism is the commitment to liberty- the debates about the nature of individual liberty (Gaus 2000: 46). On the other hand, John Gray (1995) identifies the modern perception of man (person) and society as the distinctive feature of liberalism. However, common to all strands of liberalism

5. Gray argues, are four ideas that demonstrate the modernist conception of personhood and society: individualist, egalitarian, universalist, and meliorist. The moral primacy of the individual against any claims of social collectivity makes liberalism an individualist philosophy; equal moral worth of all individuals is liberalism’s claim to egalitarianism; the moral unity of human species and the secondary importance of cultural and historic forms makes it a universalist theory; while the liberal belief in the improvability of institutions and social arrangements makes meliorism a core feature of the liberal tradition (Gray 1995: xii).

6. Though Gray traces origins of the liberal political tradition to the seventeenth century- Hobbes and Spinoza- the ‘crystallization’ of liberalism is attributed to John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government. Freedom of association, private property and limited government becomes the core of liberty in the Lockean tradition. Vincent (2009: 25) in a different vein contends that liberalism can be traced to constitutionalist tradition in Europe in the 19th century.

7. Despite these different perceptions in liberalism, liberal approach to political theory is premised on certain foundations.  Gray argues that a liberal perspective is based on universalism. Though liberalism emerged in different geographies as a response to specific historical backgrounds, liberals do not speak for any particular interest group or section of people (see Gray 1995). Liberals articulated their demands not as demands of a section of people or group but as demands of the humanity itself (ibid: 45).

8. Liberalism presupposes that every human being is a rational agent, autonomous and capable of choosing our own moral values and design of society- demonstrating its origins to Enlightenment philosophy. Rationality, autonomy and choice are therefore certain variables to approach liberal political theory. This also makes liberal political theory a non-teleological approach to the study of politics and life.

9. That is, unlike Greek political theory that envisaged eudemonia or good life and happiness, along with deeply ethical overtones, a liberal approach does not pursue the idea of a telos or a final end; the idea of good life and society is a matter of individual choice in liberal approaches. This also explains the liberal commitment only to a ‘thin’ conception of common good as opposed to a ‘thick’ common good of communitarians (Kymlicka 2001).