All social-scientific inquiry appeals to concepts and values that are contestable in principle, and often contested in fact. The intelligent conduct of social science therefore requires sustained reflection about the concepts and values that guide our inquiries. This is the role that political theory serves within the discipline of political science. The political theory field encourages disciplinary and methodological pluralism and is open to a wide range of theoretical approaches, including analytical, critical, historical, and interpretive.
Faculty encourage graduate students majoring in Political Theory to engage the empirical fields in the discipline, for example by choosing American Politics, Comparative Politics, or International Relations as a second focus or minor field.
The Political Theory field sponsors the OSU Political Theory Workshop, a forum for scholars from Ohio State and other universities to present and discuss their research in progress. Recent visitors have included Arash Abizadeh, Cristina Beltrán, Seyla Benhabib, Joshua Cohen, Simone Chambers, Mary Dietz, Archon Fung, Robert Gooding-Williams, James Johnson, Philip Pettit, William Scheuerman, Dennis Thompson, Jeremy Waldron, and Mark Warren.
Political Theory Faculty
Eric MacGilvray, Benjamin McKean, Michael Neblo, Emma Saunders-Hastings and Inés Valdez.
The political theory faculty are active participants in the OSU Center for Ethics and Human Values.
Political Theory Courses
Courses include:
- Ancient and Medieval Political Thought
- Early Modern Political Thought
- 19th Century Political Thought
- 20th Century Political Thought
- Fundamental Concepts in Political Theory
- Democratic Theory
- Interpretation of Texts in Political Theory
- Selected Topics in Political Theory
- Toward a Radical Cosmopolitanism