“Political Theory is, quite simply, man’s attempts to consciously understand and solve the problems of his group life and organization……. It is the disciplined investigation of political problems….. not only to show what a political practice is, but also to show what it means. In showing what a practice means, or what it ought to mean, political theory can alter what it is.” (Sabine). Comment. (2009, 20 Marks)
George H. Sabine, author of A History of Political Theory (1937), wrote that theories of politics are themselves a part of politics. The statement extends that insight: political theory is not a spectator’s commentary but a participant in the life it studies. Its boldest claim — that interpretation can change practice — is also its most contested.
Unpacking the statement
- Problem-solving, not speculation: theory begins from the practical difficulties of group life — authority, obedience, distribution — and aims to “solve” as well as understand them.
- Disciplined investigation: it is systematic, distinguishing it from opinion or ideology. Sabine held that theory has characteristically combined factual (what exists), causal (why it arises and works) and valuational (whether it is good) elements.
- Is, means, ought: a practice such as voting or property is not just a physical fact; it is constituted by what participants take it to mean. By clarifying or revising that meaning, theory reshapes the practice — the constitutive or transformative function.
The strongest case: theory altering practice
- Charles Taylor, in “Interpretation and the Sciences of Man” (1971), argued that social practices are made up of the self-understandings of their participants; change the understanding and the practice changes. Sabine’s clause anticipates this.
- M. K. Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj (1909) rejected freedom as English rule without the Englishman and reinterpreted swaraj as self-rule over oneself; that redefinition turned the national movement toward non-violent mass action and constructive work.
- B. R. Ambedkar, in his speech of 25 November 1949, warned that India was entering a life of contradictions — political equality amid social and economic inequality — and insisted that political democracy cannot last without social democracy. The claim reshaped how Indians read their own Constitution; reservations, anti-untouchability law and the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling permitting sub-classification of Scheduled Castes (State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh) all argue within the frame he set.
- Globally, John Rawls‘s A Theory of Justice (1971) supplied the vocabulary in which welfare states defend redistribution.
Critiques
- Positivist/behavioural: T. D. Weldon (The Vocabulary of Politics, 1953) treated value claims as mere preferences; the behaviouralists wanted theory confined to verifiable fact. On this view Sabine’s “ought” is not knowledge at all.
- Easton’s charge of historicism: David Easton (The Political System, 1953) named Sabine among those who reduced theory to a history of ideas, living on old doctrines rather than building new explanatory theory — ironically, the opposite of the active role the statement claims.
- Marxist: ideas belong to the superstructure; theory more often rationalises the ruling class than alters practice. Karl Marx (Theses on Feuerbach, 1845) complained that philosophers had only interpreted the world when the point was to change it.
- Postmodern: Michel Foucault accepts that knowledge shapes practice, but as power/knowledge — disciplining rather than liberating — and denies any neutral “ought” to appeal to.
Assessment
The critiques qualify rather than refute Sabine. Isaiah Berlin‘s reply to the positivists holds — disagreement over ends cannot be settled by facts — and the Marxist tradition itself proves the thesis, since few theories have altered practice more than Marx’s. What theory cannot do is alter practice alone: Ambedkar’s ideas needed a movement and a Constitution.
Conclusion
Sabine’s definition is best read as a statement of responsibility. Because interpretations enter the practices they describe, political theory is never merely descriptive; its influence is real but conditional on the social forces that carry an idea into institutions.