Comparative Political Theory (CPT) focuses on political ideas of non-western
thinkers and compares these to their western counterparts. In recent years, works of CPT
have demonstrated that a comparative perspective allows us to see the many parallels in
the theoretical projects of western and non-western thinkers. This approach towards
political theorizing opens up previously unexplored avenues to gain a better
understanding of the political. CPT has also strongly challenged traditional western
political theorists, and political scientists alike, to reconsider the validity of several
existing theories about the political. This is a result of CPT’s awareness of the bias
introduced by western dominance in a globalized world. Works of CPT attempt to
neutralize this power imbalance between the west and the rest by attempting to revitalize
the non-west in terms of its self-understanding.
This dissertation argues that a comparative perspective must be adopted in
political theory, because, while it helps us to interpret non-western ideas it also allows us
to understand how the west has come to its present self-understanding. Hence, unlike
previous comparative works which argue for CPT as a separate subfield of political theory in the west, this dissertation brings the CPT enterprise to the center of the
vocational landscape of the western political theory. The dissertation supports this claim
by presenting an in-depth analysis of four cases of east-west encounters in the pre-
Enlightenment period. The analysis is based on several primary and secondary sources
from the western and non-western civilizations which span a period of over four
centuries.
The significance of the dissertation is distributed along four dimensions. First, it
presents a comprehensive review and critique of scholarship done by comparative
theorists till now. Second, it highlights additional points of significance attached to the
integral role of the non-west in the construction of the west itself. Third, it extends the
range of comparative analyses to the pre and early modern periods. Fourth, it considers
actual cases of east-west encounters as against CPT’s exclusive focus on constructing
imaginary inter-civilizational dialogues.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-3231 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Bashir, Hassan |
| Contributors | Nederman, Cary J. |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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