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The view that persons' moral and political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement among them to form the society in which they live. Key proponents include Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

An ethical theory that posits that the best action is the one that maximizes utility, usually defined as that which produces the greatest well-being of the greatest number of people. Key proponents are Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.

A political and social philosophy promoting traditional social institutions. Key proponents include Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, and Michael Oakeshott.

A method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict. Key proponents include Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

A political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed, and equality before the law. Key proponents include John Locke, Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill.

A political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of authority and rejects all involuntary, coercive forms of hierarchy. Key proponents include Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin, and Emma Goldman.

An approach to politics that seeks to understand and address inequality between women and men. Key proponents include Simone de Beauvoir, bell hooks, and Judith Butler.

A form of government in which the country is considered a "public matter" - not the private concern or property of the rulers - and where offices of states are subsequently directly or indirectly elected or appointed. Key proponents include Machiavelli, James Madison, and Cicero.

An extension and critique of structuralism, especially as used in critical textual analysis. It questions the possibility of a definitive structure and seeks to destabilize meaning. Key proponents include Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida.

A philosophy, ethic, political ideology, which is often characterized as a state ideology that is deeply influenced by the teachings and philosophy of Confucius. It places a high value on social harmony and moral governance.

A political philosophy that upholds liberty as its principal objective. Libertarians seek to maximize political freedom and autonomy, emphasizing freedom of choice, voluntary association, and individual judgment. Key proponents include Robert Nozick and Milton Friedman.

A liberal political ideology and a form of government in which representative democracy operates under the principles of classical liberalism. Key proponents include Alexis de Tocqueville and John Rawls.

A philosophy that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community. Its overriding philosophy is based upon the belief that a person's social identity and personality are largely molded by community relationships, with a smaller degree of development being placed on individualism. Key proponents include Michael Sandel and Charles Taylor.

A school of thought within political philosophy that prioritizes equality for all people. Key proponents include John Rawls and Elizabeth Anderson.

The belief that any violence, including war, is unjustifiable under any circumstances, and that all disputes should be settled by peaceful means. Key proponents include Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

A theoretical paradigm that emphasizes that elements of human culture must be understood by way of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure. Key proponents include Claude Lévi-Strauss and Louis Althusser.

A political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state in favor of individual sovereignty, private property, and open markets. Key proponents include Murray Rothbard and David Friedman.

A philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will. Key proponents include Jean-Paul Sartre and Søren Kierkegaard.

A political system in which the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life wherever possible. Key proponents include leaders like Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong (as examples of practitioners, not proponents in the traditional sense).

A political movement born in the United States during the 1960s, it sits at the intersection of liberal internationalist interests and an understanding of the military force to achieve both international and domestic political goals. Key proponents include Irving Kristol and William Kristol.

An ideology and movement that promotes the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people) especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining the nation's sovereignty over its homeland. Key proponents include Johann Gottfried Herder and Giuseppe Mazzini.

In the context of political philosophy, realism is the view that politics is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature. Key proponents include Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes.

A political, social, and economic philosophy encompassing a range of economic and social systems characterized by social ownership of the means of production and workers' self-management of enterprises. Key proponents include Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, and Vladimir Lenin.

A theory of the distribution of political power that holds that political power in democracies is dispersed among a large number of relatively small groups. Key proponents include Robert A. Dahl and Isaiah Berlin.

The ideology that all human beings belong to a single community, based on a shared morality. A cosmopolitan community might be based on an inclusive morality, a shared economic relationship, or a political structure that encompasses different nations. Key proponents include Immanuel Kant and Diogenes.

A branch of philosophy that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moral status of, the environment and its non-human contents. Key proponents include Aldo Leopold, Peter Singer, and John Muir.

A system of government in which supreme power is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of popular control.

A form of government in which a deity of some type is recognized as the supreme ruling authority, giving divine guidance to human intermediaries that manage the day to day affairs of the government.

A form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy. Historical leaders who practiced this include Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler.