A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy by powerful and sinister groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable. The term generally has a negative connotation, implying that the appeal of a conspiracy theory is based in prejudice, emotional conviction, or insufficient evidence. A conspiracy theory is distinct from a conspiracy; it refers to a hypothesized conspiracy with specific characteristics, including but not limited to opposition to the mainstream consensus among those who are qualified to evaluate its accuracy, such as scientists or historians.
Politics is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies politics and government is referred to as political science.
Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism.
Charles Margrave Taylor is a Canadian philosopher from Montreal, Quebec, and professor emeritus at McGill University best known for his contributions to political philosophy, the philosophy of social science, the history of philosophy, and intellectual history. His work has earned him the Kyoto Prize, the Templeton Prize, the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy, and the John W. Kluge Prize.
Robert Paul Wolff is an American political philosopher and professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Michael Laban Walzer is an American political theorist and public intellectual. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, he is editor emeritus of Dissent, an intellectual magazine that he has been affiliated with since his years as an undergraduate at Brandeis University. He has written books and essays on a wide range of topics—many in political ethics—including just and unjust wars, nationalism, ethnicity, Zionism, economic justice, social criticism, radicalism, tolerance, and political obligation. He is also a contributing editor to The New Republic. To date, he has written 27 books and published over 300 articles, essays, and book reviews in Dissent, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harpers, and many philosophical and political science journals.
Richard E. Flathman was the George Armstrong Kelly Professor of Political Science, emeritus, at Johns Hopkins University. He is known for having pioneered, with Brian Barry, David Braybrooke, Felix Oppenheim, and Abraham Kaplan, the application of analytic philosophy to political science. He was a leading advocate of liberalism and a champion of individuality. He defended a conception of social freedom according to which it is "negative, situated, and elemental."
An independent voter, often also called an unaffiliated voter or non-affiliated voter in the United States, is a voter who does not align themselves with a political party. An independent is variously defined as a voter who votes for candidates on issues rather than on the basis of a political ideology or partisanship; a voter who does not have long-standing loyalty to, or identification with, a political party; a voter who does not usually vote for the same political party from election to election; or a voter who self-describes as an independent.
Judith Nisse Shklar was a philosopher and political theorist who studied the history of political thought, notably that of the Enlightenment period. She was appointed the John Cowles Professor of Government at Harvard University in 1980.
Rogers M. Smith is an American political scientist and author noted for his research and writing on American constitutional and political development and political thought, with a focus on issues of citizenship and racial, gender, and class inequalities. His work identifying multiple, competing traditions of national identity including “liberalism, republicanism, and ascriptive forms of Americanism” has been described as "groundbreaking." Smith is the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He was the president of the American Political Science Association (APSA) for 2018–2019.
Anne Phillips, is Emeritus Professor of Political Theory at the London School of Economics (LSE), where she was previously Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2003.
Annual Review of Political Science is an annual peer-reviewed academic journal published by Annual Reviews, covering significant developments in the field of political science, including political theory and philosophy, international relations, political economy, political behavior, American and comparative politics, public administration and policy, and methodology. It was established in 1998. Its current editors are Margaret Levi and David Stasavage.
Bonnie Honig, is a political, feminist, and legal theorist specializing in democratic theory. In 2013-14, she became Nancy Duke Lewis Professor-Elect of Modern Culture and Media and Political Science at Brown University, succeeding Anne Fausto-Sterling in the Chair in 2014–15. Honig was formerly Sarah Rebecca Roland Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation.
Horace Meyer Kallen was a German-born American philosopher who supported pluralism and Zionism.
The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States is a non-fiction book by Theodore J. Lowi and is considered a modern classic of political science. Originally published in 1969, the book was revised for a second edition in 1979 with the political developments of the 1970s taken into consideration. The book examines the developments of government during the years between its publishing and the Great Depression.
Thomas Milan Konda is author of the book Conspiracies of Conspiracies and is professor emeritus of political science at State University of New York at Plattsburgh.
Cécile Laborde is a professor of political theory at the University of Oxford. Since 2017, she has held the Nuffield Chair of Political Theory and in 2013 she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. Her research focusses on republicanism, liberalism and religion, theories of law and the state, and global justice. Her most recent book, Liberalism's Religion, was published by Harvard University Press in 2017.
Jacob T. Levy is an American political theorist and Tomlinson Professor of Political Theory at McGill University. Levy is the Chair of the Department of Political Science at McGill, as well as the coordinator of McGill's Research Group on Constitutional Studies and the founding director of McGill's Yan P. Lin Centre for the Study of Freedom and Global Orders in the Ancient and Modern Worlds. Levy is also a Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center and the Institute for Humane Studies. He is known for his expertise on multiculturalism, liberalism, and pluralism.
Russell Muirhead is an American academic, politician, and author serving as a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives for the Grafton 12 district. He assumed office on December 2, 2020. He is also the Robert Clements Professor of Democracy and Politics at Dartmouth College.
Matteo Bonotti is an Italian political theorist. He is a Senior Lecturer at Monash University in Australia, where he teaches in the Department of Politics and International Relations. His research areas include political parties, freedom of speech, food policy, and language policy.
