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political theory

American  
[puh-lit-ik-uhl theer-ee] / pəˈlɪt ɪk əl ˈθɪər i /

noun

  • political theories
    plural
  1. any theory concerning how political power is acquired and used in government, either generally or within a particular ideology.

  2. the branch of political science dealing with such theories.


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Example Sentences

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Trump also responded to a comment by Xi referring to the "Thucydides Trap," a political theory that war becomes more likely when a rising new power competes with an established great power.

From Barron's ● May 14, 2026

An LLM is trained on the sum of human written knowledge: philosophy, history, science, political theory.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 13, 2026

"We recommended to the government that they needed some new data," says Dr Helen McCabe, associate professor of political theory at the University of Nottingham.

From BBC ● Dec. 2, 2025

I base this not on any grand political theory but on how many times I stood next to members of Congress at urinals at DCA during my years living in D.C.

From Slate ● Nov. 7, 2025

The pure ethical theory of justice, he says, bears to the political theory the relation of pure to applied mathematics.

From Schopenhauer by Thomas Whittaker

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