Politics and Order

Abstract

Political theorists have produced three general sets of arguments about the relationship between order and politics. First, the issue of order has been related to the need for coercive regulatory agencies to repress behaviour that threatens the stability of society and jeopardises beneficial human interaction. Secondly, order has been treated in more positive terms, and has been identified with establishing a basis from which human beings can reap the material, moral and psychological benefits of cooperation. Finally, one can identify a perspective on order that has played a prominent role in Marxist and anarchist political theory. Writers in these traditions view the state as an instrument of order, but they argue that it is necessary only because tensions between individuals and classes have resulted from oppressive and exploitative tendencies within modern societies. Marxists and anarchists believe that once the social and political structures of society have been transformed, a beneficial order based upon voluntary cooperation will emerge. This condition will be social, but it will not be political because it will lack both the state and the forms of coercive regulation that are central to politics.