Political philosophy

Political philosophy is the branch of philosophy that deals with fundamental questions about politics: the existence of the state, the extent of liberty, the pursuit of justice, the source of rights and the duties of citizens. For many political philosophers, these questions are answered in part by what has been dubbed a social contract theory accounting for the origin of governments - this approach started with Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, but has been revived in recent years with the work of the American philosophers John Rawls and Robert Nozick.