The Encyclopedia of Political Thought, First Edition. Edited by Michael T. Gibbons. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/9781118474396.wbept0607 Liberal Theory Inder S. Marwah Liberal theory is better characterized as a family of concepts, ideals, and commitments than as a single, readily identifiable doctrine. Reflecting both the principle of toleration from which they emerge and the Enlightenment ideals of freedom and autonomy that run through them, liberal theories are inescapably diverse, mutable, and capacious, crystallizing in myriad ways around a foundational set of moral and political principles. It is thus mis- leading to speak of liberal theory in singular terms; liberal theory is best understood as a shifting network of moral, political, and philosophical concerns and commitments. This does not suggest that we are unable to probe central and recurring features of a liberal world; liberalism is not, after all, a merely chi- merical amalgam of entirely disparate ideas, but rather a general view of human ends and of the political structures best suited to pursuing them. Liberal political theories coalesce around a few seminal commitments and values that, though understood and interpreted in often diverging and occasionally contradictory ways, structure given political views as distinctively liberal. I proceed in three steps. I begin (1) by briefly delving into the origins of liberal political theory in order to clarify its central features, principles, and values; I then (2) describe several variants or “strains” of liberal theory, which result from dif- fering interpretations, arrangements, and weight- ings of those values, before (3) considering several important lines of criticism that have been leveled at the liberal tradition. Liberal Origins, Values, and Constellations At its post-Reformation origin, liberal theory is based on ideals of political toleration and inclusiveness (despite, as critics have pointed out, liberal theories’ and theorists’ frequent failures to live up to them). Forged in reaction to the sixteenth/seventeenth-century wars of religion and to the catastrophic divisions of medieval and premodern Europe, liberal theory stems from a principle of inclusiveness, a conscious attempt to ground moral and political principles on universal rather than sectarian foundations. It is thus a distinctively modern political philosophy, based upon dis- tinctively modern values and moral views. Although Hobbes himself did not develop any kind of liberal political doctrine, his social contractarianism established the conceptual framework for the liberal view of political membership as based on individual choice, authorization, and consent (in spite of the con- siderable distance between Hobbes’s under- standing of consent and our own). Locke’s social contract theory, elaborated in the second of his Two Treatises on Government, moves considerably closer to what we would recog- nize as a distinctively liberal political theory, defending a view of government as legitimized by the (ongoing and uncoerced) consent of the governed. In stark contrast with Hobbes and his absolutist (and authoritarian) conception of sovereign power, Locke understood govern- ment as a revocable fiduciary trust endowed with the task of preserving individual natural rights to life, liberty, and property. His consti- tutionalism thus reflects seminal liberal values and institutional commitments, recognizing the moral primacy of individual rights and liberties, the civic equality of all citizens, and the limitation and division of the powers of government – ideas that exerted a considerable influence over both the French and the American Revolution. While Rousseau did not share in liberal commitments to natural rights and individual liberties, his republican argu- ments for self-government and the rule of public law became incorporated into liberal