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The industrial revolution produced a parallel revolution in political thought. As urbanization and capitalism reshaped society, and resulted in acute poverty and miserable conditions for the majority of the population, the socialist movement began to form. In the mid-19th century, Marxism was developed, and socialism in general gained increasing popular support, mostly from the urban working class. By the late 19th century, socialism and trade unions were established members of the political landscape. In addition, the various branches of anarchism and syndicalism also gained some prominence.
World War I was a watershed event in human history. The Russian Revolution (and similar, albeit less successful, revolutions in many other European countries) brought communism - and in particular the political theory of Leninism - on the world stage. At the same time, social democratic parties won elections and formed governments for the first time, often as a result of the introduction of universal suffrage.In response to the sweeping social changes that occurred in the years after the war, ultra- reactionary ideologies such as fascism began to take shape. In particular, the rise of the nazis in Germany would later lead to the Second World War.
All political thought was deeply affected by the Great Depression, which led many theorists to reconsider the ideas they had previously held as axiomatic. In the United States, President Roosevelt introduced the New Deal. In Europe, both the extreme left and the extreme right gained increasing popularity.
After World War II the peace movement became the dominant mode of political philosophy in the Western world, due largely to fear of nuclear war. Opponents tended to line up on either side of the arms race debate. Communism remained an important focus especially during the 1950s and 60s. Zionism, racism and colonialism were important issues that arose. In general, there was a marked trend towards a pragmatic approach to political issues, rather than a philosophical one. Much academic debate regarded one or both of two pragmatic topics: how (or whether) to apply utilitarianism to problems of political policy, or how (or whether) to apply economic models (such as rational choice theory) to political issues.
Some scholars date the emergence of contemporary political philosophy to 1962, since many important things happened in that year:
Soon after, there was a major revival of academic political philosophy as a result of the publication of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice in 1971. Rawls used a thought experiment, the original position in which representative parties choose principles of justice for the basic structure of society from behind a veil of ignorance. Rawls also offered an effective criticism of utilitarian approaches to questions of political justice. Robert Nozick's book Anarchy, State, and Utopia responded to Rawls from a libertarian perspective. A rich debate ensued.
Another rich debate developed around the (distinct) criticisms of liberal political theory made by Bernard Williams and Charles Taylor. The liberalism-communitarianism debate is often considered valuable for generating a new set of philosophical problems, rather than a profound and illuminating clash of perspectives.
Today some debates regarding punishment and law center on the question of natural law and the degree to which human constraints on action are determined by nature, as revealed by science in particular.
An important exception is the view of Bernard Crick that the political virtues are universal.
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