Early Modern Political Thought – Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards covering key thinkers—Hobbes, Locke, Machiavelli, Bodin, Burke, Publius, Tocqueville—and their central political concepts: sovereignty, social contract, natural law, representation, federalism, democratic despotism, and more.

State of Nature (Hobbes)

The pre-political condition where every person has a right to everything, leading to a ‘war of all against all.’

Social Contract

A mutual agreement by which individuals transfer natural rights to a common power in exchange for security and civil order.

Leviathan

Hobbes’s metaphor for the all-powerful, artificial person of the state created by compact to keep peace.

Sovereign

The person or assembly holding absolute, undivided authority after the social contract; cannot be legally disobeyed.

Authorization (Hobbes)

The act by which people ‘own’ or ‘authorize’ the actions of a ruler, making the ruler’s will their own.

Artificial Person

Any entity (state, corporation, representative) whose words or acts are ascribed to another by authorization.

Natural Person

A human being whose words and deeds are truly his or her own and need no authorization.

Commonwealth

Hobbes’s term for the political body formed when many are united under one sovereign will.

Right of Nature

In Hobbes, each individual’s liberty to use any means for self-preservation.

Law of Nature (Hobbes)

Rational precepts commanding peace (e.g., seek peace, keep covenants).

Prerogative (Locke)

Executive power to act for the public good without, or against, the letter of law when urgent necessity requires.

Federative Power (Locke)

Authority over foreign affairs—war, peace, treaties—distinct from domestic executive power.

Tacit Consent

Locke’s idea that anyone enjoying the benefits of a society implicitly agrees to obey its laws.

Property (Lockean)

A person’s life, liberty, and estate, originally acquired by mixing one’s labour with nature.

Right of Resistance

Locke’s claim that people may overthrow rulers who violate natural rights or the trust placed in them.

Virtù (Machiavelli)

Political and military skill, boldness, and prudence enabling a ruler or republic to found and preserve order.

Fortuna

The unpredictable element of chance that virtù must confront and master in politics.

Mixed Monarchy (Bodin)

A rejected notion of Bodin; true sovereignty is indivisible and cannot be split among estates.

Sovereignty (Bodin)

Absolute and perpetual power of a republic to make law without consent of any higher earthly authority.

Legitimate Monarchy (Bodin)

Rule by one who respects natural law, property, and the fundamental laws of the realm.

Tyranny (Bodin)

Government that violates divine or natural law and disregards subjects’ liberty and property.

Natural Aristocracy (Burke)

The socially emergent leadership of talent, virtue, and property, not an abstract equality of all.

Prescription (Burke)

The principle that long-standing institutions gain legitimacy through historical use and inherited wisdom.

Checks and Balances

Federalist design in which each branch of government restrains the others to prevent tyranny.

Extended Republic

Madison’s idea that a large territory with many interests hinders formation of oppressive majorities.

Faction

A group united by interest or passion adverse to the rights of others or the community’s good (Federalist No.10).

Judicial Review

Federalist claim that courts must declare void any statute plainly contrary to the Constitution.

Federalism

A compound republic where power is divided between a national government and constituent states.

Confederation

A loose league of sovereign states; deemed weak by Publius because it cannot legislate for individuals.

Equality of Conditions

Tocqueville’s term for the democratic social fact of near-universal equality in status and opportunity.

Democratic Despotism

Tocqueville’s warning of an all-tending centralized power that infantilises equal citizens.

Individualism (Tocqueville)

A democratic tendency to withdraw into private life, risking loss of civic virtue and common action.

Administrative Centralization

Concentration of detailed governing functions in a remote bureaucracy—seen by Tocqueville as dangerous.

Natural Law (Broad Sense)

Universal moral principles knowable by reason that set limits on positive law (appeal of Burke, Locke, Aquinas).

Imperative Mandate

The instruction binding a representative, rejected by Burke in favour of trusteeship and conscience.

Separation of Powers

Constitutional allocation of legislative, executive, and judicial functions to distinct organs.

League of Peace (Kant)

A voluntary federation of republics preventing war without imposing a global state.

Virtuous Circle (Machiavelli)

A republic’s capacity to renew itself through laws, conflict, and active citizen participation.

Natural Equality (Hobbes)

The rough equality of human bodily and mental powers that makes perpetual conflict likely in nature.

Right to Punish (Hobbes)

Sovereign’s retained natural right to use force against subjects for breaches of covenants.

Civil Liberty (Locke)

Freedom under known, standing laws made by a legislature elected by the people.

Toleration (Locke)

Civil liberty of conscience; the state should not coerce religious belief except against papists and atheists, in Locke’s view.

Public Opinion (Tocqueville)

The moral empire of the majority, potentially as tyrannical as any prince if unchecked.

Representation (Federalist)

Delegation of the people’s authority to elected agents who refine and enlarge the public view.

Alienation of Right (Hobbes)

Complete transfer of one’s natural liberty to the sovereign for the sake of peace.

Natural Right to Self-Preservation

Inherent entitlement of each person to defend life by any means necessary until joined in civil society.

Covenant

A mutual agreement binding parties to perform; in Hobbes, the basis of political obligation.

Salus Populi

Hobbes’s phrase for the safety of the people—the supreme law and purpose of the state.

Council of Censors

A body proposed in some states (and by Publius) to review constitutional fidelity of government actions.

Fortified Chains of Habit (Burke)

The accumulated customs that bind society together, commanding reverence beyond rational design.

Positive Law

Enacted human legislation, valid when not contradicting higher constitutional or natural norms.

Primogeniture (Hobbes’s Law)

Natural-law rule assigning undividable property or office to the firstborn or first possessor.

Lisica e Leone

Machiavelli’s counsel that a ruler must be ‘a fox to detect snares and a lion to frighten wolves.’

Mixed Government

Classical idea of blending monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy; adapted by Montesquieu, Hamilton, Burke.

Civil Society

Locke’s term for the political community formed to preserve property through settled law.

Democratic Revolution

Tocqueville’s term for the long, providential movement from aristocracy toward social equality.

Natural Limits of Accumulation (Locke)

Spoilage proviso restricting appropriation until invention of lasting money removes the limit.

Practical Wisdom (Phronesis)

Burke’s appeal to experience, prudence, and historical continuity over abstract rational schemes.

Positivist Sovereignty (Hobbes)

Authority grounded solely in enacted will, not in moral virtue or historical prescription.