Theoretical Tools for analysis
CORE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS AND DERIVATIVE APPROACHES
Useful for structuring political discourse analysis on your website
🔴 1. Marxist Approaches
(core focus: class analysis, material base, power as domination/exploitation)
- Classical Marxism – Marx, Engels (base/superstructure, historical materialism)
- Orthodox Marxism – Kautsky, Plekhanov (Second International)
- Leninism / Vanguardism – Party leadership, imperialism
- Gramscian Theory – Hegemony, organic intellectuals, war of position
- Neo-Marxism
- Frankfurt School (Adorno, Marcuse, Horkheimer)
- Althusserian Marxism (ideological state apparatuses)
- Dependency Theory (Gunder Frank, Wallerstein)
- World-Systems Theory – Immanuel Wallerstein (core-periphery model)
- Marxist Feminism / Eco-socialism / Cultural Marxism
🔵 2. Functionalism and Systems Theories
(core focus: social order, equilibrium, institutional cohesion)
- Classical Functionalism – Durkheim, Parsons (social roles, value consensus)
- Structural Functionalism – Merton (manifest/latent functions)
- General Systems Theory – Luhmann (autopoiesis, complexity)
- Political Systems Theory – David Easton (input-output feedback loop)
🟣 3. Critical Theory
(core focus: critique of ideology, liberation from domination, emancipatory reason)
- First Generation Frankfurt School – Adorno, Horkheimer (Dialectic of Enlightenment)
- Second Generation – Habermas (communicative action, rational discourse)
- Third Generation – Honneth (recognition), Fraser (redistribution/recognition)
🟠 4. Structuralism and Post-Structuralism
(core focus: critique of subject, language, and underlying structures)
- Structuralism – Lévi-Strauss (myths), Althusser (structural Marxism), Barthes
- Post-Structuralism – Foucault (power/knowledge), Derrida (deconstruction),
Deleuze & Guattari (rhizomatic thinking) - Discourse Theory – Laclau & Mouffe (hegemony, articulation)
- Governmentality Theory – Foucault, Rose, Dean (neoliberal subjectivity)
🟡 5. Discourse and Representation Theories
(core focus: language as a medium of power, meaning construction)
- Cultural Studies – Stuart Hall (encoding/decoding, representation)
- Discourse Analysis – Fairclough (critical discourse analysis), Gee, Wodak
- Hegemony Theory (semiotic application) – Gramsci revisited in discourse theory
🟢 6. Classical Political Theories
(core focus: normative models of power, authority, liberty, governance)
- Liberalism – Locke, Mill, Rawls
- Conservatism – Burke, Oakeshott
- Communitarianism – MacIntyre, Taylor, Sandel
- Republicanism – Machiavelli, Pettit (freedom as non-domination)
- Anarchism – Bakunin, Kropotkin
- Feminist Political Theories – Butler (gender performativity), Okin, hooks
- Postcolonial Theories – Said (Orientalism), Spivak, Mbembe
⚫ 7. Public Sphere and Political Communication Theories
(core focus: space for debate, discourse, and public opinion formation)
- Habermas’ Public Sphere – communicative rationality, deliberative democracy
- Media Theory – agenda-setting, framing, cultivation theory
- Propaganda & Ideology Theory – Chomsky & Herman, Ellul, Lippmann
🧠 8. Psychoanalytic and Anthropological Approaches
(core focus: subjectivity, unconscious, symbolic orders)
- Freudian / Lacanian Theory – Freud, Lacan (mirror stage, symbolic)
- Anthropological Critique – Mary Douglas (purity/danger), Victor Turner (rituals)
🟤 9. Institutional and Rational Choice Theories
(core focus: institutional rules, strategic behavior, path dependence)
- Rational Choice Theory – Downs, Buchanan & Tullock
- New Institutionalism
- Historical Institutionalism
- Rational Choice Institutionalism
- Sociological Institutionalism
- Game Theory – Nash Equilibrium, Schelling
🧩 10. Social Movements and Political Action Theories
(core focus: collective mobilization, political claims, framing strategies)
- Resource Mobilization Theory – McCarthy & Zald
- Political Process Theory – Tilly, Tarrow
- New Social Movements Theory – Touraine, Melucci
- Frame Analysis – Snow & Benford