Political philosophy, also known as political theory, is the study of topics such as politics, liberty, justice, PROPERTY, rights, law, and the enforcement of laws by authority: what they are, why (or even if) they are needed, what, if anything, makes a GOVERNMENT legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it should take and why, what the law is, and what DUTIES citizens owe to a legitimate government, if any, and when it may be legitimately overthrown, if ever.

In a vernacular sense, the term "political philosophy" often refers to a general view, or specific ethic, political BELIEF or attitude, about politics, synonymous to the term "political ideology".

Political philosophy is a branch of philosophy.[1] Political philosophy is also considered by some[who?] to be a sub-discipline of political science;[citation needed]however, the name generally attributed to this form of political enquiry is political theory, a discipline which has a closer methodology to the theoretical fields in the social sciences (like economic theory) than to philosophical argumentation (like that of moral philosophyor aesthetics).[citation needed]