Order

Order is one of the most central concepts in the history of political thought. The English word (just as the French ordre, the German Ordnung, the Italian ordine, or the Spanish orden) is derived from the Latin term ordo, which can denote any kind of structured or regulated condition, as opposed to disorder and chaos. As such, ordo may refer to a variety of more or less politically relevant matters: monastic and clerical organizations, the estates within a society, coronation rituals, the structure of the cosmos, the disposition of the human soul, and so forth. This entry considers the most important and most general meaning of political order, which denotes the meaningful dimension of human social existence. It briefly describes five approaches to political order in their particular experiential contexts. The first two – the order of cosmos and the order of history – may be termed classical, while the latter three – the order of existence, the order of consciousness, and the order of discourse – are rather modern approaches. Yet it will become clear that the classical models retain their significance even in the modern era.