Friendship and Politics

Over the past two decades interest in ‘friendship’ shown by scholars of politics has been intensifying. This review highlights some of this literature and research. The first section sets the scene and discusses the foundations for the engagement with friendship, outlining the analytical, descriptive and normative dimensions of the concept. The second section examines both published work and conference papers on this topic. The flavour and scope of a representative sample of this body of work is arranged into three categories: (a) political ideas; (b) national and international politics; (c) feminism and gender. The concluding section offers a brief sketch of the contours of the research trajectory of this idea in politics, suggesting that the study of friendship will help to illuminate reciprocal horizontal relations that can transform our view of the political.