[From Latin communitas: community or fellowship.]
(politics) In the nineteenth century, the word "communitarian" was used to refer to members of voluntary communities formed to put socialist or communist ideas into practice (close to the more recent usage of the term communalism). After the fall of the Iron Curtain (and the demise of true socialism), a movement of intellectuals resuscitated the term to describe a philosophical and political challenge the seeming triumph of market liberalism. Although the content of recent communitarian ideas is somewhat vague, communitarian thinkers stress the importance of fellowship and community over economic relations and market interactions.