Political Freedom and Belonging

This article develops a novel reconceptualization of political freedom from the Philosophy of Belonging proposed by Carlos Federico Obregón Díaz. Departing from dominant liberal, republican, Marxist, and capability-based frameworks, the manuscript argues that freedom is not a primary attribute of an isolated individual nor a universal normative essence, but an emergent psycho-institutional property sustained by functional belonging, non-arbitrariness, and institutional mentalization. Through a historical genealogy of Western political and economic freedom and a comparative analysis of traditional, hybrid, and global institutional systems, the paper demonstrates the structural limits of Western freedom when evaluated outside its historical ecology. It introduces key analytical concepts such as functional domination, psychological freedom grounded in belonging, institutional synchrony, and comparative political freedom beyond liberal democracy. The article proposes an expanded theoretical framework integrating philosophy, psychology, economics, and institutional theory, in which freedom depends on psychosocial belonging, stable legality, minimum material thresholds, and non-arbitrary institutional arrangements across state, market, and social orders. By replacing ontological individualism with a relational ontology of belonging, the work offers a globally applicable and empirically sensitive theory of freedom that avoids both cultural relativism and normative imperialism. This contribution forms part of the broader theoretical program of the Philosophy of Belonging and advances a new interdisciplinary paradigm for analyzing freedom, institutions, global governance, and comparative political systems in an integrated world.