Drawing deeply from Aristotle and biblical teaching, Politica presents a unique vision of the commonwealth as a harmonious ordering of natural associations. According to Althusius, the purpose of the state is to protect and encourage social life. The family is the most natural of human associations, and all other unions derive from it. Power and authority properly grow from more local to more general associations.
Of particular interest to the modern reader is Althusius's theory of federalism. It does not refer merely to a division of powers between central and state governments but to an ascending scale of authority in which higher institutions rely on the consent of local and voluntary associations.