A philosophy associated with thinkers such as Burke and Rousseau, which opposes the individualism of liberal political theory embodied in such thinkers as Hobbes and Locke. Whereas liberals stress the primacy of the “unencumbered” self and individual rights, communitarians see individual identity as socially embedded and stress responsibility for the common good. Habits of the Heart (1985), by Robert Bellah and his colleagues, is an exemplary sociological study based on communitarian premises. Walzer (1990:6) notes that historically the communitarian critique of liberalism has been “like the pleating of trousers: transient but certain to return.”
From The Encyclopedia of Religion and Society, here.