当代的竞争政治理论源自尼采哲学，它是把尼采的竞争伦理引入对自由民主的思考而产生的。尼采在希腊发现了已被遗忘的竞争伦理，并在其《查拉图斯特拉如是说》中对它进行了深层重述。尼采揭示了生命的竞争和超越的本质，在言辞中构造了一个以超人为目的，处在“好的战争”中的民族，重构了竞争性的朋友伦理，重述了竞争性的善与正义观念。尼采提出的竞争性伦理是贵族主义伦理，其与现代合作性民众道德形成对立和竞争，这样就能避免因后者的独大统治而导致道德的平庸，不过它们通过竞争达成和解也是可能和必要的。

Modern political theory of agonism is a result of introducing Nietzsche’s agonistic ethics to understand liberty and democracy. Nietzsche discovers the ignored ethic of agonism in ancient Greece and expounds it deeply in his Also Sprache Zarathustra. Nietzsche states that agonism and transcendence constitutes the essence of life. He builds a nation in a “benign war” for the cultivation of supermen, reconstructs agonistic ethics of friendship, and re-defines agonistic concepts of good and justice. Being aristocratic, Nietzsche’s agonistic ethics is opposite to and competitive with modern cooperative morality of common people. It aims to avoid moral banality caused by the dominance of the morality of common people. However, it is both possible and necessary for these two to reach reconciliation through competition.