Political Ideologies

Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law

In the partial fulfilment for the requirement of the project on the subject of Political

Science of B.A., L.L.B (Hons.), First Semester

POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES

Submitted To- Submitted By-

Ms. Shveta Dhaliwal Group – 1

Abhishek

Boob Nidhi

Sharma Sahil

Singh

Kanika Bhutani

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

1.1. Introductory

1.2. The Origins of the term Ideology

1.3. Marx and his followers on Ideology

1.4. Non-Marxist interpretations of Ideology

2. Liberalism

2.1. Introduction

2.2. Origins and Development

2.3. Liberalism Transformed

2.4. Cold War Liberalism

2.5. Liberalism at the turn of the twenty-first century

3. Conservatism

3.1. Introduction


3.3. Kinds of Conservatism

3.4. New Right

3.5. Conservatism at the turn of the twenty-first century

4. Democratic Socialism

4.1. Introduction


4.3. Marxism

4.4. Social Democracy

4.5. Socialism at the turn of the twenty-first century

5. Nationalism

5.1. Introduction


5.3. Theories of Nationalism

5.4. Nationalism at the turn of the twenty-first century

6. Anarchism

6.1. Introduction


6.3. Anarchism at the trun of the twenty-first century

7. Fascism

7.1. Introduction


7.3. Fascism at the turn of the twenty-first century

8. Feminism

8.1. Introduction


8.3. Modern Marxist and Post-Modern Feminism

8.4. Feminism at the turn of the twenty-first century

9. Religious Fundamentalism

9.1. Introduction


9.3. The family of fundamentalisms

9.4. Fundamentalism at the turn of the twenty-first century

10. Conclusion : Ideology without End ?

10.1. The end of Ideology

10.2. The rise and the fall of the ideologies

Chapter 1 : Introduction

1.1. Introduction

Over the past half-century the concept of ideology has emerged as one of the most complex and

debatable political ideas. It is remarkable for being discussed on levels that seemingly do not

intersect, for attempting to organize phenomena that appear unrelated, and for causing confusion

among scholars and political commentators. Political theorists, historians, philosophers, linguists,

cultural anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists have all grappled with the notion of

ideology.1

At the risk of oversimplifying so broad a set of approaches, they can be divided into:

1. Ideology as political thought

2. Ideology as beliefs and norms

3. Ideology as language, symbols and myths

4. Ideology as elite power.

It is important to stress that these approaches are not entirely exclusive. There is a strong

tendency especially among approaches 2 and 3 to be interested in the exercise of power too.

However, the above four categories point to different areas of primary study. The first relates

especially to the great ‘isms’, like liberalism and its key thinkers such as John Stuart Mill (1806-

73) or F.A. Hayek (1899-1992). It tends to focus on questions such as: what are the limits of

freedom – should we tolerate the intolerant? Is there a contradiction between liberalism’s

emphasis on individual autonomy and rationality and the constraints of the capitalist market?

The second relates to the body of views held by ordinary people, thoughts which tend to be much

less systematic. For instance, many people in Western societies believe that it is only common

sense that we need relatively high income differentials, though they could not articulate a full

liberal-capitalist ideology. The third approach looks more at discourse and iconography

(semiotics). For instance, in the West we have a ‘free’ market (a term which diverts attention

from constraints such as advertising); our coins often bear the symbols of continuity, like a

monarch, or the apparent principles of democracy (‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’). The fourth

1 M. Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1996, p.13.

approach relates more to the way in which elites seek to ensure conformity and support. In the

past this may have focused on physical repression, but now media moguls, or the very state

education system, are more typically seen as the basis of conformity.

Now summing up everything, Political Ideology can be briefly defined as a relatively coherent

set of empirical and normative beliefs and thought, focusing on the problems of human nature,

the processs of history, and socio-political arrangements. It is usually related to a programme of

specific short run concerns. Depending on its relationship to the dominant value structure, an

ideology can act as either a stabilizing or radical force. Single thinkers may embody the core of

an ideology, but to call a single person an ‘ideologist’, or ‘ideologue’, would normally be seen as

pejorative. The term ‘political philosopher’ or ‘political theorist’, therefore, seems more

appropriate for a thinker capable of developing a sophisticated level of debate. Political

ideologies are essentially the product of collective thought. They are ‘ideal types’, not to be

confused with specific movements, parties or regimes which may bear their name.2

1.2. The Origins of the term ‘Ideology’

The French philosopher Antoine Destutt de Tracy (1754-1836) coined the term ‘ideologie’ in

1796. De Tracy was an aristocrat, sympathetic to the French Revolution (1789), but was

imprisoned during the subsequent Jacobin Terror. On release, he turned his attention to what had

caused such barbarities, to how a brutal intolerance could have emerged in the name of progress

and the people. More generally, he posed the question of the way in which the values of epochs

and societies differed significantly.

De Tracy was a rationalistic heir to the eighteenth-century movement known as the

Enlightenment – Critical of traditional authority and the mystification of religious thought – but

also deeply concerned by the fanatical perversion of the Enlightenment by Robespierre and other

Jacobins. De Tracy saw ‘ideology’ as a science of the human mind (like biology and zoology

were sciences of species), capable of pointing the true way forward. Like many other members

of the Institute National, which replaced the royal academics after the revolution, de Tracy

believed that his task was not simply explanatory. He wanted, in true Enlightenment fashion, to

further ‘progress’ by improving people – to show which ideas were false and to develop a system

of secular education which could produce better people.

2 R. Eatwell and A. Wright, Contemporary Political Ideologies, Rawat Publications, Jaipur and New Delhi, 2003, p.17.

The association of ‘ideology’ with science and objective study was short lived. Indeed, the term

‘ideology’ quickly degenerated into a pejorative term, referring to the object rather than the form

of study and often contrasted with scientific approaches. The first major figure to use the term in

this pejorative way was Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821). Napoleon had initially been

sympathetic to de Tracy’s work, not least because he was highly interested in the power of ideas

and symbols to mould people, and to reinforce support for regimes which lacked traditional

legitimacy. However, after becoming emperor, he caricatured the Enlightenment and de Tracy’s

group as ‘ideologues’ (partly influenced by a desire to court favor with traditional groups,

especially the Catholic church). Napoleon thus began a long line of critics who were to associate

‘ideology’ with traits such as an a priori desire to overturn old ways and ‘improve’ people’s

lives, and/or to advocate beliefs which suited the interests of those proclaiming them.

1.3. Marx and his followers on ‘Ideology’

Ideology as a pejorative concept was particularly important in the work of Karl Marx (1818-83).

Indeed, a leading political philosopher, John Plamenatz, has written that it was Marx ‘more than

anyone, who introduced the word into social and political theory, and he used it in all its

important senses without troubling to make clear how they differ’.3 Subsequently, Marxist

approaches have had a dominant influence on the methodological debates about ‘ideology’

Arguably the best known Marxist statement on ideology appears in The German Ideology, which

Marx wrote with Friedrich engels (1820-95) in the 1840s:

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the

material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the

means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of

mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of

mental production are subject to it.4

Marx was critical of those who held that the role of ideas was crucial in history and in social life.

He believed that social existence determined consciousness, and not the other way round. He

thus adopted a materialist view of history, in which economic forces rather than great leaders or

ideas led to ‘progresses’. Marx made a distinction in capitalist society between a ‘base’ and

‘superstructure’. The former referred to the basic organization of the means of production, and

resulting class system. The superstructure referred more to individuals, to ideologies. These

3 John Plamenatz, Ideology, Pall Mall, London, 1970, p.11.4 Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1974, p.64.

ideologies were not simply ‘isms’, but were reflected in any feature of society which served to

defend the ruling class. Thus ideologies were the ‘legal, political, religious, aesthetic or

philosophic’ principles which reinforced capitalist society.5

Marx did not believe that his own views were ‘ideology’, seeing them as based on a scientific

understanding of history and the inevitable triumph of the working class and socialism.

However, it was Engels who sought to popularize the term ‘scientific socialism’ for Marx’s work

It was also engels who dismissed ‘ideology’ as ‘false consciousness’, a phrase not used by Marx,

although it subsequently became central to Marxist work.6 False consciousness refers to socially

or time-bound views, which help support a particular system. A good example of this would be

the belief that the liberal democratic state is ‘neutral’: in other words, holding the view that

individuals and groups have equality before the law, that the civil service does not pursue class-

interest, and so on. For Marx and Engels, the law was ultimately a defence of capitalism and

property, as were other key features of the liberal democratic state.

V. I. Lenin (1870-1924), too, identified Marxism as a science, but he effectively accepted that

‘ideology’ was a term which should not be restricted to capitalist or pre-capitalist society. In

What Is To Be Done? (1902) Lenin argued for a socialist ideology which could help develop

working-class consciousness beyond the ‘economism’ of immediate concerns.Lenin especially

believed such an ideology was important to prevent the working class from falling into trade

union consciousness. He saw unions as premised on the existence of capitalism, particularly in

the sense that their demands for better wages and conditions could, in the short run, best be

achieved through a healthy capitalism. Moreover, unions threatened to divide the working class

into a relatively well-paid unionized group, and an impoverished proletariat, lacking the

leadership of those who had been attracted by unions. In Lenin’s words:

All those who talk about ‘overrating the importance of ideology’, about exaggerating the role of

the conscious element, etc., imagine that the labour movement pure and simple can elaborate,

and will elaborate, an independent ideology for itself…But this is a profound mistake… Since

there can be no talk of an independent ideology formulated by the working masses themselves in

the process of their movement, the only choice is either bourgeois or socialist ideology.7

This socialist ideology was largely to be developed by an intelligentsia, which clearly must have

broken free from the power of capitalist conditioning. Exactly where this left the materialist

5 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Selected Works in One Volume, London, Lawrence and Wishart, 1984, p.183.6 T. Carver, Marx’s Social Theory, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1982, p.44.7 V.I. Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, Progress, Moscow, 1973, pp.39-40.

conception of history, and especially the primacy of base over superstructure, was never made

fully clear. However, it reflected a challenge to those Marxists who sought to delineate rigid

materialist laws of history.

This development was taken even further in the works of the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci

(1891-1937). Gramsci rejected the crudest forms of Marxist materialism which reduced the

‘superstructure’ solely to ‘base’ factors. In his later writings, he also became increasingly critical

of Leninism, believing that it did not pay sufficient attention to the strength of ‘civil society’ in

liberal democracies – namely, non-governmental institutions and froms of social conditioning,

such as education or the mass media. Gramsci believed that the rule of one class over another

was not simply an economic one, backed by a coercive state apparatus. It depended on

‘hegemony’ – on cultural and ideological forces as well. In its ultimate form, ideology became a

kind of common sense, something which was simply not challenged. To counter this ideological

power, Gramsci was especially interested in the role of intellectuals, whom he divided into

‘traditional’ and ‘organic’. Gramsci held that in practice such intellectuals were normally imbued

with the hegemonic culture, or were incapable of offering any serious challenge to domianant

values. Organic intellectuals, on the other hand, were closely connecgted organizationally with

the class structure. They were people like members of the communist party. For Gramsci, these

were the intellectuals most likely to help create a counter-hegemony, through their writings, or

their role in key institutions which could challenge capitalist hegemony.

Gramsci’s work also had an influence on a cult figure in French thought in the 1960’s and

1970’s, Louis Althusser (1918-90).8 Althusser, in keeping with the later Marx, held that there

was no rigid relation between base and superstructure, developing the idea of the ‘relative

autonomy’ of the superstructure.

1.4. Non-Marxist Interpretations of ‘Ideology’

Non-Marxist approaches have been more diverse. Some have been overtly anti-Marxist, both in

method and in targeting Marxism as an especially dangerous from of thinking. But others have

borrowed from Marxism, and/or have focused on similar basic questions.

Like Marx, Mannheim’s use of terminology was not always clear or consistent, but central to his

thought were two distinctions. First, he distinguished between the ‘particular’ and ‘total’

conception of ideology. The former remains at the level of more or less conscious manipulation,

8 L. Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy, New Left books, London, 1971

even deceipt; the latter refers more to the mind of era or of a major socio-economic group, a

Weltanschauung. Second, he distinguished between ‘ideology’ and ‘Utopia’: the former tends to

protect the status quo, whereas the latter can be subversive of it.

Mannheim, who had worked with Lukacs, accepted Marx and Engels’ view that ideological

thought was distorted, but he argued that the reductionist use of ‘ideology’ could be turned

against Marxism. Mannheim’s quest for what he termed a ‘sociology of knowledge’ was plagued

by the problem of whether there can be objective knowledge and truth. Mannheim tried to get

round this by distinguishing, somewhat unclearly between ‘relativism’ and ‘relationism’. The

former holds that all knowledge is relative to the group, place and time. The latter accepts that

there is a strong relationship between ideas and their context, but holds that a certain type of

intellectual is capable of rational debate about such ideas and developments.

A parallel development, again largely emanating from American social science – though it was

reinforced by British philosophical thought – sought to make a distinction between loosely

organized values which structured life, and ‘ideologies’, which were understood more

specifically. The latter approach accepts only certain types of belief system as an ‘ideology’,

usually limiting the term to radical/extremist forms like communism and fascism. Key early

writers in this vein included Karl Popper (1902-94) and Hannah Arendt (1906-75).9 The

argument here often focuses on whether a set of beliefs is ‘historicist’ or ‘monist’: namely, the

extent to which it is held that there is a single fundamental truth, depending on ‘rationalist’

knowledge. Such ideologies involve a rejection of pluralism, tolerance and discriminatory forms

of arguments. This analysis was reinforced by the writing of philosophers, such as Michael

Oakeshott (1901-90), who drew a distinction between a traditionalist and an ideological stance in

politics. Ideology represented a simplification, an abstraction; tradition exalted practical,

pragmatic knowledge, which could not be acquired a priori or formulated in grand propositions.

Thus conservatism, at least of the traditional mainstream British type, was not an ideology – a

claim which has frequently been made by many leading members of the Conservative Party.

These last approaches were an important influence in the development of what became known as

the ‘end of ideology’ thesis. In his much discussed book, The End of Ideology (1960), the

American sociologist Daniel Bell (1919) celebrated the demise of radical ideologies, notably

fascism and communism. He argued:

9 H. Arendt, The origins of Totalitarianism, Doubleday, New York, 1951; K. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, 2 vols, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1945.

Few Serious minds believe any longer that one can set down ‘blueprints’ and through ‘social

engineering’ bring about a new utopia of social harmony. At the same time, the older ‘counter-beliefs’

have lost their intellectual force as well. Few ‘classic’ liberals insist that the state should play no role in

the economy, and few serious conservatives, at least in England and on the continent, believe that the

Welfare state is ‘the road to serfdom’. In the Western world, therefore, there is today a rough consensus

among intellectuals on political issues… the ideological age has ended.10

This approach held that the great social strains which had allegedly produced radical ideologies

had diminished in the face of the post-1945 boom. Moreover, there was a greater philosophical

awareness of the dangers of ‘totalitarianism’.

10 D. Bell, The End of Ideology, The Free Press, New York, 1962, pp.402-3.

Chapter 2 : Liberalism

2.1. Introduction

Twentieth-century liberalism has suffered the curious fate of steadily declining in most countries

as an electoral force exclusive to a particular party, while prevailing and even growing as a

background theory or set of presuppositions and sentiments of a supposedly neutral and universal

kind which dominates political thinking across the ideological spectrum. From New Right

conservatives to democratic socialists, it seems we are all liberals now.

Liberalism can be defined as “…The end of man, or that which is prescribed by the eternal or

immutable dictates of reason, and not suggested by vague and transient desires, is the highest

and most harmonious development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole’; that,

therefore, the object ‘towards which every human being must ceaselessly direct his efforts… is

the individuality of power and development’; that for this there are two requisites, ‘freedom and

variety of situation’; and that from the union of these arise an ‘individual vigour and manifold

diversity’, which combine themselves in originality…” - J. S. Mill11

The all-pervasiveness of liberalism results from the fact that liberal values both shaped and

reflect the character of the modern states and the other social and economic systems of Western

Europe. However as the other ideologies examined in this book show, it is possible to take a

different perspective on the political institutions and socio-economic processes of the

contemporary world to the liberal one. The distinctiveness of liberalism consists in its being the

dominant ideology rather than unideological.


The term ‘liberal’ has been in use since the fourteenth century but has had a wide variety of

meanings. The Latin liber referred to a class of free men; in other words, men who were neither

serfs nor slaves. It has meant generous, as in ‘liberal’ helpings of food and drink; or, in reference

to social attitudes, it has implied openness or open-mindedness. It also came to be increasingly

associated with ideas of freedom and choice. The term ‘liberalism’ to denote a political

allegiance made its appearance much later: it was not used until the early part of the nineteenth

11 Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Sphere and Duties of Government in On Liberty, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1991, p.64.

century, being first employed in Spain in 1812. By the 1840s, the term was widely recognized

throughout Europe in relation to a distinctive set of political ideas.

The English Revolution of the seventeenth century and the American and French Revolutions of

the late eighteenth century each embodied elements that were distinctively liberal, even though

the word ‘liberal was not at the time used in a political sense.

Historical developments since the nineteenth century have clearly influenced the nature and

substance of liberal ideology. The character of liberalism changed as the ‘rising middle classess’

succeeded in establishing their economic and political dominance. The radical, even

revolutionary edge of liberalism faded with each liberal success. Liberalism thus became

increasingly conservative, standing less for change and reform, and more for the maintenance of

existing – largely liberal – institutions.

2.3. Liberalism Transformed

Quoting lines of John Maynard Keynes “.. the subject matter of liberalism is changing… Now,

this change is partly a result of the victory of democracy, and of the new self-consciousness and

the new organisation of the wage-earning classes. But it is not entirely psychological in its

origins. It is due also, as I believe, to the arrival of a new industrial revolution, a new economic

transition which we have to meet with new expedients and new solutions.”12

During the period of 1870-1930 two main liberal strategies emerged to cope with the changed

circumstances of modern societies, which I shall call Social Liberalism and New-Classical

Liberalism. Significantly, the former predominated in Britain, France and the USA, where liberal

democracy seemed relatively secure, whereas the latter was largely formulated in Italy, Germany

and Austria, where democracy either barely existed or if it did was severely distrusted by

liberals.

Social Liberalism, with the growth of experience a more matured opinion has come to recognize

that liberty is not only a negative but a positive conception. Freedom cannot be predicated, in its

true meaning, either of a man or of a society, merely because they are no longer under the

compulsion of restraints which have the sanction of positive law. To be really free, they must be 12 H.L.Nathan and H. Heathcote Williams, Liberal Points of View, Ernest Benn, London, 1927, p.205.

able to make the best use of faculty, opportunity, energy, life. It is in this fuller view of the true

significance of Liberty that we find the governing impulse in the later developments of

Liberalism in the direction of education, temperance, better dwellings, an improved social and

industrial environment; everything, in short, that tends to national, communal and personal

efficiency13. - H. H. Asquith

In Britain, social Liberalism was associated with the so-called ‘new liberalism’ of figures such as

T.H. Green, L.T. Hobhouse, J.A. Hobson. The downturn of economic growth

13 H.L.samuel, Liberalism: An Attempt to State the Principles and Proposals of Contemporary Liberalism in England, Grant Richards, London, 1902, p.10.

Political Ideologies

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