History of Ideologies

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 Introduction

• All people use political ideas and concepts such as ‘freedom’,

‘fairness’, ‘equality’, ‘justice’ and ‘rights’ in their day to day life.

• Words such as ‘conservative’, ‘liberal’, ‘socialist’, ‘communist’ and

‘fascist’ are regularly used by them to describe their own views, or
those of others.
• All political ideas are molded by the social and historical
circumstances in which they develop.

• Political life must therefore acknowledge the constant

interplay between ideas and ideologies on the one hand, and
historical and material forces on the other.
 Defining Ideology

• An ‘ideology’ is a particular type of political thought & there

is no settled or agreed definition of the term.
 Meanings Attached

A political belief system.

An action-orientated set of political ideas.

The ideas of the ruling class.

The world-view of a particular social class or
social group.

Political ideas that embody or articulate class

or social interests.

Ideas that propagate false consciousness

amongst the exploited or oppressed.
Ideas that situate the individual within a social
context and generate a sense of collective belonging.

An officially sanctioned set of ideas used to legitimize

a political system or regime.
An all-embracing political doctrine that
claims a monopoly of truth.

An abstract and highly systematic set of

political ideas.
 Origin
• The word ideology was coined during the French Revolution by Antoine
Destutt de Tracy & first used in public in 1796.

• For de Tracy, idéologie referred

to a new ‘science of ideas’,
literally an idea-ology.

• He believed that this new science would come to enjoy the same status as
established sciences such as biology and zoology.
 Role of Ideologies

• Ideologies can act as a form of social cement, providing social

groups a set of unifying beliefs and values.

• It can succeed in binding together divergent groups and

classes within a society.

Liberal-
Islam
democratic values

Western Muslim
states Countries
 • However, it can also be enforced from above in an attempt to
manufacture obedience and thereby operates as a form of social control.

• This was most obvious in regimes that possessed

‘official’ ideologies such as Nazi Germany and the
Soviet Union.
 Offer an account of the
existing order, usually in
the form of a ‘world-view’

Advance a model of a
All Ideologies desired future, a vision of
the ‘good society’,

Explain how political

change can and should be
brought about
 Idealism

• Origin of Idealism can be traced back to Plato, Socrates and Aristotle, all
of whom belonged to Athens (Ancient Greece).

• Idealism brings out the

discrepancies in the current system
and suggests “What Ought to Be”

• It talks of creating an “Ideal State”,

hence it derives the name “Idealism”
• Athens and Sparta were the prominent
cities of Ancient Greece.

• The states often fought against one

another for supremacy in the region.

• The Peloponnesian War (431 BCE – 404 BCE) was fought during the times
of Socrates and Plato, between Athens and Sparta
• The war influenced political developments of the period.

• The defeat of Athens at the hands of Sparta is considered

one of the major factors behind Plato’s turning towards
philosophy Hence the birth of Idealism.
 Divine Rights Theory

• A political ideology in defense of monarchical absolutism, which

asserted that kings derived their authority from God.

• It emerged in medieval Europe; and emphasized that kings can’t be

held accountable for their actions by any earthly authority
 • King James I of England (reigned
1603–25) was the foremost exponent of
the divine right of kings

• The doctrine virtually disappeared

from English politics after the Glorious
Revolution (1688–89).
• In the late 17th and 18th centuries, kings such as Louis XIV
(1643–1715) of France continued to profit from the divine-right
theory
• The American Revolution (1775–83), the French Revolution (1789),
and the Napoleonic Wars deprived the doctrine of most of its
remaining credibility.

• It was the French Revolution that gave the ideas of

“Liberty” base for “Liberalism” created.
 Liberalism

• Liberalism as a political theory has its roots in the Enlightenment that

brought rational thinking hence challenging “Divine Rights Theory”
• Thomas Hobbes was the first political theorist of the Enlightenment
to offer a story of civilization that could exclude god from
establishing political authority by introducing the concept of a "state
of nature".
• It was in this fertile breeding ground for fresh ideas that John Locke
wrote his “Two Treatises of Government” which would go on to serve
as the official blueprint for the theory of liberalism.
• Liberalism emerged as a political theory that places the
individual and individual rights as the highest priority.

• It relies on the consent of the citizenry for the

legitimacy of government power and political leadership.

• The ideas of natural rights, liberty, and property are the

bedrock of the theory and the state is used to ensure
these rights
 Classical View of
Liberalism

Society = sum of
individuals; Supports free market
State is ‘necessary evil’.
Collective good economy.
doesn’t exist
• From a progressive philosophy, Liberalism got limited to the
economic doctrine & came to be dominated by utilitarians.

• Utilitarians held that pleasure has primacy over liberty.

 • Liberalism became the basis of
justification for extreme exploitation
of workers.

• There were protests against such

policies which gave to the rise of
socialism.
 Socialism

• Fed up of the exploitation caused by Liberalism,

some political thinkers began thinking of an
alternative politico-economic ideology.

• They identified private property as the root to

exploitation; hence emerged the concept of public
ownership of property.
• Socialism as an ideology calls for public rather than private
ownership or control of property and natural resources.
 Reasons given

• Individuals do not live or work in isolation but live in

cooperation with one another.

• Everything that people produce is in some sense a social product, and

everyone who contributes to the production of a good is entitled to a
share in it.
 Marxism

• Marxism is build upon the concept of socialism but goes a

step further to establish communism.

• While Socialism advocated public ownership controlled by state,

Communism aims for an common ownership with stateless society.
 The Process

• Karl Marx suggested that when the exploitation will reach its
zenith then there will be consciousness amongst the workers

• This will lead to unification of workers who will indeed

organize a spontaneous revolution to take control of property
from capitalists
 Leninism

• Lenin introduced some changes which

fundamentally altered the theory
proposed by Karl Marx.

• Marxism was meant for advanced

capitalist countries, but Lenin applied
it in Russia, which was primarily feudal.
• There is no role of peasantry in Marxism whereas Lenin included
peasantry in the revolutionary class.

• Marx was against the concept of communist party, preferred

spontaneous revolution when masses develop true consciousness.
• Lenin made communist party ‘vanguard of revolution’.

• The Party then became authoritarian which further acted as

inspiration for other authoritarian govts. such as Fascism.
 Fascism

• Fascism is the product of circumstances. e.g. political economic problems.

• Its is these political-economic problem that creates

instability & insecurity among people.
• It gives opportunity for some leaders to come to
power by fooling people.

• They promise to annihilate all the problems of the

country and gather mass support & eventually
become authoritarian.
Political Spectrum
• Many attempts have been made to categorize political
ideas and ideologies, and to relate them to one another.

• The most familiar and firmly established method of

doing this is the left–right political spectrum.

• Terms such as ‘left wing’ or ‘right wing’ are widely

used to sum up a person's political beliefs or position.
• The origin of the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ dates back to the French
Revolution and the seating arrangements adopted by the different
groups at the first meeting of the Estates-General in 1789.
 • Aristocrats who supported the king sat to his right, while
Radicals, members of the Third Estate, sat to his left.

• A similar seating pattern was followed in the subsequent French

Assemblies.
• The term ‘right’ was soon understood to mean reactionary or
monarchist, and the term ‘left’ implied revolutionary or
egalitarian sympathies.

• In contemporary politics, however, the left–right divide has no

longer reflects a simple choice between revolution and reaction.
 Horseshoe Spectrum

• The linear spectrum has sometimes been criticized because

the ideologies at its extremes, communism and fascism,
exhibit similarities.

• Communist and fascist regimes have

both developed repressive, authoritarian forms of
political rule ‘totalitarian’
• As a result, an alternative political spectrum might be
horseshoe-shaped, indicating that the extreme points
on the left and the right tend to converge.
 Hans Eysenck Spectrum

• Another spectrum was proposed by Hans Eysenck in “Sense

and Nonsense in Psychology”

• Eysenck took the conventional left–right spectrum as the

horizontal axis of his spectrum.

• He added a vertical axis that measured political attitudes that

were at one extreme authoritarian and at the other democratic.
• Political ideas can therefore be positioned on both the
left–right axis.
 • In this case the differences between Nazism and
Stalinism can be made clear by placing these at opposite
extremes of the left–right axis.

• While their similarities can be emphasized by placing

both firmly at the ‘tough minded’ extreme of the vertical
axis
 Views of Thinkers

Karl Marx

• Marx used the term in the title of his

early work “The German Ideology”

• According to him the ideas of the

ruling class are in every epoch the
ruling ideas.
• The class which has the means of material production at its disposal,
has control at the same time over the means of mental production.

Crucial Features

• Ideology is about delusion and

mystification; it perpetrates a false or
mistaken view of the world.

• This is what Engels later referred to as

‘false consciousness’.
• According to Marx, Ideologies reflects the interests
and perspective on society of the ruling class.

• It serves to disguise from the exploited

proletariat the fact of its own exploitation.
 • Marx treated ideology as a
temporary phenomenon.

• Ideology will only continue so long

as the class system that generates it
survives.

• The proletariat is destined not to establish another form of class society

& will not need ideology because it needs no illusions.
 Later Marxists

• Later generations of Marxists have shown greater

interest in ideology than Marx

• For later Marxists ideology was one of the factors explaining the
unexpected resilience of the capitalist mode of production.
 • For Lenin, ideology referred to the
distinctive ideas of a particular social class that advance its interests
regardless of its position

• He thus described the ideas of the

proletariat as ‘socialist ideology’
• Enslaved by ‘bourgeois ideology’, the proletariat, Lenin argued,
would never achieve class consciousness on its own.

• Hence, he pointed to the need for a ‘vanguard’ party

to guide the working masses towards revolution.
 Gramsci

• He argued that the capitalist class system is upheld not simply by

unequal economic and political power, but by what he termed the
‘hegemony’ of bourgeois ideas and theories.
• Ideological hegemony refers to the capacity of bourgeois ideas
to displace rival views and become the commonsense of the age.

• Bourgeois hegemony could only be challenged through

the establishment of a rival ‘proletarian hegemony’
 Mannheim

• Mannheim distinguished between ‘Particular’ and ‘Total’ conceptions of

ideology.

• ‘‘Particular’’ ideologies are the ideas and beliefs of

specific individuals, groups or parties

• ‘‘Total’’ ideologies encompass the entire, or ‘world-

view’, of a social class, society or even historical
period.

• In this sense, Marxism, liberal capitalism and

Islamic fundamentalism can each be regarded as
‘Total’ ideologies.
 Challenges to Ideologies

• Since the late twentieth century a series of political,

social and cultural upheavals has refashioned the
world in which we live

• In this context, Marx's comment that ‘All that is

solid melts into air’ has come to have relevance.
• These developments mark the passing of the ‘age of ideologies’

• This implies that the major ideologies are now disengaged

from the political world they once shaped.

• The major ideological traditions are having to adjust to a

series of new and often interlinked challenges.

The changing world order

Postmodernity

Globalization
 Changing world order

• World order has been significantly changed as a result of the

end of the Cold War and by the advent of Global terrorism.
 • The ‘long’ Cold War was marked by an
ideological battle between capitalism and communism.

• After its end, the ideological ramifications of the collapse

of communism have been wide-ranging.
• Most influential interpretation was that the demise of communism had
left western-style liberal democracy as the sole viable ideological model
worldwide.

• This view was advanced though the

so-called ‘end of history’ thesis by
Francis Fukuyama
• The collapse of communism has resulted in the emergence of a range of
ideological forces.

• ‘Nationalism’ which has displaced

Marxism-Leninism

• ‘Religious fundamentalism’ which has

had growing influence in the
developing world.
 • The advent of global terrorism has undoubtedly had major
international and national consequences.

• Internationally, under the auspices of George W. Bush's ‘war on

terror’, the USA has adopted an unilateralist foreign policy.
• If the ‘war on terror’ succeeds in constraining or destroying anti-
western militancy, it may help to universalize liberal-democratic
values and institutions.

• On the other hand, in line with Samuel Huntington’s (1993) ‘clash of

civilizations’ thesis, it may provoke a more bitter anti-western backlash
and further strengthen fundamentalist religion.
 Postmodernity

• The process of modernization had social, political and

cultural dimensions.

• Market-orientated economies, dominated

Socially by the middle class and the working class

• Replacement of monarchical absolutism by

Politically the advance of constitutional Govts.

• Spread of Enlightenment ideas and views,

Culturally which challenged traditional beliefs in
religion
• While modern societies were structured by industrialization and
class solidarity, postmodern societies are increasingly fragmented
and pluralistic

• Here individualism replaces class, religious and ethnic loyalties.

 Globalization

• The major theme in globalization is the

emergence of a ‘borderless world’

• In such system traditional political

borders, based on national and state
boundaries, has become permeable.
 Examples

Interconnected
Transnational
Financial Global goods
corporations
Markets
• Globalization affects political ideologies in a variety of ways.

Political nationalism redundant

Cultural, Ethnic and Religious

nationalism strengthened

Modern liberalism and social

democracy compromised
QUESTION