POL110

Thinking Politically

Lecture Week 12:

Ideology: Concepts and problems
What is it and how do we study it?
Nick Hostettler
Today:
1. Familiar Conceptions and Theorists of ideology –
What have we already come across?
•Political or ideological traditions
•Concepts in the theories of Burke, Mill and Marx

2. The problem of ‘ideology’

•Word; meanings and realities
•Different meanings; different ways to study

3. Some of the many conceptions of ‘ideology’

•Worldview; Freeden; Goodwin; Durkheim;
Mannheim; & Marx
 The problem of ‘ideology’
Word; meanings; and referents

Using the same word: ‘ideology’

But,

With different meanings (i.e., different conceptions. NO agreed

‘definition’)

And

From different perspectives on the world (which ideas are

‘ideological’? Some or all? Which? And what explains them?)

So,

Different ways of studying ‘ideology (based on different accounts

of political reality)
Familiar Conceptions and Theorists of ideology
1. ‘Ideological’ traditions on left-right spectrum
Familiar Conceptions and Theorists of ideology
Alternative mapping of ‘ideological’ traditions
Familiar Conceptions and Theorists of ideology
 Ambiguous meanings of ‘Ideology’

 Left-right ‘ideologies’: traditions of political thought = political ideologies

 Also

 Concepts and theories about how the traditions are shaped

 And
 Concepts and theories about how our thinking is shaped by social and psychological power
 Burke, Mill, and Marx have very different ideas about what ‘ideology’ is, how it is shaped, and
why it matters.
 Familiar Conceptions and Theorists of ideology

 Burke’s explanations of dominant ideas

 National culture and identity

 Individuals bound by chains of subordination
 Hierarchy and authority
 Culture of ‘natural’ deference to superiors
 Power of religion and sacralised institutions

 Our beliefs are grounded in prejudices we are

taught by established authority and subordination.
Not grounded in reason
 Familiar Conceptions and Theorists of ideology

 Mill’s rival account of dominant ideas

 Liberal, individualistic, rejection of Burke

 Tyranny of opinion
 Engines of moral repression
 Interests of dominant ‘class’/group
 Taught passivity of population
 Absence of genuine freedom of debate
 Absence of rational public sphere

 Imposition of prejudice rather than the development

of a culture of critical debate. Deliberate prevention of
individuals developing autonomous rational judgment
 Familiar Conceptions and Theorists of ideology

 Marxism’s alternative explanation of dominant ideas

 Dominant ideas those of dominant/ruling class

 Culture and ideas shaped within class society
 Educated by patterns of life organised by bourgeoisie
 Daily life > Obstacles to socialist alternative
 (e.g., profit driven absorption/addiction to social media)

 Not problem of ‘individual freedom. Problem of absence of

working-class autonomy
 Ralph Miliband – need for radical political alternative party
and ideas
 Raymond Williams – failure of Labour to support culture
and institutions of radical democracy – freedom needs
popular criticisms of dominant ideas
Q&A
 The problem of ‘ideology’
Word; meanings; and referents

Using the same word: ‘ideology’

But,

With different meanings (i.e., different conceptions. NO agreed

‘definition’)

And

From different perspectives on the world (which ideas are

‘ideological’? Some or all? Which? And what explains them?)

So,

Different ways of studying ‘ideology (based on different accounts

of political reality)
 The problem of ‘ideology’
Some different meanings/usages

 Science of ideas (de Tracy)

 Ideology as bundles of loosely organised interrelated ideas (Freeden)

 Action-guiding set of beliefs (Goodwin)

 Ideology as thought systems for a particular

social order or groups (Durkheim & Mannheim)

 Dominant ideas of class society, obscuring capitalism’s realities and its

contradictions (Marx)
 Conceptions of ‘ideology’

de Tracy
 The first use of the term
 1790s: science of ideas
 Argued ideas based on individual sense experience
 This usage focussed on explaining ideas,
 But it also involved a concept of what ideas were.
 Explanation and what is explained are connected
 Conceptions of ‘ideology’

 Michael Freeden (1990s)

 Party political thought

 Ideology as collection of loosely interrelated

concepts and ideas

 De/contested nature of ideologies.

 Structured: Core and peripheral concepts
 Decontestation: ‘certainty’ of core concepts
 Contestation through assertion

 Not necessarily logically coherent

 Conceptions of ‘ideology’
 Goodwin and the study of political ideas

 Political Ideology as worldview

 Set of ideas about:
 How the world is
 How the world should be
 How to act to change the world

 Emphasis on political ideas as ‘action orienting’

 Political ideas organise, coordinate and direct social
action
 Give (limited) coherence to collective action, or to the
activities of the state
 Conceptions of ‘ideology’

Emile Durkheim late c19/early c20

 Collective Consciousness
 Functional to social cohesion

 ‘Individualism’ as basis of Modern Society

 Not egoistic or atomistic
 Individuals as ‘sacred’
 Only point of commonality in diverse society
 Link to Mannheim’s ‘total’ ideology
 Conceptions of ‘ideology’
• Karl Mannheim (1930s)

 Knowledge is a social creation by groups

 Incongruous with reality
 Useful, not true
 Social classes as groups
 Middle class = liberalism
 Working class = socialism

 Systems of thought for a particular

social order
 Particular and total ideologies
 Ideology: ideas for social reproduction
 Utopia: ideas for social transformation

 Knowledge/science and declassé intellectuals

 Conceptions of ‘ideology’
 Marx and Engels

 Science and Ideology critique

 Science vs ideology – constant struggle
 Ideology as both practical and mystifying
 Overcome ideology through critical practices and theory/science

 Dominant ideas those of dominant class

 theory of how a life dominated by class and capitalism shapes experience and
distorts our knowledge of reality
 Dominant class interests presented as if they were ‘universal’
 Capitalism misleads us about ‘human nature’
 Social power obscures reality of truly human interests
 Capitalism opposed to real human nature (and non-human nature)
 Knowledge and understanding of real universal interests blocked

 Need for working class cultural and political autonomy, based on

scientific critique of dominant ideology and society
 Gramsci – need for counter-hegemony: Popular; realistic; revolutionary
Recap: Problems of ‘ideology’
 Science of ideas (de Tracy)

 Ideology as bundles of loosely organised interrelated

ideas (Freeden)

 Action-guiding set of beliefs (Goodwin)

 Ideology as thought systems for a particular

social order or groups (Durkheim & Mannheim)

 Dominance of ‘bourgeois’ ideas obscuring

capitalism’s contradictions (Marx)
 Recap: Problems of ‘ideology’
Problems of different AND inconsistent usage:
E.g. Is Marx’s theory of ideology ideological?

Yes and no! But why?

NOTE: It all depends on what you mean each time you use the word!

Which idea are you using? Who argued it?

Which account is more accurate, or true? Why?

Political theory and the pursuit of truth: struggle against ‘ideology’?

Q&A
Enjoy the break
Happy Christmas
Happy New Year
Happy Holiday