Ideology

gyNew ideologies for old?
Ideology may have been an inseparable feature of politics since the late eighteenth century ( it is often traced back to the 1789 French Revolution), but its content has changed significantly over time, with the rate of ideological transformation having accelerated since the 1960s.New ideologies have emerged, some once-potent ideologies have faded in significance, and all ideologies have gone through a process of sometimes radical redefinition and renewal.Political ideology arose out of a transition from feudalism to industrial capitalism.In simple terms, the earliest,or “classical”, ideological traditions – liberalism, conservatism and socialism – developed as contrasting attempts to shape emergent industrial society.While liberalism championed the cause of individualism, the market and, initially at least, minimal government, conservatism stood in defence of an increasingly embattled ancient re’gime,and socialism advanced the quite different vision of a society based on community, equality and cooperation. As the nineteenth century progressed, each of these ideologies acquired a clearer doctrinal character, and came to be associated with a particular social class or stratum of society.Simply put, liberalism was the ideology of the rising middle class, conservatism was the ideology of the aristocracy or nobility, and socialism was the ideology of the growing working class.In turn, political parties developed to articulate the interests of these classes and to give “operative” expression to the various ideologies.These parties therefore typically had a programmatic character.The central theme that emerged from ideological argument and debate during this period was the battle between two rival economic philosophies: capitalism and socialism.Political ideology thus had a strong economic focus.This was captured by the left/right divide and expressed through the linear political spectrum.The terms “left” and “right”,which dated back to the French Revolution and the seating arrangements adopted by the different groups at the first meeting of the Estates-General in 1789, came to be associated with the preference for equality and common ownership on the one hand, abd support for meritocracy and private ownership on the other hand. * Left: A board ideological disposition that is characterized by sympathy for principles such as liberty, equality, fraternity and progress. * Right: A board ideological disposition that is characterized by sympathy for principles such as authority,order,hierarchy and duty.
The battle lines between capitalism and socialism were significantly sharpened by the 1917 Russian Revolution, which created the world’s first socialist state.Indeed, throughout what is sometimes called the ‘short’ twentieth century (from the outbreak of the first World War in1914 to the collapse of communism in 1989-91), and particularly during the Cold War period (1945-90), international polotics was structured along ideological lines, as the capitalist West confronted the East.More generally, left-wing political ideas reflected a distaste for capitalism, ranging from a ‘hard left’ (communism and anarchism) desire to abolish and replace capitalism to a ‘soft left’ (socialism and modern liberalism) wish to reform or ‘humanize’ capitalism.Right-wing ideas (classical liberalism and conservatism), by contrast, were defined by the desire to defend or extend capitalism. These ideological battle lines were nevertheless made more complicated by the rise if fascism in the 1920s and 1930s.On the face of it, fascism was clearly a ‘far right’ ideology: it was fiercely anti-communist and shared with conservatism, albeit in a more extreme form, a sympathy for hierarchy and elitism.However, radical elements within fascist movements sometimes expressed ‘leftist’ views in criticizing capitalism and big business and fascism also gave expression to ideologically new ideas such as anti-westernism and politico-spriritual renewal, which were later to resurface in certain forms of religious fundamentalism.A further complication was that communist and fascist regimes exhibited certain similarities, both developing repressive, authoritarian forms of political rule, which some described as ‘totalitarian’.This brought the value of the left/right divide and the linear political spectrum, into question.During the 1950s and 1960s, it became increasingly common to use an alternative, horseshoe-shaped political spectrum, which indicated that the extreme points on the left and the right tended to converge, distinguishing both from the ‘democratic’ beliefs of liberalism,socialism and conservatism. However,since around the 1960s,the ideological landscape has been transformed.Not only have major changes occurred to established or ‘classical’ ideologies (for instance, in the rise of the new left, the new right and,most dramatically, with the collapse of orthodox communism), but a series of ‘new’ ideological traditions have also emerged.The most significant of these can be set out as follows:
‘classical’ ideologies ‘new’ ideologies
Liberalism Feminism Conservatism Ecologism Socialism Religious fundamentalism Nationalism Multiculturalism Anarchism Fascism(?)
The designation of these ideologies as ‘new’ can be misleading, as each of them has roots that stretch back to the nineteenth century, if not beyond.Moreover, they also tended to draw heavily from existing, mainstream ideologies, giving them,typically, a hybrid or cross-cutting character.Nevertheless, these ideologies are ‘new’ in the sense that they have given particular areas of ideological debate a prominence they never previously enjoyed and,in the process, they have fostered the emergence of fresh and challenging ideological perspectives.Why has this process of ideological transformation accurred? The three main factors are the following: * The transition from industrial societies to postindustrial societies. * The collapse of communism and the chaging world order * Globalization and transnationalism.

The structure and nature of modern socieaties have undergone a profound process of change since about the 1950s.Social thinkers have heralded this change in a variety of ways.For example, Beck (1992) proclaimed the transition from the ‘first’ to the ‘second’ modernity, Giddens (1994) analysed the shift from ‘simple’ to ‘reflexive’ modernity, whilst Baumann (2000) discussed the change from ‘solid’ to ‘liquid’ modernity.At the heart of these changes, however,is the transition from industrial societies to postindustrial ones.Industrial societies tended to be solidaristic, in that they were based on relatively clear class divisions ( crudely,those between capital and labour), which, in turn, helped to structure the political process, including the party system,interest-group competition and ideolodical debate.Postinductrial societies are different in a number of ways.They tend,in the first place,to be more affluent societies, in which the struggle for material subsistence has become less pressing for a growing proportion of people.In conditions of wider prosperity, individuals express more interest in ‘quality of life’ or ‘postmaterial’ issues.These are typically concerned with morality,political justice and personal fulfillment,and include issues such as gender equality,world peace,racial harmony,environmental protection and animal rights.Second,the structure of society and the nature of social connectedness have altered.Whereas industrial societies tended to generate ‘thick’ social bonds,based on social class and nationality in particular,postindustrial societies tend to be characterized by growing individualization and ‘thinner’ and more fluid social bonds.Although this may mean that people have a less clear sense of who they are and where they stand on moral and social issuses in particular, the advent of postindustrial societies has ‘liberated’ people from their class-based ideological identities,and allowed-even encouraged them to seek new identities. The ideological ramifications of the collapse of communism have been profound and wide-ranging,and, in many ways, continue to unfold.the ideology most clearly affected has been socialism.Revolutionary socialism, especially in its Soviet-style, Marxist-Leninist guise,was revealed as a spent force,both because of the economic failings of central planning and because of the system’s association with state authoritarianism.however, democratic socialism has also been affected;some argue that it has been fatally compromised.In particular,democratic socialists have lost faith in ‘top-down’ state control,and have come to accept the market as the only reliable means of generating wealth.The collapse of communism and the general retreat from socialism,has provided opportunities for new ideological forces.Chief amongst these have been nationalism,particularly ethnic nationalism,which has displaced Marxist-Leninism as the leading ideology in many postcommunist states,and religious fundamentalism,which,in its various forms,has had growing influence in the developing world.The advent of global terrorism,through the devastating attacks on New York and Washington on 11 Sep 2001, and the initiation of the so-called ‘war on terror’ have had further consequences for political ideologies.The ‘war on terror’ highlights the emergence of new ideological battle lines that,some believe,may define global politics in the twenty-first century.In the widely discussed if highly controversial thesis of Samuel Huntngdom (1993), the ideological battle between capitalism abd communism has been displaced by a ‘clash of civilizations’,in which the most significant division is between the West and Islam. Globalization,in its economic,cultural and political forms,has influenced the development of political ideologies in a number of ways.First,it contributed to te collapse of communism.It did this both through the tendency of economic globalization to bolster growth rates in the capitalist West from the 1970s onwards,thereby widening material differentials between capitalism and communism,and through growing media penetration of eastern Europe,spreading pro-western and pro-capitalist values and appetites.Second,political nationalism,linked to the doctrine of national self-determination,has been compromised by the fact that nation-states now operate in ‘post-sovereign’ conditions.As the state in a global era has a declining capacity to generate political allegiance and civic loyalty, ‘particularist’ ideological edentities,based around culture,ethnicity and religion, have been strengthened.Third, globalization has strengthened trends towards multiculturalism by increasing levels of international migration,giving more and more societies a multi-religious and multi-ethnic charater.Finally,globalization,and in particular the spread of a global capitalist economy,has generated a range of oppositional forces.These include a strengthening of religious fundamentalism in the developing worl, leading,as Benjiamin Barber (1995) put it, to a confrontation between ‘Jihad’ and ‘MacWorld’, and an anti-globalization or anti-capitalist movement in the developed world that has recast,and sometimes strengthened,the ideas of anarchism,feminism and ecologism. The ‘new’ ideologies are not only new, but also differ from ‘classical’ ideologies in a number of other ways.This has altered the focus and sometimes the terms of ideological debate.Three broad differences can be identified.In the first place,thre has been a shift away from economics and towards culture.Liberalism,conservatism and socialism were primarily concerned with issues of economic organization,or at least their moral vision was grounded in a particular economic model.By contrast, and in their various ways, the ‘new’ ideologies are more interested in culture than in economics: their primary concerns tend to be orientated around people’s values,beliefs and ways of life,rather than economic well-being or even social justice.Second, there has been a shift from social class to identity.Identity links the personal to the social,in seeing the individual as ‘embedded’ in a particular cultural,social,institutional and ideological context, but it also highlights the scope for personal choice and self-definition,reflecting a general social trend towards individuals not worked-out sets of political solutions that ‘fit’ their social position,but,rather,provide them with a range of ideological options.this means that political activism has become,ineffect, a lifestyle choice.Finally, there has been a shift from unicersalism to particularism.Whereas,most clearly,liberalism and socialism shared an Enlightenment faith in reason and progress,reflecting the belief that there is a common core to human identity shared by people everywhere,the ‘new’ ideologies,such as feminism,ethnic nationalism,multiculturalism and religious fundamentalism,stress the importance of factors such us gender,locality,culture and ethnicity.In that sense,they practice the ‘politics of difference’ rather than the politics of universal emancipation.