So here, you might say, is the background science. Even attempting this task is complex because this field has developed its own massive literature, its own lexicon and field of study. Even the people arguing about ideology are, as might be expected, themselves coming from an ideological position. Thus, it is not only that the content of their discussion relates to ideology, but that it is also shaped by their particular ideological affiliations and commitments.
Commonsense understandings
So what is ideology? As with all words that aren’t in commonplace use, the first task is to define our terms. What does it mean? What domain does it delineate? This is easier said than done, as becomes clearer when we investigate what might be called the ‘expert discourse’ in the next section. But there is a constellation of meanings that tend to be attached to ‘ideology’.
When we look up the word in dictionaries, the definitions they offer highlight ideology’s relationship with values, beliefs and ideas. Thus:
•a body of ideas that reflects the beliefs and interests of a nation, political system, and so on, and underlies political action
•the set of beliefs by which a group or society orders reality so as to render it intelligible
•speculation that is imaginary or visionary
•the study of the nature and origin of ideas.
(www.dictionary.com/browse/ideology)
These values, beliefs and ideas can shape the way we think and act, both as individuals and together. These may be ideas that an individual, group or society has. Indeed, one of the interesting things about ideology can be the difference between our own personal ideologies and those of the society, community or country in which we live. Thus ideology is a set of ideas and values that underpins what we do – and what is done to us.
However, we have to remember that ideology on its own does not and cannot do anything. It is meaningless if no one adheres to it. Ideology has no effect if it gains no support or cannot be imposed. Without power underpinning it, a political ideology is no more than one person’s or group’s thoughts, aspirations or intentions. Beyond that it has no independent existence or influence. It must either have power behind it from its proponents or have power invested in it by others. Thus ideologies and ideological perspectives are inextricably linked with power (Chomsky, 2015). Different ideological perspectives are wielded by humans to explain, justify or legitimise a political or social order. Ideology can be used to justify oppression, but it does not oppress in itself. This is an important reminder that, beyond being an idea, ideology has no independent existence. It doesn’t do anything itself. It may be used to oppress or liberate. Ideology began as and continues to be an idea and, from this, have followed different ideological perspectives (Heywood, 2017; Wetherly, 2017).
Political ideology is identified as a certain ethical set of ideals, principles, doctrines, myths, or symbols of a social movement, institution, class, or large group that explains how society should work, and offers some political and cultural blueprint for a certain social order. Political ideologies are concerned with the wide range of concerns of a society, ranging from the economy, health and education, to social security, social welfare and immigration (Honderich, 1995, p 392). Ideology can mean much more than political ideology, but equally political ideologies have a habit of entering into every aspect of life, thought, ideas and behaviour, as we shall see later (Shorten, 2015).
We should not ignore the fact that some intellectuals seeking to analyse the status quo have long had ideologies in their sights. Political ideologies can be used to serve many different purposes. Thus the philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt, in her exploration of 20th century totalitarianism, highlighted how such regimes were presented in almost supra-human terms, as if their proponents were merely following the diktats of nature or history, arguing: ‘The last century has produced an abundance of ideologies that pretend to be keys to history but are actually nothing but desperate efforts to escape responsibility’ (Arendt, 1951, page unknown). The feminist bell hooks, in contrast, highlighted the liberatory potential of feminism in the context of domination and oppression:
Feminism is the struggle to end sexist oppression. Therefore, it is necessarily a struggle to eradicate the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture on various levels, as well as a commitment to reorganizing society so that the self-development of people can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion, and material desires. (hooks, 1984)
Checking out the ‘expert discourse’
Perhaps unsurprisingly, when we check out the dedicated literature on ideology, ‘nobody has come up with a single adequate definition of ideology … the term has a whole range of useful meanings, not all of which are compatible with each other’ (Eagleton, 2007, p 1). The word ideology has different histories and different conceptual strands, which in some cases are irreconcilable.
It was not always expected or meant to be like this. We are taught that the term ideology originated in (the French) revolution, when the rationalists of the Enlightenment were searching for a ‘science of ideas’ with which to make sense of and negotiate the highly charged and changing times they were living in (Kennedy, 1979). We will return to this idea of ideology as ‘science’ shortly. So it was that, more than two centuries ago, the French philosopher Destutt de Tracy introduced the term ideology in order to denote a new discipline that would study ‘ideas’: ‘ideologie’ (van Dijk, 2006, p 729). In modern political science, the notion is used in a more neutral, descriptive sense, for example, to refer to political belief systems (Freeden, 1996). We can seek to come up with a value-free, uncontentious definition like ‘a body of ideas’ or ‘the social representation of a group or class’. But this is likely to leave out many of the characteristics and qualities theoreticians have associated with ideology (Freeden et al, 2013; Leach, 2015).
However, the term ideology has also long been used in a pejorative way, to devalue and cast doubt on the views and beliefs of others. This has a very long history, which can be traced back to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels for whom ideologies were ‘a form of false consciousness’; thus, the working class may have misguided ideas about the conditions of its existence as a result of their indoctrination by those who control the means of production (van Dijk, 2006, p 728).
Here is ideology serving to mystify and deceive. Ideologies are often presented as a negative. The word ‘ideological’ is used crudely and dismissively, sometimes as a term of abuse, as though it makes an argument or an issue less valid, less true. When politicians criticise something as ‘ideological’, it is often as a cheap insult, with them pretending that they are themselves not guided by ideology. This tradition is alive and well and continues in day-to-day discussion and on the pages of the Right-wing press, where describing someone or something as ‘ideological’ has become a means of rubbishing them/it or challenging their veracity (Eagleton, 2007; Telegraph View, 2020).
We also have to remember that there are different kinds of ideologies. For example, there are expert and professional ideologies such as educational, legal, religious, and health care ideologies, among others. In this book, we are concerned primarily with political ideology; that is, ideology where different – sometimes opposed – groups, power, struggles, and interests are at issue and where the political process is essentially an ideological process (van Dijk, 2006, pp 731–2).
Most discussions of ideology and political ideology seek to explain what the terms mean and to explore key different ideologies that have developed through history. We can learn from these what goes to make up an ideology and what various important ideologies stand for.
There has even been talk of the ‘end of ideology’, as though competing political value systems and conflicts between them were a thing of the past and there was now only one ruling set of ideas or way of thought. This started in the 1950s with US sociologists and their assumption of the post-war dominance of Western capitalist liberalism or liberal democracy – that is to say, a form of government where representative democracy operates in a market economy. However, this assumption was powerfully challenged in the 1960s by the emergence