Chapter 3 - Political Ideologies

ideology

• “an explicit, consciously held belief system” that consists of “a set of idea-elements that are bound together, that belong to one another in a non-random fashion.”

• More specifically, it is a set of values and beliefs that structures how people think their broader societies and political institutions should be organized

political values

beliefs about how to rank priorities for who should get what, when, and how

social structure

• the “most basic, enduring, and determinative patterns in social life”;

• the arrangement of individuals and groups according to their relative power

the state

the full political apparatus with a monopoly over the legitimate use of violence in a given territory

(not to be confused with a state, which is a territorial entity, [i.e., a country], as noted in the Introduction to this book

neoliberalism

• set of values about the state’s role in the economy

• justifies an unequal distribution of money and decision-making power.

Democracy

• set of values about individuals’ equal rights to participate in creating the rules that govern them

Populism

• set of values that morally critique “elites” for making bad decisions.

• Known as a thin ideology, because populism by itself does not specify alternatives to the elites’ decisions. Instead, populism is usually combined with another ideology that does specify alternatives.

The Me Too Movements

The ideologies of patriarchy and neoliberalism combine together to justify persistent sexual abuse and harassment.