IDEOLOGIES: OLD AND WORN OUT OR FRESH AND NECESSARY
FOR THE POLITICS OF TODAY
Harvard 8 pages 20 references
1.0 Ideologies: Old and worn out or fresh and necessary in politics today
1.1 Introduction
All ideologies “embody an account of social and political reality and an account of how that reality could be bettered” (Finlay et al.2003:2). In other words ideologies are based in political and social reality but at the same time they are linked to a dream of a better world. Historically the Conservative and Liberal Party have been the two most powerful and popular types of ideologies in the United Kingdom (UK). The names of the parties are expected to be appropriate descriptions of the ideologies of the party. If the party names are reflective of the ideologies of their members, then the Conservative Party members are traditionalists meaning that they want to stay with the old ways of doing things and they do not want change. On the other hand the Labour Party members want a system that is fair to workers; members of the labour party are liberal and set a priority on giving workers a high quality of life, safe working conditions and progress. But is that the reality of ideologies in the UK, are they really organized in such a straight forward and clear division?
The following essay looks at the way ideology works in the world today with examples from the United Kingdom (UK), the United States (US) and from other parts of the world, in order to argue the question- Does ideology still matter in politics? And the answer presented in this essay is a resounding -Yes, political ideologies still matter in the present.
First the essay looks at the historical ideologies of conservative/traditional and labour/liberal politics with a short look at six quotes through the history of politics. And then current UK political ideologies are reviewed.
1.2 History of ideology
Finlayson et al. (2003) make it very clear that government is either in a state of providing good for everyone in the country or, on the opposite side governments are run by one elite, ruling class who only cares about their own well-being. Governments are far more complex and fall somewhere in between the two extremes. The bullet points below are offered as a shorthand of political ideological histories the right and on the left.
1.2.1 Conservative
The attitude towards conservatives has not changed much since after World War II.
In the 1950s Hollis exclaimed that everybody can agree that government should be focused on accomplishing the “general good” but what remains undecided is if “for the general good that there should be a governing class or not” (Hollis 1957: 35).
In the 1970s Cowling grunted that Conservatives talk a great deal about freedom until they think that freedom is actually what they want, but “what they want is the sort of freedom that will maintain existing inequalities or restore lost one” as much as politics can provide (Cowling 1978:9)..
In the 2000s the masses decry the 1% who take the most money, but do not create jobs or keep their money in national banks.
In the 1950s conservatives were considered to be only interested in their own welfare, and again in the 1970s the perspective of conservatives was self-interest, which meant a support of economic inequalities. In the 2000s the shorthand of the 1% is targeted at the 1% of the population who own more than they deserve because they have no problem with inequality of economic distribution.
1.2.2 Liberal
On the other hand, the liberal parties have changed ideology within the party system.
In the 1790s Edmund Burke proclaimed that liberals must be from a self-disciplined, “more enlightened” aristocracy or chieftains to discipline the multitude into “a civil society” (Finlayson et al. 2002: 20).
In 1957 Watson pointed out that the old and new Liberal views agree that what is wanted is a government that will work “to the full and harmonious development of persons” but “new freedoms” differ from “old freedoms” because while “extending the field for free action, (the new freedoms) “involves restrictions which did not exist before” rather than abolish all restraints (Watson 1957:17 cited in Finlayson et al. 2002).
In the 2000 part of the liberals raged against the liberals who wanted minority groups to be granted special rights as do other liberals, although both groups support rights for ethnic minorities (Finlayson et al. 2002:23).
Burke in the 1790s felt that he was liberal minded and that meant he and others in his class had a responsibility to care for the masses. In 1957 Watson alluded to earlier decades like the 1920s when liberals had an ideology that “anything goes” and describes the 50s as far more responsible and will to accept boundaries. And now in the 2000s the liberal ideology is definitely not one agreed upon idea.
1.3 Current UK political ideologies
Rodney Barker (2004), professor of government at LSE teaches that 1917 and 1989 are the most significant years in history for political ideology in the UK. The Russian Revolution took place in 1917 and became a model for UK ideologies. The right opposed everything the Soviet Union stood for and the left felt the intention was ethical but reality was “corrupted” (Barker 2004). When the Soviet system of communism was overthrown in 1989 the political ideologies of the UK shifted; neither the right nor the left had an enemy to use as an example of what not to do. The environment was such that right and left ideologies become all mixed up (Barker 2004). New ideologies were formed (See table 1) and the meanings of the old ideologies shifted.
After 1989 the UK Conservative Party members were still considered as following a party of traditional conservative ideology, but now a new conservativism written with a small ‘c’ is in existence (Barker 2004). And the Conservatives rival, the Labour Party began calling itself the New Labour for a short period in order to help people forget the Labour Party’s socialist tendencies in the past (Barker 2004).
1.4 Political ideologies in the UK and the US
Ideology is a difficult concept to define, but bringing into the realm of political ideologies makes the task easier. Erikson and Tedin (2003:64) define ideology “a set of beliefs about the proper order of society and how it can be achieved.” Each ideology has a specific framework, and each ideologies share followers with similar beliefs and values, economic class social experiences according to Erickson and Tedin (2003). Berk et al. (2013: 60) defines an ideology very simply as a “set of meanings.”
I argue that ideologies were shared by followers with similar characteristics in the past, but in the present a shift is happening. A good example are blue-collar workers, the working class, the labourers who vote conservative; that seems to counter the argument that workers rights are supported by the Labour Party or does it mean that blue collar workers are voting for representatives who do not have the workers best interests as a priority.
1.4.1 Ideology contradictions
Ellis and Stimson (2012) point to a contradiction between the professed ideology of Americans, which is conservative and but they keep liberal opinions on many policies. The United States (US) today is all three political ideologies the centre, the right and the left (Ellis and Stimson 2012). Ideology still matters in the political realm because ideology highly impacts who is elected into office (Ellis and Stimson 2012).
In the US the Democratic Party during modern times is identified as the party that supports workers’ rights. Nonetheless many blue-collar workers voted for Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential elections. Left-wingers claim that workers who voted for Reagan, and continue to vote for conservatives are tricked into doing so by the Republican candidates (Haidt 2012). But Haidt (2012) thinks there is a more realistic reason; he argues that the substance of the issue is “moral psychology.” Haidt’s (2012) observations of the phenomena demonstrate the reality that “politics at the national level are more like religion than it is like shopping.”
In the US the Republican Party worked hard to develop their moral vision and developed the foundations to be the values of patriotism, personal responsibility (no welfare programmes), free enterprise, strong families and social order (Haidt 2012). Democrats ‘only’ offer to “protect or expand programmes” for the middle class, the poor, students, unemployment payments, and pensions; the range of reasons to vote for the left is much smaller than the range of reasons to vote for the right (Haidt 2012).
In the US and the UK people have participated in a survey that is used to rate the level of “care/harm” by asking –If I were to pay you to kick a dog how much money would I need to pay you for you to kick the dog. Haidt (2013) uses the survey to better understand the political ideologies of people on the left and right, which may or may not vote in their own interests. The researchers learned that liberals need to be paid more money than conservatives before they will that poor, innocent dog; the assumption is that liberal do not want to do the kick, so they need more money than conservatives to take that kind of action. In other words, left-leaners are more reluctant than right-leaners to harm the dog.
In order to characterize conservatives Haidt (2012) learned that the attributes they highly favour are respecting authority, remain loyal to your group and the keeping sacred certain objects or beliefs. The recommendation that Haidt (2012) makes to the left in the US and UK is to focus less on helping the vulnerable, but instead reaching out to workers by satisfying their “moral concerns.” The ideology of the workers who vote for the right is not that they vote against themselves when they vote conservative, but that they are voting for their moral beliefs (Haidt 2012).
A study focused on Justice Department jurors in jury deliberations in the US included a section on political ideologies (Gastil et al. 2010). Satisfaction with the deliberations of the jury and the final verdict were similar between conservatives and liberals. No correlation was observed between satisfaction of the deliberation/verdict and their confidence in the government or faith in the political system (Gastil et al. 2010). The interesting results were from the moderates, because the deliberation/verdict experience “predicted political faith and confidence in the judgmental competence of government, especially state and local judges” (Gastil et al. 2010: 139). Frequent voters and political moderates who felt very satisfied with the deliberations/verdict experience “developed considerable faith in public institutions” (Gastil et al. 2010: 139).
Salop (2013) wanted to test the hypothesis of Voorhees (2014) that elections no longer matter in determining the ideological slant of anti-trust enforcement. The results of Salop’s research demonstrated that “ideologies can affect attitudes towards antitrust enforcement,” therefore Salop (2013: 1-3) expects elections to significantly affect anti-trust enforcement. Public records of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) show that in three different presidential administrations significant differences can be traced during the three time frames (Salop 2013). The researcher believes that the study results coupled with the US DOJ public records mean the elections matter and so ideologies matter (Salop 2013).
Horst, Federico and Napier (2000:310) consider ideology to be worth further study, in particular in order to expand a historical trend that considers the existence of only one dimension containing both right-left ideologies; a historical trend about ideologies that is far from reality.
1.5 Global ideologies.
Globalization is still fairly new and the shifts between nations and ideologies are very flexible (Boss 2010). A major observable shift is a transformation from “infrastructural power to authoritarian liberal power” (Boss 2010: 263). The idea that liberal can be described as authoritarian is a (rather shocking) new concept in political ideology theory (Boss 2010).
Ar (2015) carried out research using Critical Discourse Analysis to learn how ideology is rooted in communications. The research evaluated “newspaper opinion-editorial articles and political economic speeches” (Ar 2015: 63). Ar (2015) concluded that new capitalism and neoliberalism are interconnected as the two central ideologies in current political discourse.
Political ideologies correlate with individual preferences in unexpected ways. Experiments using dictator games show that actions in the game are linked to measures of donations to charities (Kam, Cranmer and Fowler 2007). Esary et al. (2015) developed a study to to observe any predictors of income redistribution ideologies. In the real world income redistribution is supported by a substantial number of people, in the experiment the effort to earn income in an environment with inequality determined by differences in effort and skills, preferences for equality of distribution are “strong enough to lead to redistribution” (Easry et al. 2015: 604). The researchers concluded that ideology for equal income distribution is not as strong as self-interest (Easry et al. 2015).
1.6 Conclusion
Yes, ideology matters and it matters because political ideologies impact public policies and the people we elect to initiate and carry out those policies. Modern democracies work that way; the people develop their ideologies and attempt to vote for a government that will reflect those ideologies. The great challenge is that ideologies no longer stand alone as left, right, communist, social, fascist or anything else. The ideologies of individuals are now based on sectors of their society such as the environment and sustainability, the economy for lower taxes and old-age pensions at the same time, full coverage health care for everyone and caring for refugees (or not allowing refugees). As we have seen from the discussion above, one person can hold a different ideology for each of these issues without feeling that their government is unstable or that as a voter they should confine themselves to one ideology on all topics.
1.7 References
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Barry, B. 2001. Culture and Equality: An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.
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Cowling, M. 1978. The present condition in M. Cowling (ed.). Conservative Essays, London: Cassell.
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Kam, C., S. Cranmer, and J. Fowler. 'When It's Not Ali About Me: Altruism, Participation, and Political Context.' Working Paper, UC San Diego, 2007."1
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Voorhees, T. 2014. The Political Hand in American Antitrust – Invisible, Inspirational or Imaginary. The Antitrust Law Journal. 2:557-576 https://www.cov.com/files/Publication/f43a3141-0d0a-4a0f-a150-0aac2e3c7ec4/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/3a6abc27-e632-4649-9e4e-0e69b5360ba5/Voorhees_ALJ_79-2_FINAL_ANT209.pdf
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