Ideologies, Global

What is Ideology?

Ideology is an Enlightenment term referring to a rationalist method of breaking complex systems of ideas into their basic components. In the 19th century, it acquired a derogatory meaning as Napoleon Bonaparte's hurled idéologues against his academic critics. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels also used the term in a negative sense to signify a deliberate distortion of material reality that served the ruling classes as a convenient cloak for economic exploitation and political oppression. In the 20th century, ideology was conflated with the new concept of “totalitarianism” linked to Nazism and communism. With the sudden collapse of the Soviet empire, triumphalist voices in the West celebrated the “end of ideology.” China's gradual shift to a party-directed capitalism and the rapid decline of Third World Marxism only seemed to confirm this trend. However, after the al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001, and the ensuing global War on Terror, the Cold War equation of ideology with the evil schemes of depraved minds received a new lease on life in U.S. President George W. Bush's characterization of jihadist terrorists as the “heirs of all murderous ideologies of the twentieth century” (Address to Joint Session of Congress and Americans, September 20, 2001, quoted in the New York Times, September 21, 2001).

Ideology may be defined in a more neutral fashion as competing political belief systems containing patterned ideas and claims to truth that compete with religious doctrines over what values should guide human communities. Codified by social elites and embraced by significant groups in society, ideologies encourage people to act while simultaneously constraining their actions. Ideologies are historically contingent and, therefore, must be analyzed with reference to particular times and contexts. Ideologies are not merely justifications of economic class interests or impractical metaphysical speculations, but indispensable mental maps designed to guide people through the complexities of their political environments.

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