What is Political Ideology?

Defining political ideology

Political ideology is an umbrella term used to describe a wide spectrum of different viewpoints on theories of power, the ideal way that society should be organized, and which means are acceptable for achieving these ends. As Iain MacKenzie elaborates in the anthology, Political Ideologies, 

As you might expect, the gulf between the ideals that a political ideology represents and the actions that are taken in its name is also a topic of interest to scholars of political ideology. 

In fact, these questions have persisted for millennia, as evidenced in the works of Plato’s The Republic (c. 375 BCE), and Aristotle’s Politics (c. 335 BCE). It also was a topic of significant focus during the Enlightenment as philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, and John Locke sought political ideologies that better encapsulated ideals of secularism, liberty, and individualism. Political ideology also experienced a resurgence of focus during the 20th century as the liberalism that emerged from the Enlightenment was challenged by conflicting ideologies — namely communism and fascism — resulting in unprecedented global conflicts. 

Still, political ideology remains an elusive concept, and it’s useful to take the time to understand the trappings of the ideologies mentioned above. From there, we can better understand how they come into conflict with each other; the contrasts that often exist between political ideals and realities; and finally, some of the major critiques of political ideology as a framework. 

Examples of political ideology list

Liberalism 

Liberalism is a political ideology that emerged out of the Enlightenment. It is associated with a challenge to preordained claims to political power, such as the divine right of kings, in favor of secularism and the rise of parliamentarism. Liberalism is also defined by a strong emphasis on individual rights, personal freedoms, universal equality before the law, and a limited role of government intervention in other spheres of life such as the economy. John Locke is considered the father of liberalism, as encapsulated in his writings on the social contract. In her introduction to Locke's ​​Two Treatises of Government (1689 [2014]), Federica Rainaldi explains that

The notion of universal entitlements to these political rights became a rallying cry that spread across the world — inspiring a number of well known political revolutions including the Glorious Revolution in England in 1688, the American Revolution in 1776, the French Revolution in 1789, and the Haitian Revolution in 1791. 

Subsequently, this kind of Republicanism — predicated on liberal ideals, constitutionalism, and representative democracy — was instituted in many other countries including formerly colonized nations in Africa and Latin America during the 19th and 20th centuries. In fact, liberalism is considered the dominant political ideology of modernity. Liberalism is notably compatible with market economies, as it is concerned with the protection of property rights and a laissez-faire approach to government intervention in matters of the economy. In the late 20th century, the tenets of liberalism also inspired the project of neoliberalism, which represents a more market fundamentalist iteration of liberalism focused on the primacy of the free market and privatization. 

Socialism & communism

While considered the dominant ideology of modernity, liberalism has had some notorious opponents. Particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries, one such challenge came in the form of the leftwing political ideologies of communism and socialism. Socialism and communism are often — erroneously — used interchangeably, which alludes to some of the murkiness around concepts of political ideology. Largely thanks to the Cold War, there has also been further muddling of these terms’ actual meanings. Let’s start by sketching out the commonalities between the two and then how they differ from each other.

Both socialism and communism are associated with the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Their works challenged certain aspects of liberalism, particularly its emphasis on upholding rights to private property and the primacy of the free market. As Engels contends,

Marx and Engels argued, therefore, that liberalism was biased towards the bourgeois class who owned the means of production, and therefore, held the power in society. The notion of society being divided into classes who are embroiled in struggle against each other is a central pillar of socialist and communist political ideology, but each seeks to remedy this in different ways. 

Socialism

Social democracy 

While critical of the centrality of private property and market relations, socialism is not necessarily entirely incompatible with liberalism. Such is evidenced in the social democracies of the Nordic countries. These still operate via market economies and parliamentary democracies, but also have policies in place to better balance the interests of the bourgeois capitalist class and working class. Socialists, in general, seek to better leverage the interests of the working class through unions with strong powers of collective bargaining, nationalization of public services such as healthcare, and high rates of taxation on the wealthy. A distinctive feature of such approaches to socialism is the use of existing democratic processes and the state apparatus as a way to actualize this balance of interests between capital and labor. Unlike communism, these forms of socialism are not in favor of forceful revolution. 

Revolutionary socialism

Compared to social democracy, revolutionary socialism is a substantially different approach which offers a bridge between socialism and communism. More specifically, revolutionary socialism refers to a kind of transitory socialism wherein the workers seize control of political power via revolution and use the existing state infrastructures to redistribute wealth and property to the people in a movement towards a truly communist society. In Critique of the Gotha Program, Marx describes this transition phase ushered in through revolutionary socialism as the “dictatorship of the proletariat” (1891 [2022]). As Peter Hudis explains in his introduction, 

Revolutionary socialism is exemplified by the Bolsheviks who overthrew the Russian Czar in 1917 and established a dictatorship of the proletariat — through which they attempted to redistribute wealth back to the people in order to transition towards communism. 

(To read about socialism in more depth, you can explore our “What is Socialism?” study guide.) 

Communism 

While socialism can coexist alongside other ideologies such as liberalism, and can jointly make up a given political structure, communism describes the overthrow of all private property relations and the establishment of a truly classless, stateless, and propertyless society. As Marx and Engels put it in The Communist Manifesto,

Instead of bourgeois forms of private property relations, under communism all members of society collectively own the means of production. Decisions pertaining to the use and allocation of wealth and resources are subject to direct-democratic control. Revisiting the example of the Bolsheviks, this was reflected in the creation of soviets, which refer to councils or worker assemblies who came together to make decisions through this kind of participant democracy. 

Of course, this definition of "soviet" is overshadowed by the actual realities of the Soviet Union, which offer some key observations about the nature of political ideology. 

While the Soviet Union is one of the societies most strongly associated with communism, many scholars have argued that no society has ever truly achieved communism in the pure sense of the term as outlined above. It is argued, for example, that the Soviet Union’s so-called dictatorship of the proletariat was corrupted before it could effectively redistribute all the wealth and property back to the people. Instead of the eventual abolition of the state, under Stalin the state became larger, as it merely subsumed the capitalist class. In other words, it is argued that the “dictatorship of the proletariat” just became a dictatorship full stop, and the transition towards communism never fully occurred. Rather, dictators such as Joseph Stalin, as well as others like Mao Zedong in China, committed many atrocities in the name of communism — ranging from the widespread torture and imprisonment of dissidents to ethnic cleansing. This offers one example of how a political ideology does not necessarily align with the actual realities of a given society that claims it. 

(For more information on communism, you can read our “What is Communism?” study guide.) 

Fascism

Fascism is a notoriously difficult political ideology to pin down, as it is often used in contemporary political lexicon to describe any draconian, right-wing political maneuver. As political theorist Roger Griffin observes, 

Therefore, rather than being a standalone political theory, it is often easier to understand fascism as a description of certain historical examples: Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. This way, we can ascertain some of its defining characteristics. 

Right-wing nationalism: In both Italy and Germany, fascism proposed staunch forms of nationalism. In each context this nationalism was centered on a kind of mythology around the origins of each civilization. In Italy, there was a revival of and fixation on the Roman Empire, and in Germany, on the ethnic supremacy of the so-called Aryan race. These forms of nationalism were also predicated on the exclusion of outsiders, and expressed through drives towards territorial expansionism.

Military dictatorship: Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany were both structured around totalitarian dictatorships headed by “strongman” leaders — Mussolini and Hitler, respectively — who were shrouded in a cult of personality. The use of force in the suppression of dissent was commonplace and even valorized. Martial law was imposed through propaganda in both contexts. New military units were formed in each country to reflect this: the Blackshirts in Italy and, among others, the SS in Germany. 

Social Darwinism: In both contexts, there was no tolerance for weakness. Strength, hierarchy, discipline, and competition were glorified as ideals. Infamously, this played out in horrific forms of ethnic cleansing in Nazi Germany, with targeted groups including Jews, Roma, Sinti, and Poles. Homosexuals and disabled people were also persecuted. Jews, Slavs, Ethiopians, and Romani people also experienced discrimination under Fascist Italy.

Cult of mysticism: Finally, as encapsulated in Walter Benjamin's famous assertion, 

Indeed, many scholars argue that much of fascism’s widespread appeal in both Italy and Germany can be explained by the cult of pseudo-religious mysticism which was derived from the aforementioned characteristics. Fascism effectively created rituals in the forms of massive parades and rallies; martyrization of fallen “heroes;” mythology around innate ethnic or civilizational superiority; visual aesthetics such as banners, signets, and uniforms; and also in the cults of personality that existed around each regime’s leader. These forms of propaganda and the aestheticization of politics were instrumental in the popularization of fascism in both countries. 

While Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy offer quintessential descriptive examples of fascism, many of these same characteristics have also been exhibited by other societies. These include but are certainly not limited to military dictatorships in Spain under Francisco Franco, Portugal under António de Oliveira Salazar, and (many argue) in Chile under Augusto Pinochet. 

(To explore the ideology of fascism in more detail, you can read our “What is Fascism?” study guide.)

Anarchism

Anarchism is widely considered to have emerged as a political theory in Russia around the time of the Bolshevik Revolution. While those holding anarchist beliefs were supporters of the revolution, they differed ideologically from the socialists of the day. For example, key anarchist figures such as Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin opposed the idea of the state as a vessel for redistributing wealth and power to the people. Rather, they believed that all forms of statehood were corruptible and oppressive. Instead, anarchists center human freedom, autonomy, and sovereignty above all — qualities which they believe cannot be fully expressed under any state apparatus. As a seminal anarchist figure, Emma Goldman articulates the ideology in Anarchism and Other Essays (1910 [2022]),

In other words, anarchists believe that no forms of authority or hierarchy ought to exist, unless they can be justified in a given context. For example, most anarchists would not contest having an experienced heart surgeon perform a triple bypass over someone with no medical experience. 

In practice, anarchists are known for their use of “direct action” as a way of bringing about glimpses of what social relations could look and feel like without dominance by the state. They use methods such as protests, occupations, strikes, property damage, and sabotage to disrupt and subvert political power. Anarchists also prioritize various forms of popular consensus in decision making, where all votes and perspectives are treated equally. They typically favor decentralized and DIY forms of organization and provisioning of goods and resources. 

It should also be noted that there are two distinct types of anarchists: anarcho-communists and libertarian anarchists. While both share a common vision for a stateless society, the former believe that goods and resources should be owned collectively and the latter places emphasis on preserving individual liberties. Although no country has ever been totally anarchist, these aspects of anarchist praxis can be found in many subcultures such as the punk movement, as well as in indigenous land sovereignty movement of the Zapatistas in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Ursula Le Guin’s work of speculative fiction, The Dispossessed (1974), also offers a vivid portrayal of what an anarchist society could look like. 

Critiques of political ideology

There are numerous critiques leveraged against political ideology as a conceptual framework. Three of the most prominent ones can be found in postmodernism, postcolonialism, and even in the writings of certain Marxist philosophers. While not an exhaustive rendering of all critiques of political ideology, the following offer some sound points of contention that expose some of its shortcomings. 

Postmodernist critiques of political ideology 

As part of a movement that emerged out of the fragmentation and disillusionment in the decades following WWII, postmodern thinkers such as Jean-Francois Lyotard argue against the utility of grand metanarratives, including political ideologies. As Bill Readings puts it in Introducing Lyotard, 

Lyotard argues that these totalizing narratives eclipse the multiplicity of different lived experiences, and flatten the complexity of the human condition in unrealistic ways that especially neglect minority perspectives. 

Other postmodern theorists like Jacques Derrida have made criticisms of political ideology as a way of classifying different viewpoints. Of ideology, he made the following critique,

Specifically, as a member of the post-structuralist movement, he analyzed the inherent contradictions and discrepancies that can exist under a given political ideology such as liberalism. For example, he points out that even though liberalism purports to be about ideals of universal rights and freedoms for all citizens, in actuality societies that espouse liberalism are often hierarchical and discriminatory. He also questions how political ideologies are delineated to form uniform categories of beliefs when those who subscribe to a given ideology often hold quite disparate viewpoints.

Marxist critiques of political ideology

Marxist philosophers such as Louis Althusser have made materialist criticisms of political ideology. As he famously observes, 

Specifically, Marxist critics of political ideology such as Althusser argue that the ideologies put forth by a given society often serve to mask the actual social relations between classes. In capitalist societies, for example, the primary function of ideologies is to obscure the centrality of the market as the primary driving force shaping the social landscape. 

Writers like Antonio Gramsci use the analogy of the base-superstructure to make a similar point that the base of society is the market economy, which is the engine that propels it forward. The superstructure which includes ideology, politics, and culture merely stem from it, and often serve the function of masking the true material conditions that underpin social relations within a classed society. These ideas are especially prominent in the discipline of political economy.  

Postcolonial critiques of political ideology 

Postcolonial theorists such as Frantz Fanon and Edward Said also mount criticisms against the Eurocentric nature of political ideology. Indeed, many of (what are considered to be) the most prominent examples of political ideology are focused on European contexts, which exclude the ways these ideologies manifest — and have been imposed through colonialism — in the rest of the world. 

Fanon goes on to argue that the tendency to merely implement Eurocentric political ideologies — the ideologies of colonizers — in postcolonial contexts is antithetical to true liberation from colonial domination. He writes, 

Furthermore, scholars of postcolonialism contend that a Eurocentric perspective of ideology can undermine and overlook the myriad other forms of social formations that can and have existed throughout history — namely those that exist in indigenous societies. A postcolonial lens on political ideology, therefore, seeks to center and learn from these examples. This is illustrated, for example, in the concept of “buen vivir,” which describes a Quechua way of life that emphasizes harmony with nature and prioritizes quality of life for all living things as the basis of resistance against capitalism. 

Closing thoughts

Political ideologies describe a broad spectrum of different viewpoints on how society ought to be structured and which practices are best for getting there. This study guide offered an overview of a few prominent examples: liberalism, socialism, communism, fascism, and anarchism. Crucially, in the case of each political ideology discussed above, their definitions do not necessarily align with how these terms are used in practice and ascribed to different societies throughout history. 

A critique has also been made of political ideology as a conceptual framework, as the terms are themselves used toward political — and even propagandistic — ends. Critics also argue that the concept of political ideology cannot adequately encapsulate all the different viewpoints and beliefs of those who claim to adhere to a given one. Still, having an understanding of political theory is useful not only as an intellectual exercise, but also in order to be a critically engaged citizen. For all its valid criticisms, in having a sound working knowledge of different political ideologies you will be better able to interpret current events, recognize when terms are being used in line with a political agenda, and maintain a sense of clarity in an increasingly polarized world.    

Further reading on Perlego

Connolly, W. (2017). Political Science and Ideology. Routledge. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1575821/political-science-and-ideology-pdf 

Edgley, A. (2004). The Social and Political Thought of Noam Chomsky. Routledge. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1623906/the-social-and-political-thought-of-noam-chomsky-pdf

Goldmann, L. (2009). The Philosophy of the Enlightenment. Routledge. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1695805/the-philosophy-of-the-enlightenment-routledge-revivals-the-christian-burgess-and-the-enlightenment-pdf 

Hayden, P. (2014). Hannah Arendt: Key Concepts. Routledge. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1562062/hannah-arendt-key-concepts-pdf

Jameson, F. (2014). The Political Unconscious. Cornell University Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/534073/the-political-unconscious-narrative-as-a-socially-symbolic-act-pdf

Marx, K, and Engels, F. (2021). Collected Works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2982724/collected-works-of-karl-marx-and-friedrich-engels-illustrated-the-communist-manifesto-the-capital-the-eighteenth-brumaire-of-louis-bonaparte-socialism-utopian-and-scientific-pdf 

Bibliography 

Aristotle (2013). Politics. University of Chicago Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1840578/aristotles-politics-second-edition-pdf 

Benjamin, W. (1968). Illuminations. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2418924/illuminations-essays-and-reflections-pdf 

Diefenbach, et al. (eds.) (2013). Encountering Althusser. Bloomsbury Academic. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/818021/encountering-althusser-politics-and-materialism-in-contemporary-radical-thought-pdf

Engels, F. (2012). Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. Perlego. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1820308/socialism-utopian-and-scientific-pdf 

Geoghegan, V. and Wilford, R. (eds.) (2014). Political Ideologies. Routledge. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1323782/political-ideologies-an-introduction-pdf 

Goldman, E. (2022) Anarchism and Other Essays. Otbebookpublishing. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/3791014/anarchism-and-other-essays-pdf 

Griffin, R. (2018). Fascism. Polity. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1536550/fascism-pdf 

Haddour, A. (2019). Frantz Fanon, postcolonialism and the ethics of difference. Manchester University Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1525739/frantz-fanon-postcolonialism-and-the-ethics-of-difference-pdf 

Hoare, G. and Sperber, N. (2015) An Introduction to Antonio Gramsci. Bloomsbury Publishing. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/807560/an-introduction-to-antonio-gramsci-his-life-thought-and-legacy-pdf 

Le Guin, U. (1974). The Dispossessed. Harper & Row.

Locke, J. (2014). Two Treatises of Government. Passerino. Available at: 

https://www.perlego.com/book/2099897/two-treatises-of-government-pdf

Marx, K. (2022). Critique of the Gotha Program. PM Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2490029/critique-of-the-gotha-program-pdf 

Marx, K. and Engels F. (2014) Communist Manifesto. HarperTorch. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/602671/the-communist-manifesto-pdf 

Peeters, B. (2013). Derrida. Polity. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1535408/derrida-a-biography-pdf 

Plato (2014). The Republic. Open Road Media. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2393161/the-republic-pdf 

Proudhon, et al. (2023). Anarchism. The Classic Collection (10 books). Illustrated. Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/4143083/anarchism-the-classic-collection-10-books-illustrated-what-is-property-god-and-the-state-the-conquest-of-bread-no-treason-state-socialism-and-anarchism-and-others-pdf 

Readings, B. (2006). Introducing Lyotard. Routledge. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1625489/introducing-lyotard-art-and-politics-pdf