This chapter considers a range of traditional and contemporary ideologies. Traditional ideologies are associated with the Enlightenment and have had a significant impact on the development of world politics in the last 200 years. The claims of the traditional ideologies are challenged by more contemporary ideologies; the latter should therefore be seen in the context of growing scepticism about the utility of Enlightenment ideologies. The chapter first describes the general characteristics of an ideology before discussing traditional ideologies such as liberalism, socialism, conservatism, and fascism. It also examines contemporary ideologies, namely: feminism, environmentalism, multiculturalism, and religious fundamentalism. The chapter argues that contemporary ideologies represent a challenge to the state, as seen in the greater emphasis on the supranational dimension observed, in particular, in multiculturalism, environmentalism, and religious fundamentalism.
Chapter
8. Ideologies
Chapter
7. Challenges to the Dominant Ideologies
Robert Garner
This chapter examines a range of contemporary ideologies which challenge the traditional ones. Contemporary ideologies differ from traditional ideologies in a number of ways. First, they are less optimistic about the ability of ideology to construct an overarching explanation of the world. Second, they respect difference and variety, a product of social and economic change that has eroded the ‘Fordist’ economy and given rise to a number of powerful identity groups based on gender, culture, and ethnicity, and raised question marks over the environmental sustainability of current industrial practices. The chapter starts with a general discussion of how the ideologies covered in this chapter differ from those considered in Chapter 6 before examining a number of contemporary ideologies—postmodernism, feminism, environmentalism, multiculturalism, and religious fundamentalism—in detail.