Social Sciences En Politieke En Sociale Wetenschappen
Introduction To The History Of Political Ideologies (K001323A_2021)
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SAMENVATTING/SUMMARY Political Ideologies (1BA Social Sciences, VUB)
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Introduction To The History Of Political Ideologies (K001323A_2021)
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)
I summarized Sami Zemni's syllabus from the introduction until chapter 5. Chapter 6 en conclusion are not included (not enough time) Done in year 21-22
1BA Social Sciences (sem 2), Introduction to the History of Political Ideologies with prof. Sami Zemni
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Social Sciences En Politieke En Sociale Wetenschappen
Introduction To The History Of Political Ideologies (K001323A_2021)
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Political Ideologies: Freedom, Equality, Solidarity
Introduction
Crucial questions of living together in a society -> leads to discourses
- Defending the existing order (with inequality) vs undermining the existing order (to create a
different social order)
- Resulting in the clash of different versions of reality
Emancipation = individuals and groups gain more and more control over their own living conditions +
human endeavor to gain a full place in society
-> implies progress
‘Optimism gap’ = the idea that everything is going well for ‘me’ but not for ‘us’, the feeling of being
optimistic for our own lives but fearful for the future of humanity
-> humans possess drama instincts that give them an ‘overdramatic worldview’
Progress is undeniable -> does NOT mean it is/was ambiguous, it often comes with struggle and
uncertainty
Inequality has risen throughout the world
- Rises in industrial times, declines post WWII, but is not sharply on the rise again
- Inequality developed between North and South is deceasing, but is still large
- In terms of health and life expectancy -> decrease between countries, but increase within
countries
Automatically enter the realm of social struggle
Social struggle often has contradictions between social classes
-> when one group mobilized for change, the other would try to preserve the social order
instead (history of emancipation is linked to power struggles)
Ideology (A. Heywood) = a more or less coherent set of ideas that provides the basis for organized
political action, whether it is intended to preserve, modify or overthrow the existing system of
power
- Political ideology = set of ideas and conceptions that seeks to shape social and political
relationships
o Set of ideas -> several ideas are present
A single proposition is not an idea -> must be several that stand in certain
relation to each other
Can be logical or functionally consistent
Ideology is not about science, even though it contains scientific elements
- Makes statement about boundaries, border and property -> reflect the choices made in a
given society
- Political choices made by a society shape the forms of inequality
o Choices are reflections of a society’s conceptions of social justice
Constitutes to a just economy and of political-ideological power relations
between groups
Power relations take place within, but also between countries and
continents
1
, - Always includes positive and negative interpretation + opinions that are both descriptive
(how it is) and normative (how it should be) -> built on concepts that will change over time
- Success of an ideology -> related in its ability to present its prepositions, assumptions and
definitions as ‘right/correct’
Understanding the ideology in its time is difficult
- Goals
o Try to find out what the questions were that the political thinker wanted to answer
o Try to find out what the answers are
o Ask ourselves if these questions are still relevant to ask today
Ideologies focus on social action
- Reference group may differ -> always seek to mobilize a privileged group to defend their
interests
- Dynamic of social change -> if the dynamic is no longer present, then the ideology becomes
a doctrine
o Doctrine = a codified set of views that seeks to shape socio-political relations and is
promulgated by an official body or institution
- Makes clear how science and ideology partially overlap, but don’t fully coincide (book p11)
Ideology (Freeden) = those systems of political thinking, loose or rigid, deliberate or unintended,
through which individuals and groups construct an understanding of the political world they, or
those who preoccupy their thought, inhabit and thzn act on that understanding
- <-> Marxist view = the purpose of science is to understand reality
- Ideologies always suggest goals that explain, justify and orient people’s political actions
towards a particular goal
o Can be to maintain a certain social order or seek to reinvent it in a revolutionary way
-> socialism is an ideology just like others
Outline of the book
Goals of the book
- Critical introduction to the central ideas underpinning political modernity (freedom,
equality, solidarity, and fraternity) and how they were conceived within ideologies
- Showing how within and between ideologies divergent, contradictory, and constantly
changing visions of freedom, equality, and solidarity have occurred
Questions and practical issues
- Limits to the number of details and facts that can be included to contextualize certain ideas
o Focus on freedom, equality, solidarity and fraternity is the first criteria
- The choice of thinkers and political groups
o Chosen whether or not they have made statements about political conflicts and
issues
o Always a distance between a text and the way it impacts reality
- Where do we begin our history?
o Beginning of the Renaissance
- What will we focus on?
o The predominantly Western, Eurocentric, and patriarchal character of classic
histories of ideas and ideologies
2
,Ideologies: back from never being gone?
Bell (1960s) announced that ideologies like Marxism, socialism, and classical liberalism were dead
- The main ideas of them could not be mobilized by society anymore
- People don’t want to engage in politics after the trauma of the last decades (Great
Depression, Stalinism, …)
- Would opt for a more pragmatic political stance that was suited for the welfare state that
took shape in 1950s
Post-political situation = situation in which oppositional ideologies, embodied by different parties
that competed for the voters’ favor within democracy, are replaced by a general consensus that
capitalism and the free functioning of the market are the basis of politics
Political events in the last decade contradict Bell’s statement
Chapter 1: The unraveling of the medieval order (1450-1650)
Scientific revolution -> threatened the teachings of the church
The European Renaissance
= various changes in politics, economics, the place of Christianity, and in thinking about man and
society, period where arts and letters flourished
- Origin: Italy, 14th century -> spread to the rest of Europe over next two centuries
- A rebirth from the Dark Ages + gradual demise of the feudal system, emergence of new
economic relations, introduction of knowledge from other continents
- Old world order got questioned -> the human society and its organization
The Italian Renaissance
- New view on man -> individual has an increasingly important role
- New scientific insights did NOT lead to immediate rejection of the Church
Didn’t want to approach the church head-on
Led to rediscovery of the classical works of antiquity -> Platonic idealism (laid the
groundwork for the Enlightenment)
Evolution of the Renaissance
- Became more empirical and future-oriented
- Man became the central anchor of thought
- Scientific discoveries -> enhanced human self-awareness
- Question of knowledge drove human curiosity forward -> broke passed the knowledge of
Christian cosmology
Developed by bourgeoisie sciences with new mathematical and empirical methods
3
, Scientific progress and the gradual emancipation
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519)
- Firenze leaders are situated in the past
- Personified the gradual transition from tradition-oriented to empirical attitude
Reflected a rapid growth of the scientific method -> embarked on the study of
nature
Nature could be studied -> small structures that makes the whole clear = direct
interpellation of nature
The division of political power
- Main cities flourished through trade
Run by aristocracies, had to tolerate class of merchants gaining power
Trade money was the core of power -> wealth and economic activity supported by
the Catholic church
o Before: prohibition of interest
o After: was accepted, borrowing money was a necessity so bankers were
accepted, luxury became an expression of success and was an important
drive for activities
o Also means trade was unproductive for a long time -> little was created or
produced (except food), little was systematically sold
Renaissance did break with the Church’s narrow medieval view of wealth
Dynamic view on economic activities developed
- Mercantilism = the sovereign had the task of developing the nation’s income
Relying on the growing power of the merchants
King would increase the commercial trade development of the nation + build on his
own power
- Foreign trade -> triumph of the absolute states of the Ancien Régime (16 th – 18th century)
- Slow process of secularization in economy, but also in politics
City-states no longer lead by tradition, Church or clergy, but by men with vision and
creativity
Politics became a work of art, art of statesmanship -> Il Principe by Machiavelli
Nicollo Machiavelli (1469-1527)
- Humanist and Latinist that broke with the traditional mirrors
Mirror for princes -> manual for future monarchs
Future monarch was presented with an idealized mirror on which to focus his
behavior
Writing one = a way to influence power, gain favor with kings and their courts
Contained encouragement for virtue, power as a burden to be borne (entrusted by
God)
- Interested in the factuality of how a society was concretely governed and how people
behaved
<-> describing moral or honorable behavior or how society should be led
- Rejection of morality as the basis of reflection on politics -> introduction of a more scientific
view on human social behavior
Relied on empiricism = knowledge comes from experience
4
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