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Summary Lecture 2 - Article 1 - Jost – The end of the end of ideology

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Political psychology

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Tilburg University (UVT)

Summary of "the end of the end of ideology" by Jost (2006). The required reading for lecture 2 from the course political psychology. Good luck with the exam!

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Article 1 –
Jost – The end of the end of ideology

The “end of ideology” was declared by social scientists in the aftermath of WWII.
They argued that:
1. Ordinary citizens’ political attitudes lack the kind of stability, consistency, and
constraints that ideology requires;
2. Ideological constructs such as liberalism and conservatism lack motivational potency
and behavioral significance;
3. There are no major differences in content (or substance) between liberal and
conservative points of view;
4. There are few important differences in psychological processes that underlie liberal
versus conservative orientations

Liberal = open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values
Conservatism = politiek stroming die streeft naar het behoud van tradities

After those arguments researchers ignored the topic of ideology for many years.
However, current researchers provide strong grounds for returning to the study of ideology.
Studies reveal that there are meaningful political & psychological differences that covary with
ideological self-placement.

Situational variables – including system threat and mortality salience – and dispositional
variables – including openness and conscientiousness – affect the degree to which an
individual is drawn to liberal versus conservative leaders, parties and opinions.

,The end-of-ideology claims and their effect on psychology
Argument 1: Converse (1964): “Ordinary citizens’ political attitudes lack the kind of stability,
consistency, and constraints that ideology requires”
Argument 2: Ideological constructs such as liberalism and conservatism lack motivational
potency and behavioral significance;
Argument 3: There are no major differences in content (or substance) between liberal and
conservative points of view;
Argument 4: There are few/no important differences in psychological processes that underlie
liberal versus conservative orientations
After those arguments researchers ignored the topic of ideology for many years.

Jost – ideology is everywhere.
How id ideology defined?
Ideology (the term) originated in the late 18th century, when it was used mainly to refer to the
science of ideas, right now this is known as the sociology of knowledge.
Marx & Engels (1846/1970): ideology is
1. A relatively neutral sense in which ideology refers to any abstract or symbolic
meaning system used to explain (or justify) social, economic, or political realities,
and;
2. A pejorative sense (ongunstig gevoel) in which ideology denotes a web of ideas that
are distorted (verwrongen), contrary to reality, and subject to false consciousness.

Defining ideology away?
Most researchers have followed Converse (1964) they treat ideology as a relatively stable and
coherent (samenhangend) belief system within the mind of an individual.
Defining ideology as an internally consistent belief system made it easier to study but it also
made it less likely that ordinary people would pass the stringent test for demonstrating
ideological capacity.

All the definitions of ideology – also those written by nonpsychologists – are psychological in
nature.
They conceptualize ideology as: a belief system of the individual that is typically shared
with an identifiable group and that organizes, motivates, and gives meaning to political
behavior broadly construed.
Every definition of an ideological belief system carries with it the certain assumptions
concerning its degree of cognitive organization, affective and motivational qualities, and
capacity for instigating action (het aanzetten van actie).
These assumptions are reasonable but make it clear that whether ordinary people possess
ideology is in part a question about whether they satisfy the various criteria proposed by the
experts.

Shils (1968a): defined ideology in an especially narrow way, listing nine criteria for
distinguishing ideology. When your criteria are so narrow it is no surprise that the general
population is not up to this challenge of having an ‘ideology’.

In this article Jost adopts the definition of Tedin (1987) from political ideology: where
political ideology is an interrelated set of moral and political attitudes that possess
cognitive, affective (emotioneel), and motivational components. That is, ideology helps to
explain why people do what they do. This definition may be broad but it has the adventage of

, ordinary and professional usage in both psychology and political science. And it gives
ordinary people the change for being ideological.

Core & peripheral features of liberalism and conservatism
Liberal/left-wing and conservative/right-wing (but there are some issues with this distinction)

There are two meaningful differences between liberal and conservative ideologies:
1. Attitudes toward inequality and;
2. Attitudes toward social change versus tradition.

Liberal when: you seek to advance ideas as equatliy, aid to the disadvantaged, tolerance of
dissenters (andersdenkenden) and social reform, change.
Conservative when: you place particular emphasis on order, stability, the needs of business,
differential economic rewards, and defense of the status quo (the existing state of affairs,
especially regarding social or political issues.), tradition.

Conservatives consider people to be inherently unequal and due unequal rewards.
Liberals are equalitarian.

A cognitive-motivational analysis of political ideology
Adorno et al. (1950): “ideologies have for individuals, different degrees of appeal, a matter
that depends upon the individual’s needs and the degree to which these needs are being
satisfied or frustrated”. There is a wide range of dispositional (personality) and situational
(environmental) variables that are capable of affecting one’s psychological needs and
therefore one’s political orientation.

The approach of Jost: Human beings will always crave some form of ideology. At the same
time the approach of Jost is dynamic and motivational and can explain “liberal shifts” and
“conservative shifts” within individuals and populations as a function of changes in
cognitive-motivational needs, such as needs to manage uncertainty and threat.

It is often assumed that people hold the beliefs they do because of their parents, their party, or
their position in society and that it is rare for citizens to examine or alter those beliefs in
response to external events, even dramatic events such as 9/11.

Not all political attitudes are self-interested.

Revisiting the end-of-ideology claims
End-of-ideology theorists have claimed that ideologies such as liberalism and conservatism
lack (a) cognitive structure, (b) motivational potency, (c) substantive philosophical
differences, and (d) characteristic psychological profiles. Jost is going to tell us why they are
all not defensible in the current political climate.

1. Do people possess coherent ideological belief systems?
Converse: the vast majority of the American population would be hard-pressed to articulate
coherent ideological principles.
Converse used public opinion data (1950) to argue that only a small and highly sophisticated
layer of the populace is able/willing to resolve obvious inconsistencies among political beliefs
or to organize beliefs consistently according to philosophical definitions to left and right.
According to Converse Only ten percent of the public has a political belief system.

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