Ideology in modern politics - Essay Example

Running Header: IS IDEOLOGY OF ANY REAL RELEVANCE IN MODERN POLITICS? Is ideology of any real relevance in modern politics? BY YOU YOUR SCHOOL INFO HERE DATE HERE Is ideology of any real relevance in modern politics? Political ideology, determined by the beliefs and philosophies that encompass an individual’s goals and motivations, is less relevant in modern politics. An ideology is a wide-ranging set of principles and canons which permeate a society and assist people in navigating the multi-faceted aspects of their ideal political universe and create the foundation for understanding what constitutes legitimate social truths (James & Steger, 2010). Ideologies underpin the nature of social interactions in a society, determine the makeup of power relations, and even serve as the foundation for constructing foreign policy that is relevant toward the goals and objectives of a state. Ackerman (1994) states that a legitimate and acceptable government cannot be founded on the imaginative act of a political actor’s will, but on the collectiveness of values and beliefs in a society founded on substantial public discourse. To put it another way, if political theory is a toolbox that facilitates political action, then ideologies are the workbench on which legislation and policy are constructed to better satisfy the principles and values of a state and its citizenry (Andrews & Saward 2012). An established political system without a foundation of ideology will create socio-political dissent and, ultimately, opposition that will unravel the significance and sustainability of this political organisation. However, decisions based on empirical circumstances are guiding the norm of political decision-making and political behaviour today. Political ideologies are founded on the normative perspective of politics, or what should be within a political system. Normative questions include such interpretations as to whether social value systems are reflected in political policy or whether political actors are exercising moral judgments, as aligned with the people’s view of morality, when constructing policy and legislation. In a model political system, political parties reach various decisions in areas of governance based on the specific value orientations of citizens. Again, this is an idealised political system, however does this necessarily represent the tangible reality of modern politics? Morgenthau (1978) states that collective moral values are not applicable to the actions of a political party and an effort to do so is unrealistic. Realist theory recognises that morality must be filtered through legitimate situations and circumstances occurring within a nation state when attempting to ensure national security and longevity. This has been witnessed in the United States where the collective ideology of liberty and freedom, as mandated by social sentiment, was oppressed by political actors in an effort to depose domestic terrorism from the country after the terrorist attacks in New York’s World Trade Centre. In 2001, the American government launched the Patriot Act which gave political actors more authority to conduct wire-tapping on domestic citizens and engage in observation of citizen activities as a justification for ensuring national security and guaranteeing better safety of patriotic citizens. Circumstances, in this situation, forbade reaching decisions on how to curb terrorist activities based on fundamental and universal social attitudes related to liberty and freedom. The aforementioned example of the U.S. Patriot Act underpins a sense of nationalism. The United States maintains a strong sense of nationalism and patriotism toward the view that this nation is a hegemonic authority and founded on a significant sense of ethnocentrism. Whilst political parties were stepping on the liberties of its own citizens to ensure national permanence, former President George W. Bush consistently iterated an us versus them perspective when addressing citizens and media about what justified political decision-making associated with America’s war on terrorism, both domestically and internationally (Leudar & Marsland, 2004). Whilst widespread protests about expanding government authorities to subjugate its citizens were experienced in this country, political actors were less concerned with the normative principles and values of society in an effort to ensure national survival and maintain the sense of pride and belief of American superiority over other regimes throughout the world. The government, rather than being subservient to the dominant ideologies of citizens, utilised rhetoric to gain support for an anti-terror, patriot-oriented, self-interest serving political will that was relevant and appropriate for a minority rather than the normative set of values held by the majority of U.S. society. Hence, whilst the ideology of most liberal-minded American citizens was about promoting equitable, democratic decision-making in which government promotes liberty and freedom, the legitimate circumstances of a changing domestic and international environment founded political activity and policy construction. This same set of political actions was also witnessed in the United Kingdom during the 2008-2010 recession where the government continued to allocate funds for bailing out struggling banks that posed a legitimate and credible threat to national permanence. Whilst the UK government had built many socially-oriented policies as a means of improving the lifestyle of struggling citizens, the government moved these funds into bailout packages (totalling billions upon billions of Pounds) without consideration of the social ideologies of citizens as primary considerations. Government re-allocation of taxpayer-provided economic capital was deemed as a necessity by the UK political system and conducted despite citizen dissent, iterating that ideology maintains little relevance in real-world, modern political decision-making. Prior to this recession, in the UK free market-oriented society, if government had provided capital to businesses in this fashion, citizen dissent would likely have been significant and political accountability demanded by protesting or even violent citizens. However, political actors were diligent in reinforcing that without government bailouts, the entire national economy would have crumbled, leaving the country in a poor national security position. Hence, once again, the ideologies of UK citizens, in terms of providing, first and foremost, social security and corporate autonomy were swept under the proverbial rug in an effort to sustain the UK’s national survival. The constraints of rational design associated with domestic and international events placed the stability of the national economy as the highest order of political interests without short-term obligation of loyalty to UK citizen ideologies. Whilst the normative view of politics in the study of political science might presume political actors illustrate a sense of moral integrity, modern political decision-making has consistently defied this deontological duty toward satisfying the ideologies of citizens. This can be witnessed today in the escalating tensions occurring between Russia and Crimea. Vladimir Putin views adoption of Western values as a threat to Russian authority and principles and the government has no intention of returning Crimea to the Ukraine. Russia’s sense of nationalism underpins attempting to depose further Western interests from pervading the strategic geopolitical influence of this region. In a cooperative effort, nations across the world have begun imposing sanctions on Russia in an effort to incentivise an end to hostilities in the region, citing that Russia is oppressing the sovereign rights of Crimea and the United Kingdom and has violated international law through forceful annexation of Crimea. However, through this sanctioning effort, cooperating nations are making political decisions that are questionable in their own morality under the ideology of securing sovereignty for nation states. The West has also violated the same international law by engineering conflict in such nations as Iraq and Libya in their efforts to curb growing threat of emerging or established terrorist cells. Once again, whilst the ideology of citizens of Western nations might reject war-related strategies and stipulate equitable sovereignty for nations promoting a more democratic political system, circumstances compel political actors and regimes to alter decision-making to contest moral ideologies in favour of securing a nation’s interests; both economic and in terms of security. Few could argue that whilst Russia is being criticised (and threatened) by many Western nations for violation of international law, this hypocrisy likely angers many citizens who believe that sanctions such as those imposed on Russia only escalate international tensions and do not promote a sense of ethics and morality in political decision-making. All of the aforementioned examples illustrate, clearly, that ideology is not largely relevant in modern politics. To secure a nation’s longevity, security and interests, political actors weigh the empirical (what actually is) with the normative and will often defy normative ideologies to promote what a state would consider as rational self-interests. More often than not, normative ideologies are abandoned in favour of responding to real-world circumstances even if the consequence of this strategy is creating social dissent. Whilst it might be argued that political actors balance the empirical with the normative in an effort to attempt to satisfy citizen ideologies, modern political behaviours quickly abandon normative social dogma if it is perceived that national security and national survival are threatened by certain modern events. Hence, this essay concludes that ideologies, whilst always considered and measured in a model political system in modern times, are really not fundamental to the true decision-making rationale that underpins political activity. Political actors, as shown in the examples of the U.S. war on terrorism, UK government bailouts of private organisations and the Russian/Crimea conflict, will, today, be much more willing to reject morality and social sentiment of what should occur in politics to better service preserving a sense of nationalism and national defence. References Ackerman, B. (1994). Political liberalisms, The Journal of Philosophy, 91(7), pp.364-386. Andrews, G. & Saward, M. (2005). Living political ideas. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. James, P. & Steger, M. (2010). Globalisation and culture: ideologies of globalism. London: Sage. Leudar, I. & Marsland, V. (2004). On membership categorisation: us, them and doing violence in political discourse, Discourse and Society, 15(2/3), pp.243-266. Morgenthau, H.J. (1978). Politics among nations: the struggle for power and peace. Retrieved 14 February 2015 from https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/morg6.htm Read More