Understanding Politics

POL 102

BA Course (School Core undergraduate)

Fall Semester 2015

Dr. Azər Babayev

School of Public and International Affairs
(SPIA)
ADA University
POLITICAL IDEAS
AND IDEOLOGIES
 The nature of ideology

• In the social-scientific sense, ideology is a coherent

set of ideas which provide a basis for organized
political action

• Central features:
1) Account of existing power relationships
2) A model of a defined future
3) An outline of how political change can and should be
brought about

• Competing definitions: Marxist, Liberal, Conservative

Liberalism
 Liberalism

• Key ideas: individualism, freedom, reason, equality,

toleration, consent, constitutionalism

• Classical liberalism: a commitment to an extreme form of

individualism; belief in‘negative’ liberty

• Modern liberalism: characterized by a more sympathetic

attitude towards state intervention; a broader
‘positive’liberty which is linked to the personal
development and flourishing of the individual
Conservatism
 Conservatism
• Key ideas: tradition, pragmatism, human imperfection,
organicism, hierarchy, authority, property

• Paternalistic conservatism: often linked to the idea of

‘compassionate conservatism’ – consistent with ideas of
hierarchy and duty > Disraeli’s One-Nation principle

• The New Right: Can be traced back to 1970s – born out of

apparent failure of Keynesian social democracy and
concern about social breakdown
- Neoliberalism > economic strand
- Neoconservatism > social strand
Socialism
 Socialism

• Key ideas: community, fraternity, social equality,

need, social class, common ownership

• Socialism developed as a reaction to industrial

capitalism and became associated with the interests of
the growing working classes. Its goal was to abolish the
capitalist market economy and replace it with a society
constructed on the basis of common ownership

• There are many strands of socialism, ranging from

Marxism through to social democracy
 Other Ideological Traditions

• Fascism

• Anarchism

• Green politics

• Cosmopolitanism

• Feminism
Feminism – the social construction
of gender
• Fascism

• Anarchism

• Feminism

• Green politics

• Cosmopolitanism
 Feminism

• Feminism > (critical) point of departure

– Politics > a male-centered and -dominated
practice and discipline
Feminism: Women in Government
 Feminism - II

• A typical feminist concern

– Observation
• Less than 10 % of the world’s heads of state are
women
– Question
• why is this the case and how might this affect the
structure and practice of politics
– Suggestion
• If we put on gendered lenses, we get quite a
different view of politics
 Feminism - III

• What is ‘gender’?
– A set of socially constructed characteristics
describing what men and women ought to be
– Two ‘ideal types’ of characteristics
• Masculine characteristics > Strength, rationality,
independence, protector, and public
• Feminine characteristics > Weakness,
emotionality, relational, protected, and private
 Feminism - IV

• What is ‘gender’?
– Inequality of masculine and feminine
characteristics
• Assigning more positive value to masculine
characteristics than to feminine ones
• In politics, the states > often legitimated in terms of
masculine characteristics: striving for power and
autonomy, protecting its citizens form dangers
 Feminism - V

• Gender dualism in society

– Dividing necessary social activities between
men and women
• E.g., since women are associated with the private
sphere, seen as ‘natural’ to be ‘caregivers’
• Men’s association with the public space makes
them naturally ‘breadwinners’
– Feminism > Questioning the naturalness of
these dichotomized distinctions
• with consequences – for women, men, and for
politics
Feminism – Gender in Politics

• Relationship between knowledge and

power
– Knowledge has been created by men, and it
is about men
– Feminist focus on social relations, particularly
gender relations
• Seeing a political system constituted by socially
constructed gender hierarchies which contribute
to gender subordination
Feminism: Gender in Politics - II

• Relationship between knowledge and

power (II)
– Gender hierarchies at the center of
examination of politics
• To understand (at the micro-level) how the lives of
individuals (especially marginalized ones) affect
and are affected by politics
 Feminism - Theories

• Liberal feminism
– Focus on the subordinate position of
women in politics & investigating the causes
of this subordination within a positivist
framework
• What might a state with more women in positions
of power look like?
• Whether there is a relationship between gender
inequality and state’s use of violence?
 Feminism - Theories

• Critical feminism
– Focus on the ideational and material
manifestations of gendered identities and
gendered power in politics
– Emancipatory – to identify existing power
relations with the intention of changing them
 Feminism – Theories

• Feminist constructivism
– Focus on the way that ideas about gender
shape and are shaped by global politics
– Gender as an institution/construct that
codifies power at every level of global politics
Non-western ideological trends

• Postcolonialism

• Religious fundamentalism

• Asian values

• Beyond dualism
 Thank you!

• Questions & comments?

 Up next

• Politics and the State