From time to time, I am reading
about political theory, ideology and political communication. One of the most
fascinating moments of history for me is the French revolution. Its legacy in the form of ideas had a significant influence on the process of transformation of societies from agricultural and feudal to industrial and democratic ones. The legacy of the revolution was also about the
formation of civic and “classical” ideologies of liberalism,
socialism and conservatism.
One was an insightful article
explaining the fundamental differences between these three is written by James
Alexander who is working as Assistant Professor at the Department of Political
Science at Bikent University. He argues that the study of ideologies is often
the case of “coterie activity” where ideologies are mostly studied by
researchers in terms of collection. Meaning that studies of ideologies have
been focusing on aspects such as “general idea” or “hierarchy” of the ideologies. In academic and
other literature, it is often the case to find categorisations of ideologies by
logical order such as liberalism, socialism and conservatism or
conservatism, socialism, liberalism. What Alexander questions here is why there
is a lack of explanation about such orders? Why are ideologies divided and presented
as they are?
Alexander argues that the logical
order and division is liberalism, socialism and conservatism by focusing on the
notion of the individual and “debt” as the criterion. In this case, debt is used as criterion, as a rule for
which a judgment can be applied to and based on. He writes that “the ideologies share many core, adjacent and peripheral concepts, but
they arrange and order them in different ways.” The differences and
similarities can be presented in the following way regarding the notions of the
individual and debt:
Individual
Liberalism: Society
consists of individuals.
Socialism: Society does
not consist of individuals; it expresses the sum of connections and relationships
in which individuals find themselves.
Conservatism: Society does
not consist of individuals; it does not even express the sum of connections and
relationships in which individuals find themselves: it is the expression of the
connections and relationships which emerged from a past that is no longer
present and have to be conveyed to a future that is not yet present.
Debt
Liberalism: Debt to the self.
Socialism: Debt to self as constituted by the society.
Conservatism: Debt to society, history, collective, traditions.
Regarding the mentioned three
Alexander writes that each of the ideologies is enlightened, critical and takes
order seriously. Also, each is critical of a particular order in relation to
which it posits itself as having a superior criterion. For more reading please
follow this in link in order to
download the article.
References
Alexander, James. “Major
Ideologies of Liberalism, Socialism and Conservatism”. Political Studies 2015. Vol 63. Publishing date: 2014-06-02.
Downloaded: 2017-03-05. Website: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9248.12136/abstract
