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Important Political Ideologies
Last Updated On: 06-Nov-2021Posted On: 06-Nov-2021
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The expression “political concepts” refers to a set of concepts essential to any serious reflection on political life. This set includes authority, democracy, equality, freedom, justice, power and further concepts that represent fundamental political values and principles. Indeed, dictionaries of political thought in no small part consist of entries on terms that signify such central concepts. An expanded list would comprise conservatism, socialism, representation, the separation of powers, the welfare state, multiculturalism, public opinion and numerous other concepts in the realm of ideologies and institutions. They, too, form important building blocks of modern political thought. Those who have explicitly theorized political concepts in recent times, however, have claimed that we should view definitions of these concepts as contributions to ongoing debates. Instead of assuming that such concepts can be clearly characterized and delimited, they have studied how the meanings and uses of words that refer to crucial concepts are frequently subject to dispute. The way that someone explains a concept such as democracy or justice is rarely politically neutral. Political concepts are contested; opposing groups invoke them but put forward different definitions and seek to promote their interpretations at the expense of others. According to this view, political concepts are political in a double sense: they constitute central ideas, issues or arrangements of great political relevance, but the meanings of the concepts are topics of perpetual argument. Students of the political vocabulary will therefore encounter “microcosms” of disagreement and rivalry within concepts (Connolly 1993: 225). We need a shared stock of concepts to reflect upon political principles, institutions, movements, or tendencies, but these very concepts tend also to be drawn into and affected by our conflicts. Political concepts are not simply used to describe political life, but significant sites of political disagreement.
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