Politics: The Basics, 4th Edition

Individualism versus collectivism In discussing concepts of power in Chapter 1 we saw that some writers tend to focus upon colle ...

good of individuals to that of race or nation, whilst some communists have similarly exalted the interests of party or class ove ...

theory of natural rights. It, too, represents a moral claim to equal political treatment on behalf of those for whom it speaks. ...

discrimination in favour of disadvantaged groups such as women and ethnic minorities such as ‘untouchables’ in India. ‘Equal rig ...

Positive and negative freedom One of the most used and controversial words in the political vocabulary is liberty or freedom. Be ...

By way of a heroic simplification which may help to get an initial grasp of the differences at stake, we may adopt Berlin’s term ...

‘pure form’ of each concept. Other writers, similarly, have thought of concepts as having an essential or root meaning. Most mod ...

doctors’ representatives consistently speak of ‘socialised medicine’ (boo!), thus identifying the measure with communism, rather ...

Websites http://www.psa.ac.uk/www/default.htm Political Studies Association (UK) WWW gateway see under Resources for particular ...

IDEOLOGIES This chapter is about the ‘isms’ of politics: conservatism, liberalism, socialism, Marxism, fascism and so on. It con ...

interprets ‘ideology’ as a way of political thinking typical of totali- tarian movements. To Popper an ideology is an all-encomp ...

from many points of view liberalism may fairly be described as the ideology of the capitalist era. As with many political terms ...

In contemporary liberal democracies it may be helpful to supple- ment this picture by emphasising the existence of a large democ ...

This was formalised in the theological and political doctrine of the ‘two swords’ – secular and clerical authority supporting ea ...

There was royal influence over Church appointments and churchmen often manned the royal administration. However, the power of th ...

interests of the German ‘Volk’ (people) more completely than any democratic process could do. It was also, in rhetoric at least, ...

workers’ syndicates could be represented. Spanish and Argentinian fascists have developed similar ideas and institutions. With t ...

of Hegel is turned upon its head’ (Engels, Fuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, Marx and Engels, 1962, Vol. II: ...

Russian Social Democrat Party (Bolshevik – ‘majority’ – faction) and later the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Marx and Eng ...

of these claimed, with varying degrees of justification, to have produced ideologically improved versions of Marxism of their ow ...