PROCESSES
This chapter
examines how people come to identify with particular kinds of
political groups. It analyses the variety of politically significant
groups and the nature of the divisions between them. It considers the
significance of these divisions for political stability and change and
how technological and external factors affect the nature of the balance
of power within and between societies. In considering the processes
that result in stability or change, we discuss some of the most potent
forces at work in the modern political world – those of class, religion,
ethnicity, race and national identity.
Political identity
One important clue to the ways in which people identify themselves
politically is to consider the names of political parties. Many of the
names refer to the ‘ideologies’ which we have already considered –
liberal, socialist, communist, conservative. What is striking, however,
is the number of names which refer specifically to sectional groups
within a state’s population: national – Scottish National Party,
Inkatha (‘Spear of the [Zulu] Nation’); ethnic/racial – Malaysian
Chinese Association; religious – Christian Democrat, Jan Sangh