We Have a Firm Foundation 65offshoots such as rational choice) to absorb political theory,in toto, is not absent, but
rather dormant.
Ideological Political Theory
Ideology is one of the most contested conceptions of political theory. The gist of this
perspective is that political theory is and always has been (unless obscured by historical
or abstruse philosophical theories) a deeply practical mode of thought, which is
connected directly with the sphere of political action. Ideology, in other words, is the
truthabout political theory. In this perspective, when the political philosophers of the
pastwerewritingandthinkingaboutpolitics—Machiavelli, Hobbes, andLocke—they
were actually writing as ideologists. Thus, ideology, as a practical political engagement
trying to navigate the political realm, change perceptions, and construct public policy,
is therealityof political theory. Thus, ideology draws our attention, minimally, to
one important dimension of theory—the practical, engaged dimension—which can
occasionally and unexpectedly get ignored in the sheer welter of abstract theorizing.
However, in claiming this kind of role for itself, ideology not only conflicts quite
directly with some dominant perceptions of normative political theory, but also
with dimensions of historical and empirical theories.
The relation with normative theory is the most difficult and sensitive. After a brief
introduction concerning the concept ideology, the debate over the relation between
ideology and political theory will be analysed in terms of, first, attempts to fully integ-
rate ideology and political theory, in other words, to make them indistinguishable;
second, in terms of efforts to completely demarcate them. Both of these categories—
integration and segregation—have positive and negative poles, which therefore gives
rise to two further sub-categories for each response. Some of the arguments have
already have been touched upon in previous sections of Part One, thus the expositions
will be brief.
The concept of ideology is a comparatively new political word dating from the
early 1800s, and not in any recognizable form until the 1840s, and again not in any
popularized form till the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (see Vincent
1995, ch. 1). Its first use, in the writings of Destutt de Tracy, focused on the Enlight-
enment orientated idea of an ‘empirical science of ideas’. It had no immediate political
connotations. In Marx and Engels’ use, in the mid-nineteenth century, it took on a
definite political and critical sense. However, it was not until the twentieth century
that it really came into its own within popular political discussion. However, given
that political theory was also, etymologically, a novel term, dating from the mid-
to late-nineteenth century, neither concept can really claim great longevity, except
rhetorically. In many ways, despite its commonplace use in academic and ordinary
speech, it still remains the poor and often vilified cousin of political theory.
Thus, beginning first with thenegative integrationthesis. One of the first to
imply that political theory and political ideology could be fully integrated was Marx.
However, Marx, and the subsequent Marxist tradition, present a complex picture.