The Role of Political Ideologies in Politics
| Date | 01 April 1959 |
| Author | Jan Magnus Jansson |
| Published date | 01 April 1959 |
| DOI | 10.1177/004711785900101102 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
THE
ROLE OF POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES
IN POLITICS
PROFESSOR
JAN
MAGNUS JANSSON
Professor
of
Political Science University
of
Helsinki
Alecture delivered at the London School
of
Economics, May,
1958
ANYONE who, in the course
of
alecture, proposes using a
vague and ambiguous word, should first make it clear to his
aUdience
what meaning he
is
intending to
give
it. In
my
title today
Ihave availed myself
of
at least one such word. Like so many
others commonly used in the social sciences
field,.
the term "ideo-
logy"
is
not often clearly defined. Among students in this country,
~he
word, Iam told, has evil connotations: it has asuggestion about
It
of something nebulous, and speculative, something
continental-
which should never be permitted to make its way across the Channel.
That this suspicion may even have something in it, Iwould not think
to deny. But let
us
not, or not
at
least to begin with, admit into
our definition
of
ideology any such restrictively negative and un-
savoury implication. Let
us
first take alook, and see to what extent
the word deserves its nasty reputation. In this lecture at any rate
Ishall endeavour to use it in asense as wide and at the same time as
neutral as Ican.
By
an "ideology", then, Ishall mean any set
of
ideas or opinions
on which an individual or group may base, or profess to base, his
or their political activity, and which, taken together, form in some
sense
aunitary whole. Mere isolated or scattered ideas or opinions
on matters political cannot possibly be called an ideology. In so
far, however, as there does exist an element or interlinking between
them, the term can indeed be applied.
What sort
of
alinking? In the case
of
an elaborated philosophical
~Ystem
the unity
of
the whole
is
provided for
by
some fundamental
idea or approach, reflected in the several particular propositions
derived from that basic idea. This will
be
found to hold true at
least in arelative sense, even
if
it
be
easy enough to point to incon-
sistencies in almost any such so-called system. Attempts at the
bUilding
of
such comprehensive theoretical structures from what
we
know
of
political phenomena are, generally speaking, what text-
bOOks
in
the history
of
political ideas are all about.
It
is
the custom
With
such books to offer areview
of
the great classics
of
political
thought, beginning with the works
of
Plato and Aristotle and finish-
ing,
say, with Russell
or
Laski. Iam far indeed from contesting
the value
of
such concentration upon these top-level examples
of
Political writing. Particularly when looked
at
from the point
of
View
of
apurely philosophical analysis, they arc probably about the
only truly worth-while subject for research. Political philosophy
is
not however necessarily the same thing as political science; and the
529 8
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