This article examines the nature of ideology, specifically political ideology, and shows the views on the ideology of some of the most important social scientists and philosophers. For a detailed overview of some of the most important particular ideologies see these articles in sociopedia: Liberalism, Conservative Ideology, Socialism, Anarchism, Fascism, Liberal Feminism, Radical Feminism, and Communitarianism.

At the start it is important to emphasize that although the term "ideology" is usually used as a synonym for "political ideology", ideology can be used to denote a set of ideas of how areas other than politics should be organized, so there are linguistic ideologies, artistic ideologies, and other. 

              Brief History of the Origin and Use of the Term Ideology

The term “ideology” was first introduced by French philosopher and economist Destutt de Tracy, in 1796 at the Institut Nationale in Paris. De Tracy coined the term ‘ideology’ by combining Greek words for science (ologie) and ideas (eidos), with the intention to create a name for science that would explore the creation, use, and significance of ideas. De Tracy and his fellow idéologues conceptualized ideology as a rationalist and scientific project, inspired by ideas of Enlightenment, that would liberate people and counteract the metaphysical speculations and prejudices about the world and humanity.  To achieve that they wanted to create a system of national education that would be able to transform French society. In this sense, ideology started as a positive concept but was soon turned into a negative one, first with Napoleon Bonaparte, who criticized ideology and idéologues, as he saw them as a threat to his power. After that, Marx and Engels used ideology as a negative concept for the first time in their book The German Ideology (1845/6). The concept of ideology continued to be used as a primarily negative concept for a century, not only by Marxists but also by those who opposed Marxism. In the latter half of the 20th century, most social scientists started using the term ideology as a neutral concept, one that can be applied to all political ideas and worldviews.

                                 What is (Political) Ideology

Martin Seliger, in the book Ideology and Politics (1976), defined an ideology as “a set of ideas by which men posit, explain and justify the ends and means of organized social action, irrespective of whether such action aims to preserve, amend, uproot or rebuild a given social order". This approach views ideology as an action-orientated system of thought, that can be analyzed impartially and objectively, without making statements about whether a particular ideology is beneficial or not, represent truth or not, is used as a tool of oppression, or is a source of liberation. This definition of ideology reveals that there are three aspects of any ideology: 1) it gives a statement about the current state of society; 2) it promotes a view of what a perfect (or at least the best possible) society should look like; and 3) it presents a way how to get from the current state to that perfect/best state.

We can divide individual ideologies into those who have elaborate and detailed explanations and/or plans pertaining to each of these three aspects of ideology, and to those ideologies that are more vague and have only general statements about some, or all three aspects of ideology. 

                  Ideology, Socialization, and Propaganda

Socialization and propaganda are the two most widespread and important means and methods of spreading and strengthening ideologies. Socialization is a long-term process of imbuing childer and adults with values that support the dominant ideological and political system in a society. The most common vehicles of socialization are family, educational institutions, religion, media, literature and etc. The goal of socialization is to integrate individuals into wider society via the passive adoption of dominant values, as they are presented to be rational, and self-evident. Propaganda, on the other hand, refers to open and deliberate methods of influence and persuasion with the intention that the audience of propaganda actively adopt new ideas, or strengthen belief in ideas that they already had. The most important tools of propaganda are books, pamphlets, public rallies, media, movies, etc. Propaganda tends to provoke strong emotional and intellectual reaction and often entails manipulation and deception.   

            Ideology on Cultural, Social, and Individual Levels.

Ideology functions on three distinct levels - societal, cultural, and individual. On a cultural level ideology represents a more or less coherent set of ideas, beliefs, norms, values, symbols, and practical plans for the organization of society. As with other cultural patterns, like music, literature, science, art, philosophy, etc., ideology can spread through one society, or can disseminate to other societies through cultural diffusion or by political imposition by stronger societies/countries. Ideologies are disseminated through various cultural products - novels, plays, comics, movies, newspapers, television, other electronic media, art, poetry, science, and even jokes. 

On a social level ideologies function through the state and its organs, classes, institutions, organizations, associations, mass movements, and small groups. The state and its organs (courts, police, military, government, legislation) and other organizations and groups use different resources to enhance their ideology and combat other ideologies. Those who are in power mostly use resources of political power, propaganda, money, and physical violence. Those who tend to uproot those who have power and instill themself into power are not able to use political power but can use all other resources - propaganda, money, and physical violence (in cases of mass protests or revolutions).  

Political parties are usually seen as the focal point for the development and propagation of ideologies. Political parties usually have three main goals: 1) gathering more supporters, members, and voters for their ideological program; 2) competing in elections in order to win positions of direct political power; 3) implementing policies that reflect their ideological views. Political parties in some countries are forced to build short or long-term coalitions, with other political parties or other influential collective actors, in order to gain political power. Often those coalitions are built based on the ideological closeness of participants in coalitions. 

Other collective social actors, who do not directly try to gain positions of political power, also often possess, spread and try to implement an ideology. Education institutions, from elementary schools to universities, engage in open or tacit ideological socialization and/or propaganda. Churches and other religious organizations can also be a vessel for ideological indoctrination and socialization. Educational and religious organizations usually propagate dominant ideological dogma, but can sometimes be a place for spreading subversive ideology. Governmental institutions like courts, military, police, and local and state bureaucracy in some countries demand of their employees ideological adherence to official state ideology, and propagate that ideology to wider society. Workers' unions are also often ideologically based. While some organizations of the civil sector don't engage in politics and ideology, there are a lot of NGOs, think tanks, foundations, and other civil organizations that more or less openly engage in the ideological struggle - NRA, Greenpeace, NAACP, ACLU, Brookings Institution, Pew Research Center, Rand corporation - just to name a few.        

How ideology works on a level of an individual is best explained using the concept of Attitude. Attitude refers to an individual’s evaluation of something (object, person, place, idea, art, etc.). Something can be evaluated, to varying degrees, as being positive or negative, good or bad, favorable or unfavorable. Something that is evaluated is known as an attitude object. Evaluation of an attitude object can sometimes be below the level of an individual’s conscious awareness. An individual tends to respond to an attitude object with some degree of positivity or negativity. Once formed attitude is expressed through the cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to an attitude object.

The cognitive aspect of attitudes toward any particular ideology can be expressed through understanding and possessing knowledge about it, being able to explain to someone else that ideology, and being able to debate about the merits of that ideology. Of course, not all people possess deep knowledge and understanding of different ideologies, or even about ideologies that they themselves support.

Feelings, emotions, and physiological responses to a particular ideology constitute affective aspects of someone's experience with that ideology. People tend to express positive emotions toward policies, people, and values that are connected to the ideology they support and negative emotions toward things that are connected to the ideology they resent or detest. 

The behavioral aspect of someone’s attitude toward a specific ideology refers to acquired behavioral patterns and willingness to act in situations when that behavior or action can support that person’s ideology, or give resistance to the ideology that that person doesn’t support. All three aspects of an individual’s attitude toward an ideology don’t have to be at the same level of intensity and development, that is, someone can have, for example, a big emotional (affective) reaction to a despised ideology, without possessing any knowledge (the cognitive aspect of an attitude) about that ideology.   

                                   Ideology and Religion

The end of the 18th and 19th centuries are usually seen as an "age of ideology", because the majority of the most important particular ideologies, like conservatism, liberalism, socialism, feminism, and anarchism, have been shaped in that period into well-rounded and defined systems of political ideas. This is somewhat misleading because some of those ideologies already had their roots in earlier centuries, and because political philosophy, as a precursor to political ideologies, existed as an intellectual endeavor as far as Greek philosophers and continued to develop over centuries. The period that is seen as the "age of ideology" is more important for ideologies as it is the first period in which political ideas served as a source of widespread political mobilization and as the impetus for the formation of political parties and other political movements. The reason for this change is that in that period religion started to lose its significance in creating the all-encompassing worldview and stopped being a source of control over individual beliefs and behavior. Secularization of society and politics created a space for political ideas, unrelated to religion, to become the most important source of individual worldview and ethics, beliefs and convictions, and behavior. The most important difference between ideology and religion is that every religion is based on the belief in non-empirical sacred knowledge, while ideologies are focused on statements about empirical reality. Religion and ideology can overlap, in instances where some ideologies, like Christian conservativism or Islamism, use religion as a source of their political ideology, or when some ideology becomes so dogmatic that it becomes a "quasi-religion" whose tenets and leaders are beyond question and reproach.

                      Classifications of Different Ideologies

The first, and the most widely known and used classification is the unidimensional divide to the left and right. This distinction dates back to the meeting of the French legislative assembly in 1789, during the French Revolution when monarchists sat on the right side and proponents of the revolution sat on the left side of the building. Today ideologies like communism and anarchism are considered to be at the end of the left side and Nazism and Islamism at the end of the right side of the ideological spectrum within this classification, with all other ideologies positioned in between those two positions.

In the 20th century, there have been many attempts to develop a more nuanced classification of various ideologies, with most of them being two-dimensional classifications. One of the first two-dimensional classifications of ideologies was proposed by British psychologist Hans Eysenck in the book The Psychology of Politics (1954). He introduced two factors, which he named "Radicalism" (R-factor) and "Tender-Mindedness" (T-factor).

American social psychologist Milton Rokeach, in the book The Nature of Human Values (1973) introduced two dimensions by which all ideologies can be classified. The two dimensions are “equality” and “freedom”. A similar classification was introduced in 1970 by American politician David Nolan, where one dimension (presented on the horizontal axis) represented “economic freedom” and another dimension (presented on the vertical axis) “personal freedom”. This classification of ideologies was later adopted by the website The Political Compass and has become very popular with a wider audience.

American political scientist and sociologist Ronald Inglehart, together with Christian Welzel, created the so-called Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World. They classified all the countries from which they had empirical data on a chart with two dimensions: 1) traditional values ​​- secular rational values ​​and 2) values ​​of self-preservation versus the values ​​of self-realization.

                             Classical Marxism on Ideology

German philosopher and economist Karl Marx divided society into two spheres - base and superstructure. Social relations of production form the economic „base“ of society which has a key influence on the shaping of the social „superstructure“ (Überbau). The social superstructure consists of social consciousness, legal and political way of organizing society, art, ideology, etc. When, at some historical moment, the development of material forces of production exceeds the existing relations of production, then conditions are created for a change in the relations of production, and this leads to their sudden change. Marx calls such sudden changes "social revolutions." After the transformation of the relations of production, gradually, but inevitably, the entire social superstructure is reshaped. The speed and degree of change in the social superstructure cannot be precisely determined, because there is ideological resistance to changes in the social superstructure. 

The relations of production in capitalism create a specific type of social superstructure that aims to preserve the reproduction of such relations of production. Hence, in addition to direct political control, the capitalist class creates an ideology that aims to justify and legitimize existing relations of production and capitalist exploitation and domination. The capitalist class, with its ideology that uses the ideas of equality and freedom, achieves to disguise, to other members of society, the basis of exploitation and domination on which that class rests. However, equality, freedom, and civil rights are an illusion, because the worker is neither free nor equal to the capitalist. The worker is not free, because he is forced to work for the capitalist in order to survive. The worker is not equal either, because all political power and ideological narrative are created, and held by the capitalist class. That is why Marx sees ideology as a „false consciousness“, that is, a false image of society and the world. Marx believes that capitalist control over political power and ideological narrative will not be able to prevent the collapse of the capitalist system when the contradictions within the social base become too great.

One of the key consequences of the capitalist relations of production and the ideology that defends them is what Marx calls "alienation." Alienation occurs when workers in capitalism begin to view the things they produce as foreign objects. They see goods as something foreign to them and that has the power to control people. „Productive labor“ is the primary and most important human activity, in which people truly express their own being. When people give up the products of their labor to place them on the market as goods, they then lose a part of themselves. Workers are alienated not only from the things they produce but also from the whole system - economic flows and impersonal market forces of supply and demand, as well as from the ruling ideology and institutions that support capitalist domination. Eventually, workers become alienated from themselves. Religion is one of the main examples of human alienation and, as a value and as an institutional system, it plays a crucial role in protecting and justifying capitalist domination. Marx believes that "man makes religion, religion does not create man." People attribute their own powers to supra-empirical forces and thus become alienated from themselves. Since religion is the most important source of alienation, people must abolish religion and religious illusions and myths, so they can become truly free.

Russian philosopher Georgi Plekhanov expanded Marx's simple dichotomy of the economic base and social superstructure, by creating a new theoretical scheme - a five-step scheme in which there are complex deterministic relations between each of the spheres: 1) productive forces, 2) economic relations; 3) socio-political organization; 4) social psychology and 5) ideologies. It is the productive forces that condition economic relations, which further determine the socio-political order. Social psychology derives partly directly from economic relations, and partly from the socio-political system. Ideologies are created by reflecting social psychology.

Hungarian philosopher György Lukács, in the book History and Class Consciousness (1971, in German 1923) states that bourgeois science constantly observes phenomena from the point of view of the individual and that such a view cannot produce knowledge of totality, but only fragmentary knowledge. That is why bourgeois science divides totality into several special sciences. on the other hand, Lukács intended to create a philosophical basis for the establishment of true revolutionary class consciousness, so he wants to overcome Kant's view according to which it is not possible to achieve objective knowledge of reality. Social and historical facts gain real meaning only when they are integrated into the whole (totality). Only subjects, who are totals themselves, can understand totality, and in modern society, total subjects can only be classes. The category of totality is the essence of the revolutionary principle in science. The ultimate goal of socialism is the attitude towards totality, that is, society that is understood as a process, through which every aspect of the struggle gains its revolutionary significance.

The dialectic of history as a totality realizes its self-consciousness in the class consciousness of the proletariat, while the party is the one that should be the link between people and history. The proletariat is both the subject and the object of history. As such, he understands the real nature of social relations and processes, as well as his own role in them. Marxism is a revolutionary practice through which the individual becomes a subject, not an object of historical processes. The fate of the revolution, in the age of the economic crisis of capitalism, depends on the ideology, that is, the class consciousness of the proletariat itself. The proletariat must become aware of its class consciousness, and that class consciousness is based on the historical task of the working class - the revolutionary struggle and the building of a communist society. The proletariat must not use ideology only as a means of seizing power but as an "internal unity of theory and practice." 

Swedish sociologist Göran Therborn In the book What Does the Ruling Class do When it Rules?: State Apparatuses and State Power under Feudalism, Capitalism and Socialism  (1978), used the categories of systems analysis to give a Marxist understanding of state power and the state apparatus. In the process, he constructed a systematic typology of differences between the feudal, capitalist, and socialist states. In analyzing the strategies that the ruling class pursues in capitalism in order to rule, he concluded that the ruling class uses mostly state apparatus and economic exploitation and domination as ruling strategies, rather than ideology. His next book, The Ideology of Power and the Power of Ideology (1980) represents a further development of the ideas of the previous one, and in it, much more attention is paid to the issue of ideology. Therborn understands ideology very broadly, viewing it as an unconscious psychodynamic process that shapes consciousness and gives meaning to individuals and social groups through the symbolic order of language codes.

                     Ideology and Sociology of Knowledge

German sociologist Karl Mannheim is best known for his approach to the sociology of knowledge. He studied this topic in the article "The Problem of the Sociology of Knowledge" (1925) and the book Ideology and Utopia (1936, in German 1929). Mannheim defined the sociology of knowledge as the study of “the relationship between human thought and the conditions of existence in general.” The two main theses of Mannheim's sociology of knowledge are: 1) the validity of the practical application of knowledge is relative to its capacity to provide legitimacy to social order; 2) the social conditionality of knowledge (knowledge that standard methodological criteria assess as valid) can be examined by examining whether the practical application of that knowledge reproduces and/or creates the standards themselves, through which (standards) the validity of that knowledge is assessed.

His approach was not positivist but based on phenomenology and historicism. Phenomenology questions the applicability of formal logic and, instead, seeks to understand intrinsically how individuals experience the world and how that image affects their social experience. Historicism emphasizes the view that different ways of knowing are characteristic of the historical circumstances in which they arose.

One of the key concepts of Mannheim's sociology of knowledge is "worldview" (Weltanschauung), a term that denotes the set of all ideas that exist in a historical period or in a social group. The worldview is in a constant process of creation and change. The ideas that make up the worldview represent a system whose parts are reciprocally interconnected, and thus, the worldview represents more than the simple sum of its constituent parts. Each idea within the worldview can be analyzed separately to better understand the whole. Mannheim singles out three ways in which one can approach the meaning that exists within the worldview of society: 1) objective meaning - intrinsic meaning that is explored objectively, without entering into one's motives; 2) expressive meaning - extrinsic or symbolic meaning, which pays attention to the motives of the actors; and 3) documentary meaning - is the product of the interpretation of external observers. Documentary meaning is the best basis for an analysis focused on understanding how an individual idea fits into a broader worldview.

Mannheim's approach to ideology stems from his sociology of knowledge. Meinheim's sociology of cognition is largely based on a critique of Marx's view of ideology and other patterns of the social superstructure. Marx believed that the real (material) social conditions of existence shape the social superstructure. Ideology, as part of a social superstructure, represents a conscious attempt by the ruling class to create a false image of reality, to protect its own power and interests. On the other hand, Mannheim believed that certain social groups create distorted images of reality without the conscious intention to establish hegemonic control, instead, such images are a product of the living conditions of that group, and therefore reflect their image of the world and protect their interests. The sources of such ideologies can be different, from economic to generational, racial, gender, etc. Ideology, in his opinion, is a type of worldview that uses the past to create a distorted image of the present.

He also introduces the difference between “particular ideologies” and “total ideologies”. Particular ideologies represent the values ​​and interests of particular groups and were created to present a distorted picture of reality; while large socio-historical groups have total ideologies and they were not created to present a distorted picture of reality. Marx dealt only with particular ideologies, while Mannheim mostly studied total ideologies. Mannheim distinguishes ideologies from utopias since utopias create a picture of reality by imagining an idealized picture of the future. However, the distinction between ideology and utopia is often blurred, because the success or failure of groups representing certain utopias affects whether they will be transformed into ideologies. Utopias encourage action and social change, so if a group representing a utopia comes to power, then its system of ideas ceases to be a utopia and becomes an ideology. The task of the sociology of knowledge is to determine whether a system of ideas, be it ideology or utopia, contains a distorted picture of reality and to examine the causes that led to the creation of such a distorted picture. The main source of ideologies is the mutual struggle between different ideas and groups that represent them.

Mannheim expressed fear that in the modern world, both ideologies and utopias are losing their strength, however, he had high hopes for the autonomous intelligentsia, as a group that has the potential to generate new ideologies. In modern society, the intelligentsia has become separated from its own class position, so it forms an autonomous group whose views of the world are constantly changing. This allows it to join and support different ideologies and political parties. Mannheim believed that the intelligentsia has the ability and mandate to understand the true condition of society and to interpret it for the rest of society; and that it has a special role in finding the right solutions, under which it will revolutionize society.

French philosopher and sociologist Michel Foucault developed his "archaeological" approach to the sociology of knowledge, which is based on the ideas of French structuralism by Claude Levi-Strauss and Roland Barthes. Archeology, as an epistemological approach and an empirical and theoretical method, seeks to unravel the history of discourse that is institutionalized and that organizes knowledge. The goal is to discover the hidden structures and rules that organize discourse and knowledge. The archeology of knowledge seeks to rediscover the micro elements of discontinuous and disqualified knowledge. Modernity produces societies based on discipline, oversight, and normalization of practice through discourse. Discourse is spread and controlled by institutions and their specialists, teachers, judges, and psychiatrists. Discourse is analyzed as historical and specific to a particular social group and its practice. In addition, Foucault seeks to discover how these discursive formations, over time, come to be seen as natural and common sense.

Foucault expanded his field of research and further developed his structuralist-inspired method in The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences (1970, in French 1966). Foucault's goal is to discover the structural codes of knowledge that govern various scientific fields - biology, philology, political economy, etc. He seeks to show how classification systems in different cultures and different historical periods are equally arbitrary and strange. Western culture has gone through three distinct historical periods: the Renaissance, the Classical Age, and Modernity.

Each epoch is governed by a unique "episteme" - an implicit internal structure that structures the way people think. Epistemes organize knowledge, not in relation to some objective and rational criteria, but in relation to the arbitrary structural codes of knowledge. Foucault seeks to unravel discursive knowledge that regulates the way of thinking and speaking, that gives rules of what is right and what is not, and what is generally considered to be knowledge. The key to the production of epistemes is the actions of institutions because they produce and control access to knowledge. This kind of discourse is fluid, but still stable enough during one epoch that it can be viewed as a structure. Foucault does not want to use the archaeological method to determine some "quasi-continuity" between different epochs but to reveal how each epoch, in its own way, organizes knowledge and turns human subjects into objects of knowledge.

                       Cultural Marxism and the Ideology

Italian political philosopher Antonio Gramsci is famous for the introduction of the concept of "cultural hegemony". The ruling class in capitalist societies does not rule only through force and repression but imposes its own ideological system, which defends the interests of the ruling class, and other subordinate classes. This imposed value system is what Gramsci calls "cultural hegemony." Hegemony is a synthesis of political, intellectual, and moral leadership within the ruling class. This leadership justifies its interests by creating an image of the world that presents those interests and the economic and political relations that sustain those interests as positive for the entire population. When other classes (which Gramsci calls "subaltern") accept such a picture of the world as normal and common sense, or even better, as the only possible one, then those classes become integrated into that ruling cultural hegemony.

The capitalist class integrates subaltern classes in two ways. On the one hand, it gives them small concessions - workers' rights, allows the work of trade unions, creates a social security system, and the like. On the other hand, the state and civil society create institutions and organizations - educational institutions, the press, churches, and civil associations - that promote this cultural hegemony. In addition, the state creates institutions - police, army, prisons, psychiatric institutions - that carry out repressive measures against those who do not accept hegemony. The capitalist class also has its independent ways of achieving obedience, through the realization of control and punishment in the workplace itself, but also through employment itself, because most workers without capitalist employment cannot even survive.

Gramsci believed that the survival of such hegemony is not necessary. The capitalist society produces intellectuals who serve the interests of the capitalist class by spreading and justifying hegemony. Gramsci calls such intellectuals "traditional intellectuals." Traditional intellectuals are hierarchically structured in relation to their own function within hegemony. At the top are creative intellectuals who produce a view of the world, in the middle are the organizers, and at the bottom are the administrators. However, the working class and the communist parties need to gather a new type of intellectual, who will spread, among the exploited classes, a different image, that of the truth of the revolution. He calls such intellectuals "organic intellectuals" and they should fight for the needs and demands of the exploited masses. Organic intellectuals do not have to be only those who are highly educated, but they can be all those who have some organizational function within production, culture, politics, or administration. As hegemony is created and operates equally at the macro and micro levels, through actors (intelligentsia) who create new values, organic intellectuals have room to crack the dominant hegemony and provide space for critical awareness of the possibility of changing the dominant system. Withdrawal of creative intelligentsia from hegemony will cause an organic crisis of authority and social disintegration.

Subaltern classes, to realize their interests, must consciously and purposefully create their own intellectuals, activists, and theorists, to successfully fight against the hegemony of the capitalist class. The proletariat must bring into civil society its own values ​​and culture, which will work not only for the interests of the working class but for the interests of universal socialism. In that way, they will force the whole society, and finally, the traditional intellectuals, to actively accept the validity and historical necessity of the new hegemony and achieve the ultimate goal - the creation of socialist hegemony. Gramsci was very careful in his views on creating the dictatorship of the proletariat because he believed that other classes also had their own interests that should be taken into account, especially the peasantry. He saw how the peasants in the poor south of Italy were suffering, and he believed that the socialist strategy should not require the peasants to become workers but help them understand their position and fight for emancipation together with the workers.

French sociologist and philosopher Louis Althusser, also, developed a theory of ideology, in which ideology functions “without history”, by providing people the framework to establish lived relationships within the social reality in which they are located. Ideology locates subjects in the system of relationships that is necessary for the maintenance of unequal class relations. Ideology molds individual identities that are functional to the propagation of the capitalist system of exploitation. Hence, ideology is not a philosophical illusion but a lived practice of everyday life. “Ideological state apparatuses” (legal system, family, school, church, communications, political parties) are predominantly responsible for those practices because they are supported by, and give support to those practices, so to ensure undisturbed functioning of the capitalist system.

Althusser makes a distinction between "Repressive state apparatus" -(police, courts, and military) - and "Ideological state apparatus". Ideological state apparatus consists of several different separate subsystems: religious, educational (the system of public and private learning institutions), family, legal, political, communications (media like press, radio, and television), and cultural (literature, the arts, sports, etc.). There is also an overlap between the Ideological and Repressive state apparatus because the Ideological state apparatus can also be repressive, while the Repressive state apparatus also has an ideological component inherent in its functioning. Althusser stresses that while in feudalism most important part of the Ideological state apparatus was religion and its institutions, in modern capitalism educational system represents the most important part of the Ideological state apparatus.

German sociologist Max Horkheimer, in the book Traditional and Critical Theory (1937), rejects both positivist and pragmatic views on science because they do not pay enough attention to the social crisis and the problems of human existence. Science is neither capable nor ready, in a period in which there are social problems and economic crises, to deal with the elimination of social misery. Scientific truth cannot be separated from moral questions, so bourgeois science itself acts as an ideology. Scientific perception is always mediated by social categories, and those categories lead to the "reification" of society. Critical theory, in contrast, is conceived as an autonomous practice that should transform culture and society. Autonomous practice is guided by emancipatory principles, that is, that strives to achieve universal and authentic emancipation of all people, regardless of class and group interests. Only in such a rational world, free from reification is it possible for science to be guided by the principles of positivist science.

In his first book, Authority and the Family (published in German in 1936), Horkheimer deals with the way society reproduces itself. He explores how the relationship between authority and cultural values ​​leads to subordinate strata of society accepting their own subordinate position. The main role in reproducing these values ​​and maintaining the status quo is not physical force, but social institutions such as the family, church, and school. These institutions, which work together, strengthening each other, are accepted by the people, and then they shape the character traits of the people, the most important of which is submission to authority. Authority is the one that plays a key role in the process in which people passively accept their destiny as a given. In culture, too, there are relations of authority. In the field of politics, the relations of authority and domination are much more influential than the ideas of freedom and equality.

In the book Dialectics of Enlightenment (1972, in German 1947b), co-written with Theodore Adorno, the authors explore the history of bourgeois society and culture, primarily in the context of the Enlightenment ideas of science and humanism. The Enlightenment is the product of a dialectical relationship between the ideas of freedom, justice, and personal autonomy, on the one hand, and the values ​​of positive science focused on measurements and exactness, as well as pragmatism and utilitarianism, in order to control nature, on the other. The authors see the mass culture that spreads conformism and controls social consciousness as the main reason for this development. They called this form of control over the masses "culture industry." The culture industry dominates all forms of mass culture; the mass media sell artistic values ​​as commodities; democracy is characterized by parties that control the masses through their programs and propaganda; consumer products are standardized and eliminate the need for individual consumer tastes. In Western culture, as a consequence of the Enlightenment, the instrumental form of formal rationality dominates, and the goal of that rationality is to achieve control over human action and society, through dehumanized science and technology. Capitalist societies, through the culture industry and dehumanized science and technology, destroy any real opposition by either assimilating or neutralizing it. In these societies, all models of social communication become monolithic and lead to cultural indoctrination. Modern society is becoming an iron cage of total administration, consumerism, and resignation.

British sociologist and literary critic Raymond Williams' study of culture was influenced by Marxist authors Antonio Gramsci and Lucien Goldmann. This influence is present in Williams' books Marxism and Literature (1977) and Problems in Materialism and Culture (1980). Williams introduced a distinction between three types of ideology: dominant, residual, and emerging. The dominant ideology is the ideology of the ruling class, the residual ideology belongs to the class that loses its socioeconomic significance, while the emerging ideology occurs in classes that do not have socio-economic power. Both residual and emerging ideologies can oppose the dominant ideology or they can act in parallel with it, without questioning it.

Argentinian-British sociologist Ernesto Laclau, in his book Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory (1977), developed the Marxist theory of ideology and politics, and in shaping his theory he relied mostly on the theories of Gramsci and Althusser. In his opinion, classical Marxism fell into the reductionism of economic and class determinism. Laclau believes that there is a relative autonomy of the capitalist state in some special historical circumstances. In addition, some ideologies are not based on class identity, and examples are populist ideologies, such as Nazism and fascism, which are accepted by members of completely different classes.

American anthropologist Eric Wolf studied the relationship between culture and political ideologies in his book Envisioning Power: Ideologies of Dominance and Crisis  (1999). Power relations are always present, but these relations depend not only on political and economic but also on cultural patterns. Ideology serves as a means of justifying power relations and domination, but the nature of that ideology will also depend on broader cultural patterns, as well as on the unique historical sequence of events in a society. Wolff examines, in detail, what kind of ideologies of domination emerged in different societies: among the Kwakiutl people on the northwestern Pacific coast of the United States; the Aztecs; and the Nazi Party of Germany. Each of these ideologies was adapted to the specific cultural, historical, ecological, and economic uniqueness of these societies, and functioned to justify and organize relations of domination and social organization of labor.

Slovenian sociologist and philosopher Slavoj Žižek, in the book The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989), compares the class struggle with Lacan's concept of the "real." Žižek singles out two mechanisms by which ideology unites the social into a harmonious and coherent totality. Ideology provides unconscious objects in order to nullify the internal contradictions that exist in society. He sees the problems that exist in society as symptoms. These objects serve as symbols that suppress internal social antagonisms. On the other hand, to shape a harmonious image of oneself, ideologies project social problems onto the outside world. Žižek believes that society manages to maintain its own illusion of integrity by creating an ideology, while ideology itself is a mere construct and fantasy. Ideology, as a social fantasy, falsely identifies the object as the culprit, instead of solving the symptom of the problem. In that sense, he cites the Nazi ideology that used the Jews as a scapegoat, and blame them for all social problems, that is, the symptoms of social antagonisms.

                            Ideology and the Cultural Change

American sociologist Pitirim Sorokin is best known for his study of social change, which he deals with in the four-volume book Social and Cultural Dynamics (1937-1941). In his typology of cultural types, there are three basic cultural types, which are classified based on ideological aspects of cultures, while other cultural elements and physical products of cultures are interpreted as products of these ideological types. The level of integration of cultures is what makes diverse cultures different because the integration of culture depends on the logical consistency, interconnectedness, and interdependence of different elements of culture. The ideological aspects of culture provide answers to four main questions: the nature of reality; the needs and goals that need to be met; the level to which they need to be met, and the methods by which those needs and goals are met.

There are two opposing cultural types: „ideational“ and „sensate“. All cultures are on a continuum between these two extreme ideal types. In ideational cultures, the nature of reality is viewed in supra-empirical and supra-rational terms, and all knowledge is drawn from religious or similar sources. Needs and goals are also viewed in a spiritual and otherworldly context, meeting these needs should be complete, and the basic method of meeting needs and goals is by adapting oneself to religious or transcendental rules. Sensate cultures experience reality in the context of physical forces and material things. Goals and needs are material and are met to the maximum, and the main method of meeting these needs is through the manipulation of the physical environment. The third ideal cultural type is located in the middle between the two previous extremes. Sorokin calls it an „idealistic“ or integral type, and it represents a harmonious synthesis of the previous two extremes, although, in this type, ethical rules are also derived from transcendental (religious) sources. Differences between the ideational and sensate types of cultures are visible in different aspects of culture, such as philosophy, law, art, etc.

              The Function of Ideology in the Capitalist Societies

American sociologist Wright C. Mills studied the relationship between ideology and the middle class in the book White Collar: The American Middle Classes (1951). He attributed the increase in the size of a part of the middle class, the so-called "white collars", to three processes: the growth of bureaucracy in all spheres of work, the development of technology, and the growth of industrial production. Corporations are getting bigger, so former small entrepreneurs are becoming ordinary employees within large companies. The growth of bureaucracy in companies requires the creation of more managerial levels within companies, and these levels are linked into chains of superiority and subordination. At each level, specific coordination and supervision of subordinate employees take place. White-collar workers, unlike experts from earlier periods, do not represent independent professionals but are completely subject to bureaucratic control and manipulation within the companies in which they work.

The huge increase in bureaucracy was driven by the idea of ​​rationalizing the world, a type of rationalization that leads to standardization of work and rules, depersonalization, and loss of personal autonomy, all to increase efficiency, coordination, and control. White-collar workers are experiencing increasing alienation, both at work and outside of work. Power in such bureaucracies occurs in three forms: 1) coercive power, 2) power based on faith in one's authority, and 3) manipulative power.

Manipulative power is used to instill capitalist ideology into middle class workers. Manipulative power is becoming dominant and is based on the application of sophisticated methods of science and technology. The application of the principles of scientific management and the huge centralization of decision-making enables the use of manipulative power. Manipulative power is applied less visibly, and the goal is to manipulate workers to internalize the values ​​imposed on them by their superiors and serve only the interests of those superiors. Outside the workplace, manipulative power is exercised through several channels: 1) mass media, which promotes entertainment and sports, while at the same time obscuring real economic and political problems, 2) through marketing that promotes consumerism, 3) through an education system that instills the values ​​necessary for the survival of the system, and 4) through religious organizations that give the values ​​of American capitalism a sacred aura.

In his book Political Power and Social Classes (1978, in French 1968), French sociologist Nicos Poulantzas develops the idea of ​​the relative autonomy of the state. Unlike the earlier Marxists, he believes that the (liberal-democratic) state has a broader role than just expressing the class interests of the capitalist class. The state possesses relative autonomy from the individual interests of individual capitalists. The capitalist class and other influential classes are creating long-term strategies and alliances that Poulantzas calls "power bloc." The state mediates in all class relations and all aspects of those relations - economic, political, and ideological. The state in capitalism does not rule through repression, but by creating an ideological consensus between the capitalist and other subordinate classes. Poulantzas develops his own class analysis in the book Classes in Contemporary Capitalism (1975, in French 1974). According to him, classes are structurally determined, not only at the economic level but also at the political level and ideological level. At the ideological level, he distinguishes between manual and mental work, and on that basis excludes all engineers and technicians from the working class.  

In the book State, Power, Socialism (2014, in French 1978) Poulantzas states that Ideology is not only a system of ideas, but that it also includes material practice (customs, habits, and way of life of individuals) that enable the reproduction of the economic and political system of the state. Relations of economic ownership of the means of production and social division of labor are, in essence, ideological relations. Because the state and capitalist class are not able to rule solely by force and means of repression, they have to propagate ideology that legitimizes class relations, political subordination of exploited classes, and class dominance of the ruling class. For Poulantzas ideology can never be neutral, because every ideology is class ideology.    

In his book Manufacturing of Consent (1979), American sociologist Michael Burawoy examines how directors and managers in companies obtain consent from workers, that is, how they manage to persuade them to cooperate with management. Management in companies gives up strict control over workers and the work process, so workers have the impression that they have greater rights, so their dissatisfaction is reduced. The consent of workers to exploitation, despite oppression and low wages, is also created by manipulating and inciting conflict between the workers themselves.

Barbara Ehrenreich and her husband John, introduced the concept of the professional-managerial class in their article “The Professional-Managerial Class”, which was published in the book edited by Pat Walker Between Labor and Capital (1979). This class consists of well-paid experts and managers, who do not own the means of the production, but who, within the reproduction of capitalism, play the role of maintaining capitalist culture and capitalist social relations. This class acts against the interests of the working class by spreading and propagating ideology that supports capitalism. Teachers and social workers indoctrinate children and control adult "problematic" people who do not fit into the capitalist system. Advertising professionals, managers, and entertainers spread capitalist and consumerist ideology among the general population. 

In his book Class, Structure and Knowledge (1980), British sociologist Nicholas Abercrombie argues that in modern capitalist societies, the ruling class does not need to impose its own ideology on society as a whole, but achieves its goals primarily through coercion and economic power. Members of the working class often actively reject the ideology of the ruling class.

British sociologist Zygmund Bauman, in the book Intimations of Postmodernity (1992, states that specific features of postmodernity are: the huge growth and expansion of mass media, new information technologies, an increase in transnational migrations, the post-industrial economy, the growth of the ideology of consumerism, the commodification of culture, etc. Large metanarratives and a strong state, which dominated modernity, have been replaced by a state of consumerism that is subject to the will of multinational corporations.

In his book The State in Capitalist Society (1969), British sociologist Ralph Miliband challenges the idea that power in capitalist society is divided between a large number of groups fighting among themselves. Instead of this pluralistic view, he advocates and proves the view that the ruling class possesses a great concentration of power, and that it has a decisive role in creating ideology and politics. He believes that the ruling class has control over state institutions (police, army, judiciary, central and local government, and state administration) and that through the control of these institutions that class maintains its power. The ruling class is made up of those who possess economic power and who use that power to take control over state institutions, in order to maintain that economic power and stabilize capitalist relations.

In that sense, people who directly manage state institutions, even when they themselves are not part of the capitalist class, mostly work for the benefit and in the interest of the capitalist class. When politicians and state bureaucrats come from a working class background, they work in the interest of capitalists because they have accepted the values ​​of the capitalist class and are therefore co-opted into the bourgeoisie. Miliband also studies how this type of ideological legitimization is implemented and especially pays closer attention to the important role marketing has in that process. Marketing spreads ideological legitimization of capitalism in several ways: capitalist corporations use marketing to portray themselves as those who work for the common good, not for their own selfish interests; advertisements associate products with generally accepted positive values ​​and emotions; marketing spreads the ideology of consumerism to the masses.

In his book The Post-Industrial Society (1969), French sociologist Alain Touraine states that the second half of the twentieth century saw the development of a post-industrial society, which he called a "programmed" society. In post-industrial societies, the focus is shifting from the production of goods to the production of information. The development of the welfare state abolished the autonomy of the economic sphere because more and more economic decisions are made by the centralized state bureaucracy. It is this centralization and bureaucratization of economic policy that has contributed to post-industrial societies becoming programmed. The creation and dissemination of information is becoming most important for society and the economy, so universities are taking on the most important role in creating and shaping a new type of society and its elite. The centralized power of the state tends to control both the economy and public opinion and thus endanger the power of collective actors and the democratic order. In postmodern society, the most important representatives of the ruling class are politicians, bureaucrats, and managers, and the main force of resistance to the ruling class is no longer workers and the labor movement, but new social movements - environmental, student, anti-nuclear, feminist and the like.

For a new social movement to be completely formed, it must meet three conditions: to be aware of its own identity, to accept the principle of opposition (existence of a clearly defined opponent), and to adopt the principle of totality, that is, to be aware of its historicity. The potential for success of these new movements depends on the successful activation of informational, organizational, financial, and ideological resources and the ability to make strategic decisions. Touraine believes that sociology should play a key role in providing information and ideological resources to new social movements. To this end, he advocates the establishment of "sociological interventionism", engaged sociology that will, through the creation of information and ideological resources, help social movements to create their own identity, and shape their own principles of opposition and totality. Touraine formulated the main principles of this sociology, together with the sociologist Michel Wieviorka in his book The Voice and the Eye (1981, in French 1978).

American sociologist Erik Olin Wright is most known for his analysis of classes and class structure in USA. Wright determines the class position of individuals who do not participate directly in production relations by their class interests. Employees in the political and ideological apparatus are positioned according to their own attitude towards fundamental political and ideological interests, and not according to economic interests. Wright places members of the political and ideological apparatus in three classes: 1) bourgeois positions - those who create politics and ideology in the highest positions in the state, churches, universities, etc; 2) contradictory locations - those who implement political decisions and spread ideology (eg street police officers and high school teachers); 3) proletarian positions - individuals who are completely excluded from the creation and implementation of politics and ideology (e.g. a cleaner in a police station).

                                Ideology and Globalization

In the book Counterfire: Against the Tyranny of the Market  (1998b), Pierre Bourdieu shows that globalization entails, at the same time, the expansion of international financial capital, but also has a normative function because it spreads the ideology of global capitalism as an inevitable reality that all states, organizations, and actors have to adapt to. This ideology is a carefully crafted myth that serves to dismantle the welfare state in Western Europe. The new doxa orders individual states to abolish social protection measures to achieve flexibility in work forces them to reduce budget expenditures and increase global competitiveness. The decline in the power of states takes place at a time when there is a growth of global institutions (IMF, World Bank, WTO, etc.) that are not accountable, for their work, to any country. The goal of this new ideology is to increase the symbolic capital of companies, international institutions, and economists. Neoliberal economists and their discourse are presented in the media as objective, scientific, and rational, and economics itself has been transformed into an abstract and purely mathematical discipline.

American sociologist Leslie Sklair studies neoliberal globalization and several "transnational practices" that it employs. One of those transnational practices, and which have had the greatest influence, is what Sklair calls the  "culture-ideology of consumerism." He introduces this notion to emphasize the breadth and importance that the practice and values ​​of the culture-ideology of consumerism have on the economy, politics, and everyday behavior of people. The media and retail chains are key players in the spread of consumerism. The mass media implant the cultural ideology of consumerism in the minds of individuals while they are still children. The mass media blurs the boundaries between information, entertainment, and product promotion to sell the products they advertise to customers, but also to spread a consumerist view of the world. Retail chains, primarily through shopping malls, create places where the experience of buying goods merges with the experience of going to an amusement park. The final effect is the creation of a cultural need, fully internalized by individuals, for products created by capitalist corporations.

American author Roland Robertson introduced the notion of "glocalization" into sociology of globalization. This term refers to a situation in which the expansion of global culture is taking place, but, at the same time, local traditions are being preserved, as well as a concurrent and related process of specific transformation of global trends, in order to more easily fit into local culture. One of the examples of glocalization is the spread of nationalism as an ideology, which originated with modernization in the West and spread across the planet, but which is operationalized and contextualized in different ways in each local culture. Another example cited by Robertson is the global market for goods and services and the spread of the ideology of consumerism.

Naomi Klein, In her book The Shock Doctrine (2007), points out that major social upheavals, such as natural disasters or military coups, serve as a basis and excuse for neoliberal ideologues, corporations, and political powerbrokers to put neoliberal ideas into practice.

                                 Ideology and Nationalism

British historian Eric Hobsbawm developed the concept of "invented traditions". With the creation of new bourgeois societies in Western Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was necessary to create a basis for solidarity between workers and capitalists, and for that purpose, bourgeois intellectuals invented and promoted the ideology of common ethnocultural identity and common past. Unlike customs that were changeable, traditions were portrayed as constant and unchanging. These fictional traditions were supposed to create public symbols that would be the basis of national identity and the national project. 

                                   Ideology and the Media

British theorist of culture Stuart Hall was mostly influenced by Gramsci's theory of hegemony in his analysis of the relationship between the media and ideology. Hall defines ideology as: "mental frameworks – the languages, the concepts, categories, imagery of thought, and the systems of representation – which different classes and social groups deploy in order to make sense of, figure out and render intelligible the way society works".

In the book Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse (1973) Hall provides a comprehensive analysis of how dominant ideologies are encoded in the mass media, and how the audience decodes them according to their own social, cultural, and political background. Hall's central argument is that the dominant ideology is embedded in the media discourse through the encoding process, which involves the production, circulation, and consumption of media content. This process is not neutral but is influenced by the social, cultural, and political forces that shape the media landscape. The dominant ideology, according to Hall, is the one that serves the interests of the ruling class and maintains the status quo.

The encoding process involves the production of media content, which is shaped by the media institutions' values, norms, and conventions. The media institutions select, frame, and present the news and entertainment in a way that reinforces the dominant ideology. For example, news organizations often prioritize stories that reflect the interests of the elites and downplay stories that challenge the status quo.

The circulation process involves the distribution of media content, which is controlled by the media conglomerates. These conglomerates have a significant influence on what media content reaches the audience and what does not. This process is also influenced by the political and economic factors that shape the media landscape. For example, media ownership is concentrated in the hands of a few powerful corporations that control most of the media content. The consumption process involves the reception and interpretation of media content by the audience. The audience decodes the media content according to their own cultural, social, and political background. This process is not passive but is influenced by the audience's active engagement with the media content. The audience can either accept the dominant ideology or challenge it by creating their own meanings and interpretations.

American sociologist Douglas Kellner, In the book Media Culture (1995) and in his other works, explores how the media industry influences the construction of ideology and identity, especially concerning issues of race, ethnicity, and sexuality. The products of media culture like radio, television, film, and others produce materials that shape people’s identities, worldviews, values, and sense of self. Media creates symbols, myths, and resources that create a common culture and the way for individuals to become part of it. Media legitimize the political power of the elites and indoctrinate the powerless to accept their place and oppression. Media serve as a form of pedagogy that shapes how people feel, think, and behave, what they desire, and what they fear. Understanding this vast influence of media, what Kellner calls „critical media literacy“, can give people resources to rest media manipulations and empower them to control their cultural environment.

American linguist and political theorist Noam Chomsky, in the books, Manufacturing Consent (1988), Necessary Illusions (1989), Deterring Democracy (1991), and Letters from Lexington (1993) critically examines the relationship between US foreign policy, media, and propaganda, and how they create and propagate ideologies of capitalism and American imperialism.

                                     Gender and Ideology

Austrian sociologist Viola Klein, in the book The Feminine Character: History of an Ideology (1946) uses the approach of sociology of knowledge to explore psychological, biological, anthropological, and sociological conceptions of “femininity”. Klein concluded that what makes the position of women similar to the position of other subordinate groups are socially constructed stereotypes of femininity. These stereotypes portray women as intellectually and emotionally inferior to men. These stereotypes are perpetuated by male theorists whose conceptions of women and femininity depend more on male-dominated culture than on empirical evidence. In her later work, Klein focused on the empirical study of women's work, both at formal work and in the household.

Michele Barrett and Mary McIntosh, co-authored the book The Anti-Social Family (1982) in which the authors criticize the ideology that idealizes the family. The family, as promoted by this ideology, is "antisocial" because it supports the capitalist exploitation of women's labor, but also because it destroys life outside the family. This ideology stigmatizes people living outside the family (singles, people living in institutions). The authors believe that the social idea of ​​the family represents the family as the only place where love and care prevail, thus denying the existence of these relationships in other spheres, masking the true nature of family life, and enabling domestic violence and abuse. 

American gender theorist Janet Chafetz argues that two types of forces perpetuate gender inequality: coercive and voluntary. Coercive forces depend on the ability of men to control resources at the macro level, control gender relations at the micro level, secure elite positions, diminish the economic and cultural significance of women's work, and create gender ideologies and norms. Voluntary forces follow coercive ones, because women, through socialization, adopt gender ideologies and stereotypes, and thus maintain the gender order.

in the article "Women: The Longest Revolution" (1966) British socialist feminist Julia Mitchell accuses socialism of failing to lead to the emancipation of women, while theoretically reproaching socialist ideology for studying the position of women only through the role of women in economic production. She believed that Marxist feminists should problematize the psycho-sexual foundations of gender relations, which would require a complete revision of the Marxist theory.

American feminist theorist Kate Millett sees patriarchy as the most widespread ideology and as the most significant relationship of domination in every society. The ideology of patriarchy has its roots in different socializations of the sexes because men are brought up to have a dominant character, which gives them a higher social status and greater social power. The family has a great role in maintaining patriarchy, because mothers and children get their social status through the social status of the father, and in addition, the family is the most important place of early socialization. In her view, one of the main aspects of patriarchy is its regulation of sexual activity itself, and this is primarily done by defining which sexual practices are legal and which are not.

Millett studies how literature, sociology, psychology, and anthropology are used to create a dominant theory that serves to strengthen existing gender hierarchies. These intellectual areas have always viewed and defined a woman as something different or inconsistent from the normal (man). She advocates the creation of a society free of culturally defined gender roles, where all people will be able to develop a complete personality and where everyone will have the freedom to express their own gender or sexual identity, without any social restrictions.

American sociologist Barbara Risman states that the official ideology, of modern societies, long after the introduction of formal legal gender equality, retains the ideology of androcentrism. At the individual level, socialization in childhood leads to the internalization of gender roles in members of both genders and thus leads to the creation of gender (innate) selves. At the interactional level, the gender structure creates different status expectations for men and women, women are expected to be filled with empathy and care, while men are expected to be more active and successful in society. Cognitive prejudices enable the reproduction of gender inequalities in everyday life. 

                                        End of Ideology

American sociologist Daniel Bell in the book End of Ideology (1960), advocated the idea that society, at that time, was going throw a process of the waning of ideology - in a modern industrialized capitalist society, old, antagonistic, and extreme ideologies are declining, and technocratic solutions to social and political issues, and new parochial ideologies, are becoming increasingly important.

Francis Fukuyama in his essay „The End of History” (1989), later expanded into The End of History and the Last Man (1992). Unlike Bell, Fukuyama does not think that ideology has become irrelevant but states that liberalism, based on democracy and capitalism, had triumphed and rendered all other rival ideologies obsolete. With the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union world has come to a point of the “end of history”, by which Fukuyama meant that there will be no more ideological debate and rivalries in the future. The combination of a democratic political system and industrial capitalism brings social mobility and material security for everybody making the ideology of liberalism a rational and attractive choice, and renders all other ideologies undesirable.

In the book Beyond Left and Right (1994), Anthony Giddens also states that political and ideological differences are a thing of the past. He elaborated on a political project of reconstruction of society and social democratic politics. He believes that social-democratic politics, as it was applied in Europe after the Second World War, is outdated and needs to be reformulated. He criticizes the welfare state because it is too bureaucratic and inflexible and because it has failed to solve wider moral, social, and cultural problems. Technological change, economic globalization, environmental problems, multiculturalism, and the rights of minority groups are completely new challenges to which new political answers must be found. “High modernity”, post-traditional social order, and social reflexivity create complex and fluid societies that force politics to create new answers and go “beyond left and right”.

In The Clash of Civilizations (1996), Samuel Huntington hypothesizes that states are increasingly cooperating based on a common culture, which will, in the future, lead to the creation of a world in which there will be separate and conflicting civilizations. He believes that seven or eight such separate civilizations will emerge: Chinese, Japanese, Hindu, Islamic, Orthodox, Western, Latin American, and (potentially) African civilizations. Each of them has all the elements needed to build a common culture: language, history, identity, customs, institutions, and religion. This clash of cultures, that is, civilizations, will become more important than ideological, political, and economic differences or similarities.

                      Other Approaches to Ideology

French sociologist Raymond Boudon developed a critical theory that explores the history of the concept of ideology. In The Analysis of Ideology (1989, in French 1986), Boudon tries to find an answer to the question of why individuals and cultures accepted as true supposedly irrational beliefs. Boudon first examines the theoretical approach to ideology by authors like Barthes, Foucault, Habermas, and Sartre. After that, he presents his own approach to the origin and spread of ideological beliefs. Boudon stresses that ideologies form a natural part of social life; and gives a rationalist theory of ideology.

American sociologist Gerhard Lenski developed his theoretical approach of Ecological-evolutionary theory, which focuses on ecology and technology as the most important factors of social evolution. Although Lenski attaches the greatest importance to the study of all types of technology, he believes that ideology can have a reciprocal impact on the development of technology. During the evolution of societies, there was a change of periods in which ideology was prone to change, and thus technological change was happening, and periods in which ideology sought to keep society at the same technological levels, so there was resistance to new technologies. The ideological subsystem, in order to survive, strives to maintain the status quo and therefore opposes technological change. Technological stagnation is possible until economic pressures become large enough that the development of new technology becomes inevitable.

American sociologist Edward Shils was a follower of the functionalist paradigm in sociology, which promoted liberal capitalist ideology. Shils viewed ideology in a negative context, and stated that “all ideologies—whether progressive or traditional, revolutionary or reactionary—entail an aggressive alienation from the existing society,”. He thought that all ideologies disrespect the scientific approach and the truth.

                    Ideology and the Symbolic Violence

French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu is famous for his theoretical approach called "habitus and field". The term field denotes a specific semi-autonomous sphere of social life that has its own logic. Each field has its institutions, its own rules, governing values, norms of behavior, and desirable goods (physical or symbolic) to be possessed. Examples of fields are: politics, science, art, religion, education, etc. Each field has its structure, that is, a network of relationships between objective positions occupied by the individual or collective actors acting within that field.

Each field is a stratified hierarchical system within which there are relations of power and domination. Of all the forms of power and domination, the most important are symbolic power and symbolic violence. All cultural symbols - art, food and clothing patterns, science, religion, and language - serve to pursue the interests of those in power. Those at the top of the hierarchy of a field use symbols to preserve, increase and legitimize that power, so such strategies are a source of symbolic power and symbolic violence. Symbolic power and symbolic violence serve to create, legitimize and preserve the distinctions that exist between social classes. When symbolic power succeeds in gaining a monopoly on the legitimacy of power relations and the "distinctions" that exist between classes within a field, then that field begins to have its doxa, that is, common sense, which serves to present power relations and distinctions as natural and self-evident. The goal of those who exercise domination is to, with the help of symbolic power, present the relations of power so legitimate and self-evident that any attempt of resistance by the oppressed is extinguished. That is why self-restraint and self-censorship, imposed on themselves by oppressed actors, are the most effective forms of reproduction of power relations.

 

Books:

Abel. The Nazi Movement: Why Hitler Came to Power (1938);

Abercrombie. Class, Structure and Knowledge: Problems of Sociology of Knowing (1980);

     -     The Dominant Ideology Thesis (1980);

Althusser. On the Reproduction of Capitalism. Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (2014, in French 1995);

     -     On Ideology (2020);

Balibar. Reading Capital (1970, in French 1965);

     -     On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (1977, in French 1976);

Barrett. Ideology and Cultural Production (1980a);

     -     Women’s Oppression Today: The Imagination in Theory: Culture, Writing, Words, and Things (1980b);

Barthes. Mythologies (1972, in French 1957); 

Bauman. Culture as Praxis (1973);

     -     Socialism: The Active Utopia (1976a);

     -     Memories of Class (1982);

     -     Legislators and Interpreters: On Modernity, Postmodernity, and Intellectuals (1987);

     -     Freedom (1988);

     -     Modernity and the Holocaust (1989);

     -     Postmodernity and Its Discontents (1997);

     -     Globalisation: The Human Consequences (1998);

     -     In Search of Politics (1999);

     -     Liquid Modernity (2000);

Bell. End of Ideology (1960);

     -     The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973);

     -     The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976);

Boudon. The Analysis of Ideology (1989, in French 1986);

Bourdieu. Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (1977, in French 1970);

     -     Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (1984, in French 1979);

     -     State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power (1998, in French 1989);

     -     On Television and Journalism (1998, in French 1996);

     -     The Logic of Practice (1990, in French 1980);

     -     Homo academicus (1990, in French 1984);

     -     Language and Symbolic Power (1991, in French 1982);

     -     Masculine Domination (2001, in French 1998);

     -     Counterfire: Against the Tyranny of the Market (2003, in French 1998);

Burawoy. Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process Under Monopoly Capitalism (1979);

     -     How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century (2019);

Chafetz. Sex and Advantage: A Comparative Macro-Structural Theory of Sexual Stratification (1984);

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