Political Ideologies

Catalog description

This course aims to provide an introduction to the main ideologies that structure contemporary political conflict and debate. It is divided in two parts. After an introductory session on the definition of the concept of ideology, the first part is devoted to some of the ‘classical’ political ideologies that emerged over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries and still play a very prominent role in contemporary political conflicts and debates: liberalism, republicanism, socialism, conservatism and anarchism. The second part considers ideological currents that emerged most prominently over the course of the 20th century such as feminism, anti-racism and ecologism. The course ends with a session on the ideology of the ‘end of ideology’ as a way of gauging the question of the continued pertinence of the category of ideology in the 21st century.