Ideology: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

A political ideology is a set of ideas, beliefs, opinions, and values that (1) exhibit a recurring pattern (2) are held by significant groups (3) compete over providing and controlling plans for public policy (4) do so with the aim of justifying, contesting or changing the social and political arrangements and processes of a political community.

Every interpretation, each ideology, is one such instance of imposing a pattern – some form of structure or organization – on how we read (and misread) political facts, events, occurrences, actions, on how we see images and hear voices.

Ideologies, as we shall see, map the political and social worlds for us. We simply cannot do without them because we cannot act without making sense of the worlds we inhabit.