Why and how political ideas matter

Political ideologies both reflect the world and help shape it

After several posts on the psychology and game theory of coalitions, I am now going to discuss how it helps us understand many political dynamics. To do that, this post first explains the nature and workings of political ideologies. The view I develop here is mine. While it builds on drawing together the insights of well-established scholarship, it should be clear that the perspective I offer is personal and does not reflect a settled consensus in the literature.

The growing political polarisation in the US and other Western countries is a major feature of recent times. It has come with a growing animosity towards people across the political divide, to the point that people are now much less likely to date somebody on the other side.

The prominence of political opinion in social life raises a central question: why do people adopt political ideologies, and how do these ideologies function? Answers to this question often oscillate between cynicism and idealism. The cynical view sees ideologies as rationalisations, stories we tell to justify the interests of the social groups we belong to. The idealist view, on the other hand, sees ideologies as powerful ideas that shape how we think and act, independently of material interests.

In this post, I argue that these opposing views can be reconciled by examining how ideologies function within political coalitions. Ideologies serve to justify a coalition’s claims externally and to coordinate and bind its members internally, while also developing a logic of their own.

Marx vs Weber

Marx is the most influential champion of the cynical view of ideology. His materialism purports to explain the emergence of ideas as a reflection of material reality and its economic and social structures. Classical liberalism, with its support of property rights and free markets, is, for instance, a reflection of the economic characteristics of capitalism. It justifies the domination of the capitalists, presenting as fair and normal situations where poor workers have their lives drained in the workplace, so that the system keeps turning.

The Marxist Antonio Gramsci developed this view of ideology further by arguing that ruling groups maintain power by securing cultural hegemony, making their worldview appear natural and commonsensical across society. Masses are brainwashed into accepting these convenient ideologies as self-evident truths. This often leads them to develop a false consciousness, supporting the very system that is based on their oppression. In Leninist Marxism, one of the roles of the communist avant-garde is to lift the veil of ideology from the eyes of the oppressed, so they can see that their real interest lies with communism, the ideology aligned with an egalitarian economic system.

Ideology as brainwashing

In contrast to this materialist view, many have argued that ideas matter and can shape the world. The idea that beliefs induced by ideologies matter was famously stated by John Maynard Keynes, who said:

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. — Keynes (1936)

One of the most iconic thinkers who argued that ideologies can change the world is sociologist Max Weber. In his famous studies of religion, he argued that the development of new ideas in the religious domain could have a radical effect on the real world by shaping people’s behaviour. In particular, he argued that the rise of Protestant ideas in Europe fostered consciousness and diligence among Protestants, in particular Calvinists, who were wary and looking for signs of their salvation in their everyday success. This mindset was a major reason for the industriousness in Protestant countries that favoured the spread of capitalism.¹

There seems to be some truth in both views. The fact that people engage in lengthy political debates and that intellectuals write books to shape political discourse suggests they believe ideas matter and that the debate of ideas can influence real life. At the same time, ideologies are often influenced by material interests. Libertarians opposed to taxes are more likely to be wealthy, while communists in favour of massive redistribution are less frequently found among people at the helm of large fortunes.

A coalition-building and binding tool

Marx got many things wrong, but on the issue of ideology, he was right that ideologies are heavily influenced by the economic and social structure of society.

Any group of people, large or small, working together needs a kind of understanding of how the costs and benefits of social cooperation will be split: who does what, and who gets what. When groups are as large as a society, such understandings are labelled “social contracts”,² not in the sense of actual contracts agreed to by ancestors, but as de facto agreements that people are willing to follow.

Social contracts must function in all situations, including novel ones. They must therefore rely on principles that can generate practical solutions in new contexts. How should John and Jane split a pie: 1) if they bought it at the supermarket versus if Jane cooked it; 2) if they are equally hungry versus if John has been fasting for two days; 3) if Jane and John are both adults versus if Jane is an adult and John is a toddler? The endless possibilities for specific situations call for shared general principles, frameworks for deciding who deserves what.

An ideology is the basis of such a social contract, it is a set of foundational normative principles, interwoven with factual claims. The normative principles are the heart of the ideology. For instance, in the case of the allocation of land, feudalism might justify the allocation of property to clans based on kin groups based on ancestry, capitalism might justify the allocation of individual property rights on the basis of the purchased titles, and communism might instead justify a shared property by the whole community.

Because the arguments for normative statements are typically not just purely abstract, these normative principles are usually supported by factual claims.³ These claims can be about the existence of non-material beings and their wishes (e.g. the 10 commandments given to Moses), about the existence, decisions and will of long past ancestors (e.g. “our ancestors request to stay on this land”), or about the reality of social mechanisms (e.g. “lower taxes on high incomes improve the welfare of less well-off via the principles of trickle down economics”).

Example of a factual claim to help justify a normative statement. The king is the legitimate ruler because a supernatural entity gave legitimacy to his ascension to the throne. Monty Python’s Holy Grail

The general framework provided by an ideology serves to answer practical questions about how resources should be shared in society. Should rich people pay higher taxes? Socialism points to the conclusion that inequality is unfair because the economic game was rigged in the first place. Libertarianism suggests, on the contrary, that inequalities arise because some people create more wealth than others, and taking it from them is akin to theft.

At any moment, a stable society has a dominant social contract reflecting the accepted compromise between social groups. This compromise is continuously being renegotiated, with coalitions of social groups competing for power and more favourable resource allocations. Coalitions’ claims take the form of ideological variations from the prevailing compromise. Large coalitions usually propose minor variations (because small changes are the minimum common denominator a large coalition can be built on), while smaller coalitions might propose radical ideological alternatives. Ideologies competing in the public space can be thought of as competing propositions of social contracts.

Coalitions use their ideology as external justification, to articulate their claims against other coalitions and as a way to bind the coalition, by representing an internal social contract that commits the coalition to a specific way in which the different social groups forming the coalition would benefit from succeeding and gaining political power.

This role of ideology is, for instance, stressed by Bueno de Mesquita, Smith, Siverson, and Morrow in their book The Logic of Political Survival, in the case of revolutions:

Ideology, in the sense of a description of the new selection institutions and the affinity of the new leader for her followers, is critical for mobilizing a revolutionary coalition. It explains the benefits of a successful revolution to recruits from the disenfranchised. — Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003)

Ideologies are, therefore coalition-building tools; they are principles and claims upon which members of different social groups agree to form a coalition. By design, a coalition’s ideology reflects its interests and the makeup of the interests of the different social groups composing it.

The autonomous dynamics of ideologies

However, ideologies are not just a bunch of fake principles simply putting a mask on the raw interests of social groups. They have a life of their own. For an ideology to work, it needs to have a binding force, making its respect somewhat credible. The principles of an ideology will point to specific solutions in specific situations. People adhering to an ideology know they can use the principles of that ideology to adjudicate their practical disagreements.

Debating anew in each practical situation where benefits and costs have to be shared would be tedious. Instead, the existence of shared principles facilitates the smooth and quick resolution of such problems. In the words of game theorist Ken Binmore, the disagreements in terms of raw interests that arise in the game of life are adjudicated in the game of morals according to rules that are set by the normative principles and factual claims of the prevailing ideology.

The moves in the game of morals determine the practical agreements on the allocation of rights and duties in the game of life

Because coalitions benefit from having ideological justifications to support their practical claims, there is a marketplace for rationalisations. On the demand side of this market, coalitions and their members find new ideological ideas useful when they offer better ways to justify existing claims or help address new situations where current principles don’t provide clear solutions. As coalitions change, when their membership shifts, they may also need new ideological compromises to hold together. New ideas can make it easier to expand the coalition by including new groups, or to tighten it by providing reasons to exclude others.

This demand for rationalisations generates rewards for ideological entrepreneurs coming up with ideological innovations.⁴ When such innovations catch on, their authors gain prestige by articulating more compelling ideas and principles in the game of morals, thereby strengthening the coalition’s claims. Ideological entrepreneurs are on the supply side of the marketplace for rationalisations. They compete for attention in the public sphere, and this competition is a driver of innovation.

These innovations take place within the game of morals, which has its specific rules and constraints. Arguments have to be made in line with accepted principles and factual claims. Propositions of new normative principles have to be justified relative to existing ones. New factual claims have to be backed by relevant evidence. This explains why ideological debates are both intense (they often convey very important implications in terms of the material interests of the different parties involved) and conceptual (the debate takes place in the realm of normative principles and positive evidence). Political philosophers, such as Rawls or Nozick, are expert innovators playing in the higher rungs of the game of morals on the most foundational principles of ideologies, from which secondary claims stem. These debates in political philosophy follow rigorous rules of argumentation. Not anything goes.

The conjunction of idiosyncratic innovations and the constraints of the game of morals means that ideologies have their own dynamics that are not simply and purely determined by the raw interests in the social world. Ideas matter because ideological debates are settled in the game of morals.

The influence of ideologies on the real world

We can now circle back to the insight of Max Weber: the autonomous dynamics of ideologies have real-world effects. There are several reasons for this.

First, new ideological developments can make some coalition evolutions, such as expansion or narrowing, more or less likely. The main effect of successful political ideas is to facilitate the formation of a larger coalition by articulating a consistent social contract that works for the different groups that make up that coalition. New political ideas can generate new conceptual solutions for people to reach an agreement in the game of morals.

Second, a social contract shapes the type of solutions used in practical situations. New ideological developments can therefore change the precise way duties and rights are allocated in the real world. It might, for instance, be the case that new ideological ideas lead to new ways of adjudicating practical problems that were not anticipated by the ideological entrepreneurs who advocated these new ideas in the first place. As a comparison, consider parents setting a new rule to settle a disagreement between their children. The same children may later invoke that rule in different situations, potentially even to argue against their parents.

Third, in any social group, people gain prestige from showing signs of loyalty to the group. The group’s coalition creates the opportunity to show loyalty by following its principles. It sets the stage for a competition in virtue signalling, where people compete to display how good members they are by following the principles of the coalition’s ideology. What is a good implementation of the ideology, which principles matter most, and how they should be followed, is typically open to interpretation. Therefore, this is also an area open to ideological innovators proposing and advocating new practices as reflective of the best way of being a good group member.

Logics of group loyalty signalling can lead to the emergence of social practices serving as a signal of allegiance to a group and its ideas. Here, Kramer is asked to wear a ribbon when participating in a charity walk for AIDS awareness in Seinfeld.

Fourth, because ideologies are founded in part on the acceptance of factual claims, they can influence people’s decisions about what can or should be done in the world. During the Soviet era, the ideology of the primacy of communism’s materialism and its opposition to Mendelian genetics, seen as “bourgeois” and contrary to dialectical materialism, led to the advent of Lysenkoism, which claimed that environmental conditions could directly alter heredity and that acquired characteristics could be inherited. The implementation of agricultural policies based on it had major real-world consequences, including crop failures, famines, and the suppression of genetic science, which set Soviet biology back decades.

Ideologies: constrained by the real and constraining it

While I started by lending support to Marx’s view that interests drive ideologies, the view I have developed might actually be closer to Weber’s. It is not a coincidence that Weber’s evidence for the effect of ideas on society is found in his sociological study of religion. The religious domain is the clearest setting where the autonomous dynamics of ideas and their real-world consequences can be identified. Religious ideological debates can be about abstract matters that are hardly related to material questions, yet still generate intense competition between ideas and lead to real-world consequences in terms of social practices and conflicts between groups.⁵

However, contrary to what a quick reading of his work on Protestantism might suggest, Weber was not a pure idealist. Instead, he was well aware that if ideas influence the world, it is through how they interact with material interests. In a famous quote, he stated:

Not ideas, but material and ideal interests, directly govern men's conduct. Yet very frequently the ‘world images’ that have been created by ‘ideas’ have, like switchmen, determined the tracks along which action has been pushed by the dynamic of interest. — Weber (1920)⁶

Ideologies are shaped by economic and social structures, but an entirely cynical view is not warranted. Ideologies should not just be conceived as artificial ideas masking the reality of naked interests. Instead, they function as general frameworks articulated in the game of morals to adjudicate how resources should be allocated in the game of life. Ideologies that are conceptually inconsistent or rely on non-credible factual claims tend to be weaker contenders in that game. Therefore, political debates neither follow a purely idealistic logic (in the game of morals), nor are they simply determined by material interests (in the game of life).

Ideological debates matter because political ideas have power and can help change the world. But they do not do so because ideas that are “correct” or “right” from a purely abstract point of view win and convince people. Instead, political ideas become successful largely to the extent that they are able to articulate the interests of large coalitions with a conceptual framework based on principles that are consistent and facts that are credible.

References

Becker, H.S., 1963. Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: Free Press.

Binmore, K. (1994) Game theory and the social contract: Volume 1 – Playing fair. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Binmore, K. (1998) Game theory and the social contract: Volume 2 – Just playing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Bueno de Mesquita, B., Smith, A., Siverson, R.M. and Morrow, J.D. (2003) The Logic of Political Survival. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Keynes, J.M. (1936) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. London: Macmillan.

MacCulloch, D. (2009). A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. London: Allen Lane.

Weber, M. (1920) Religiöse Gemeinschaften, in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie I. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Translated in: Weber, M. (1948) From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Edited and translated by H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. London: Routledge.

1. There are ample debates on whether this highly influential idea from Weber is actually born out of the currently available data.

The fact that Weber’s thesis is about religious ideas is not a contradiction here. From a Marxist perspective, religion is part of the dominant ideology, helping to justify existing social structures.

2. Binmore. Game theory and the social contract (1994, 1998).

3. An example of purely abstract normative theory is Kant’s attempt to found morality on a priori principles, purely based on rationality.

4. I generalise here the idea of sociologist Howard Becker in Outsiders (1963) of moral entrepreneurs, individuals who initiate and campaign for the creation or enforcement of moral norms.

5. Looking back at forgotten religious debates of the past, those that no longer concern any modern coalition, they often appear to elevate trivial matters to ridiculous heights of importance.

The debates in early Christianity offer striking examples. In the 5th–7th centuries, a major conflict arose between Monophysites, who believed that Christ had only one nature (a fusion of human and divine), and Dyophysites, who believed he had two (human and divine). To modern ears, that debate might seem an absurd reason for a schism to appear in a religion, but it unleashed intense passions in the Roman Empire, with mob riots and repression against the Monophysites by the imperial authorities.

Another one of the examples I find most telling is the theological debate on whether to use three fingers instead of two for making the sign of the cross in 17th century Orthodoxy (MacCulloch, 2009). Two fingers represented the two natures of Christ, divine and human, while three represented the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The use of three fingers was requested by the 1667 synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. This led to a major schism in Orthodox Christianity. Those who rejected the reform were brutally repressed. Their leader, Archpriest Avvakum, was executed by burning in 1682. Many followers were imprisoned, exiled, or killed, and some even chose mass self-immolation rather than submit.

6. The notion that political ideas can both be influenced by social interests and have an effect on the world is also present in some Marxist writings. See, for instance,e this quote from Engels in a letter to Bloch:

The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure—political forms of the class struggle and its results, to wit: constitutions established by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc., juridical forms, and even the reflexes of all these actual struggles in the brains of the participants, political, juristic, philosophical theories, religious views and their further development into systems of dogmas—also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form. There is an interaction of all these elements in which, amid all the endless host of accidents […], the economic movement finally asserts itself as necessary. — Engels (1890)