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Contemporary Political Ideologies

Class at Faculty of Social Sciences |
JPB372

Syllabus

Part I – Ideology as an Object of Study

Class 1 - Introduction to the Study of Ideologies

Reading: Heywood, A. - Political Ideologies, pp. 1-23 (Chapter 1)  

Class 2 - Marx's notion of Ideology

Reading: Marx, K.; Engels, F. - The German Ideology, pp. 29-30, 33-44, 47-58, 67-71 (selections of Part One Feuerbach, Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook)  

Class 3 - Non-Marxist Approaches to Ideology

Reading: Freeden, M. - The Morphological Analysis of Ideology IN Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies, pp. 115-135.  

Part II - Liberalism

Class 4 – Liberalism I

Reading: Mill, J. S. - On Liberty, pp. 73-85, 121-138 (Chapters 1 and 3)  

Class 5 - Liberalism II

Reading: Green, T. H. - Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract, especially pp. 369-37 AND Rand, A. - What Is Capitalism? (video)

Assignment alternative: Lib Dem Manifesto  

Part III - Socialism

Class 6 – Socialism I

Reading: Kautsky, K. – The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, pp. 3-32.  

Class 7 – Socialism II

Reading: Cohen, G. A. -  Why not Socialism? OR Fraser, N. – Cannibal Capitalism, pp. xii-xvii, 141-157 (Preface + Chapter 6)

Assignment alternative: Labour Manifesto  

PART IV

Class 8 - Conservatism I

Reading: Burke, E. - Reflections on the Revolution in France,  pp. 26-33 (Price's Third Claim ), 74-84 (English prejudices) 139-147 (Burke's plan), 208-210 (Conclusion)  

Class 9 - Conservatism II

Reading: Kirk, R. - The Conservative Mind, pp. 1-10 AND Scruton, R. - Why I became a conservative

Assignment alternative: Conservative Manifesto  

PART V – Beyond Traditional Ideologies

Class 10 - Populism

Reading: Mudde, C, Kaltwasser, R. - Populism: A Very Short Introduction, Chapter 1 (What is Populism?)

Assignment alternative: Any “Populist” Party Manifesto  

Class 11: Postmaterialism I

Reading: Inglehart, R. - The Silent Revolution, pp. 3-39. OR Shiva, V. – Earth Democracy, pp. vii-xxix, 9-11 (Preface and Section Principles of Earth Democracy)

Assignment alternative: Green Party Manifesto   

Class 12 Postmaterialism II

Reading: Freeden, M. - Green Ideology In: Ideologies and Political Theory AND Falkvinge, R. - The Pirate Party: The politics of protest. Tedx Talk (video)

Assignment alternative: Czech Pirate Party Manifesto (in Czech)  

Class 13 Concluding Remarks    

Apart from the above-mentioned compulsary reading for each seminar, the students are required to read a respective “introductory” chapter to every discussed ideology in either:

A) Heywood, A. - Political Ideologies

B) The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies

Annotation

This course offers an introduction to political ideologies. The first part of the course focuses on different Marxist and non-Marxist approaches to the study of ideology.

After the notion of "ideology" is introduced, three blocks devoted to main traditional ideologies (liberalism, socialism and conservatism) follow. Finally, the course shifts its attention to the concluding critical block featuring post-material ideologies and populism.