Political Theory - Volume 1 (1)

INTRODUCTION TO IDEOLOGY
WHAT IS PURPOSE OF IDEOLOGY

• Ideology may be seen as a set of Ideas used by particular groups as reflecting certain realities, aimed
to justify or denounce a particular way of social, political or economic reality e.g. Marxism, Liberalism,
Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, Feminism etc.
AS PER ANDREW HEYWOOD, IDEOLOGY PERFORMS A NUMBER OF CRUCIAL

FUNCTIONS:
• They provide a perspective through which the world is understood and explained. Whether consciously
or unconsciously, everyone subscribes to a set of political beliefs and values that guide their behaviour
and influence their conduct.
• Political ideas also help to shape the nature of political systems.
• Lastly, political ideas and ideologies can act as a form of social cement, providing social groups, and
indeed whole societies, with a set of unifying beliefs and values.
WHAT IS IDEOLOGY
• David McLellan- ‘Ideology is the most elusive concept in the whole of the social sciences.’
• D.T. Tracy was the first to use the term ‘ideology’ which for him meant a) a study of the process of
formation of ideas b) these ideas were stimulated by the physical environment c) knowledge about
them is to be gained by empirical learning.
Daniel Bell is an exponent of the “functional approach to ideology.
• It implies an action orientation ability to promote or undermine legitimacy,
• potential for attaining social solidarity,
• And value integration.
A political belief system.

An action-orientated set of political ideas.
So various understandings of The ideas of the ruling class.

Ideology are: The world-view of a particular social class or social group.
An officially sanctioned set of ideas used to legitimize a political system

or regime.
An all-embracing political doctrine that claims a monopoly of truth.
www.sleepyclasses.com 1 1800-890-3043
KARL MARX USED THE TERM IN THE TITLE OF HIS EARLY WORK ‘THE GERMAN
IDEOLOGY.’ MARX’S CONCEPT OF IDEOLOGY HAS A NUMBER OF CRUCIAL
FEATURES:
• Ideology is about delusion and mystification- ‘False Consciousness’.
• Ideology is linked to the class system.
• Ideology is a manifestation of power.
• Finally, Marx treated ideology as a temporary phenomenon. Ideology will only continue so long as the
class system that generates it survives.
However, for 20th century Marxists, led by Lenin (What is to be Done?), ideology referred to the dis-
tinctive ideas of a particular social class, ideas that advance its interests regardless of its class position.
However, as all classes, the proletariat as well as the bourgeoisie, have an ideology, the term was robbed
of its negative or pejorative connotations. Ideology no longer implied necessary falsehood and mystifi-
cation, and no longer stood in contrast to science; indeed ‘scientific socialism’ (Marxism) was recognized
as form of proletarian ideology.
GRAMSCI (PRISON DIARIES) AND NEO MARXISTS:

Gramsci argued that the capitalist class system is upheld not simply by unequal economic and political
power, but by what he termed the ‘hegemony’ of bourgeois ideas and theories. Gramsci highlighted the
degree to which ideology is embedded at every level in society, in its art and literature, in its education
system and mass media, in everyday language and popular culture.
This was further picked up by the Frankfurt school theorists led by Herbert Marcuse. Marcuse (One Di-
mensional Man) argued that advanced industrial society has developed a ‘totalitarian’ character in the
capacity of its ideology to manipulate thought and deny expression to oppositional views- Capitalism
is making us ‘blissful slaves’. s
MANNHEIM AND SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE

KARL MANNHEIM IN HIS FAMOUS WORK IDEOLOGY AND UTOPIA (1929) REJECTS
MARX’S THEORY OF IDEOLOGY ON THREE GROUNDS:
• ‘style of thought’ of any group is only indirectly related to its interests; there is no direct correlation
between its consciousness and its economic interests;
• all thought is shaped by its social background; hence Marxism itself is the ideology of a class; and
• apart from classes, other social groups, like different generations, also have a significant influence
upon consciousness.
Karl Mannheim’s “Sociology of Knowledge” broadened Karl Marx’s notion that the proletariat and
bourgeoisie develop different belief systems. In Mannheim’s view, social conflict is caused by the diversity
in thoughts and beliefs (ideologies) among major segments of society that derive from differences in social
location.
• Ideas and beliefs are rooted in larger thought systems (Weltanschauungen), a phenomenon Mannheim
called relationism. He considered that ideological knowledge is often placed within the given social
structure and historical process hence such knowledge is situationally relative. The social structure to
which ideas are bound are seen mainly in terms of class factors or status groups.
• The goal isn’t to identify in a philosophic sort of way the ultimate ‘truth’ of something, but instead to
figure out in practice how people frame, perceive and interpret “the world out there.” People tend to
interpret it though lenses based on culture, position, interests, and – Ideologies.
MANHEIM IDENTIFIES DIFFERENT CATEGORIES:
• However, he called for a further step, which he called a general total conception of ideology, in which
it was recognized that everyone’s beliefs—including the social scientist’s—were a product of the
context they were created in.
• Mannheim further contrasts ideology with utopia. Ideology represents the tendency of conservation.
It relies on false consciousness to muster support for the maintenance of status quo.
On the other hand, a state of mind is utopian when:
1. it is incongruous with the immediate situation and;
2. when passed onto actions, tend to shatter the order of things.
MAIN PROBLEM IS RELATIVISM & KNOWLEDGE OF OBJECTIVE TRUTH

• Mannheim hinges on the possibility of a ‘free- floating stratum’ of intellectuals between the contending
classes to achieve disinterested knowledge.
• He hopes that some enlightened individuals within the conflicting groups will realize that their
perception of truth is partial; it could be complemented by understanding their opponent’s view.
• They will open the way to achieve synthetic common knowledge of the prevailing historical situation
and a realistic assessment of actual possibilities. In other words, they will be able to grasp a realistic
vision between ideology and Utopia.
• Mannheim identifies these intellectuals as social scientists. He recommends that these social scientists,
who have proved their ability to grasp the objective truth, should be given authority to rule.
CRITICS OF IDEOLOGY
• Karl Popper (The Open Society and its Enemies)- Explores the idea of Totalitarianism taking it back to
ancient Greece. Considers Plato as a champion of “Closed Society.”
• Ideology is seen as a tool of Totalitarianism to impose an idea of absolute truth. He viewed
modern Western liberal democracies as open societies. The idea of rational and free expression and
communication as founding pillars of open societies.
• Hannah Arendt (The Origins of Totalitarianism) sees Nazism and other totalitarian forms of State being
built on terror and ideological fiction. She underlined the popular appeal of totalitarian ideologies
with their capacity to mobilize populations to do their bidding. In times of crisis (such as the Great
Depression), these ideologies provide convenient answers to the people in disarray.
END OF IDEOLOGY
END OF IDEOLOGY:
• Edward Shils first talked about the same which implies that at the advanced stage of industrial growth,
a country’s social-economic organisation is determined by the level of its development, and not by any
political ideology.
• Seymour Martin Lipset put forward a similar idea argued that post-war societies in the West eliminate
the functional need for ideologies since they have solved the fundamental political problems of the
industrial revolution that generated these ideologies. He further asserted that democracy is now
looked at as “the good society itself in operation”.
Ralph Dahrendorf (Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society)- Rise of ‘post capitalist societies’ where
industry and industrial conflicts remain in their realm and don’t impact politics and social life.
J.K. Galbraith (The New Industrial Society) underlines the rise of ‘Industrial State’ with greater central-
isation, bureaucratisation, professionalisation and technocratisation.
Rise of Meritocratic society- Immense social mobility and emergence of new ruling class of bureaucratic
and technocratic elite.
Daniel Bell (End of Ideology)- He draws attention to the exhaustion of rationalist approaches to social
and political issues and the oppression of ‘Utopian States.’ Popularised ‘post-industrialism’, highlight-
ing the emergence of ‘information societies’ dominated by a new ‘knowledge class’- ‘Managed Capital-
ism’.
DANIEL BELL POINTS OUT CERTAIN IMPORTANT IDEAS WHICH LED HIM TO
BELIEVE IN ‘END OF IDEOLOGY’:
• He was impressed by the fact that after World War II politics in the West was characterized by broad
agreement amongst major political parties and the absence of ideological division or debate.
• Fascism and communism had both lost their appeal, while the remaining parties disagreed only about
which of them could best be relied on to deliver economic growth and material prosperity. In effect,
economics had triumphed over politics.
• Politics had been reduced to technical questions about ‘how’ to deliver affluence, and had ceased to
address moral or philosophical questions about the nature of the ‘good society’.
• W.W. Rostow, in his ‘The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-communist Manifesto’ built a
unidimensional model of economic growth which was applicable to all countries irrespective of their
political ideologies. He suggested that societies pass through five stages of growth: traditional society,
precondition for take-off, take-off, road to maturity and the age of high mass consumption.
CRITICISM
• R. Titmuss observed that the champions of the end of ideology thesis overlook the problems of
monopolistic concentration of economic power, social disorganization and cultural deprivation within
the capitalist system.
• C. Wright Mills dubbed the upholders of end of ideology thesis the advocates of status quo.
• C.B. Macpherson asserted that the champions of lie end of ideology thesis make a futile attempt to
solve the problem of equitable distribution within the market society.
• Alasdair Maclntyre significantly observed that the ‘end of ideology’ theorists failed to realise that end
of ideology was itself “a key expression of the ideology of the time and place where it arose.”
• Daniel Bell in his work had argued that the end of older humanistic ideological debates will be marked
with rise of new parochial ideologies and the return of traditional ethnic and religious conflicts in the
many regions of the former socialist states and elsewhere.
• Vattimo and Rovatti in their book ‘Weak Thought’ argue that nowadays we see the disappearance
and decline of the traditional ideologies as new forms of manipulation of the consciousness of the
masses emerge. They originate from the processes of constituting fragile, or “weakened” identities
characterized by mixing various rationalized mono-ideologies into a hybrid whole, which allows
combining seemingly hardly interconnected things.
END OF HISTORY
END OF HISTORY EXPLAINED:
• A broader perspective was adopted by Francis Fukuyama in his essay ‘The End of History’ (1989),
later developed into The End of History and the Last Man (1992).
• Unlike Bell, Fukuyama did not suggest that political ideas had become irrelevant, but that one
particular set of ideas, western liberalism, had triumphed over all its rivals.
• Fascism had been defeated in 1945, and Fukuyama clearly believed that the collapse of communist
rule in eastern Europe in 1989 marked the passing of Marxism- Leninism as an ideology of world
significance.
• Throughout the world there was, he argued, an emerging agreement about the desirability of liberal
democracy, in the form of a market or capitalist economy and an open, competitive political system.
• While liberal democracy may have made impressive progress during the twentieth century, as the
century drew to a close there was undoubted evidence of the revival of very different ideologies,
notably political Islam, whose influence has come to extend from the Muslim countries of Asia and
Africa into the former Soviet Union and also the industrialized West.
• Many argue that the end of pull of communist ideology prepared the way for the revival of nationalism,
racialism or religious fundamentalism, rather than led to the final victory of liberal democracy.
Eric Hobsbawm in his ‘short twentieth century’ noted how the collapse of USSR would lead to unshackling
of forces held bay leading to the erosion of norms of social solidarity and questioning of state structures.
• Samuel Huntington’s vision of a ‘clash of civilizations’ linked it to changes in global politics that
have occurred due to the end of the Cold War. A world divided along ideological lines, with the USA
and the Soviet Union respectively representing the forces of capitalism and communism, had faded
and eventually disappeared, leaving politics to be structured by issues of identity and, in particular,
culture.
• Many scholars also question the victory of liberalism. Thomas Piketty argues in Capital in the Twenty-
First Century, free markets have not- only enlarged the gap between rich and poor, but have also
reduced average incomes across the developed and developing worlds.
• Francis Fukuyama in Liberalism and its Discontents offers a defense of classical liberal values against
both the identitarian left and — far more dangerously — the populist, nationalist right.
• Fukuyama argues that liberalism is threatened not by a rival ideology, but by “absolutized” versions
of its own principles in USA especially:
• On the right, neoliberalism’s single-minded focus on free market and individual autonomy has led
to systemic instability and inequality.
• On the left, an excessive focus on group rights in the face of individual autonomy and free speech
challenges liberalism.
• The answer to these discontents,” argues Fukuyama “isn’t to abandon liberalism, but to moderate it.”
Fukuyama offers a three-pronged strategy for the same:
1. Balance the individual and the communal;
2. Protect freedom of speech with apt limits;
3. Devolve power to the lowest appropriate level of government.
LIBERALISM
LIBERALISM AND CLASSICAL LIBERALISM

• Alabaster argues that “liberalism shouldn’t be seen as a fixed and absolute term, s a collection of
unchanging moral and political values but as a specific historical movement of ideas in the modern
era which began with Renaissance and Reformation.”
• The idea of Liberalism rests on rationality and equal moral worth of all individuals.
• Because of this liberty becomes essential because of existence of Reason to guide the actions of the
individuals.
• Liberalism follows that as liberty is a basic norm, any limitation on the same has to be justified even if
it is by a political authority. This is the Fundamental Liberal Principle.
Andrew Hacker in his book Political Theory has distinguished four types of liberalism:
1. utopian liberalism,
2. free market liberalism,
3. democratic liberalism, and
4. reformist liberalism.
On the whole, according to, to him, liberalism stands for:
• free life as the prime pursuit of politics,
• state’s task is to eschew coercion and to encourage the conditions for this free life.
Similarly, Barbara Goodwin in her book Using Political Ideas, lists the following ingredients of
liberalism:
• man is free, rational, self- improving and autonomous,
• government is based on consent and contract,
• constitutionalism and the rule of law,
• freedom as choice which includes the right to choose government from among different representatives,
• equality of opportunity,
• social justice based upon merit, and
• tolerance.
CLASSICAL LIBERALISM & MAIN FEATURES
• The advent of Classical liberalism maybe seen from 15th-16th century with the coming up of the Social
Contract tradition which was further an outcropping of Reformation and Enlightenment. Classical
realism rests on certain crucial beliefs:
• freedom as choice which includes the right to choose government,
• equality of opportunity,
• social justice based upon merit, and
• tolerance.
CLASSICAL LIBERALISM:
Classical Liberalism subscribed to certain individual rights such as life, liberty and property as an
expression of natural law.
Human nature was cast by this version into a timeless and universal scale led by equality and
reason.
Classical Liberalism conceived the role of civil society and state as basically protective of rights.
Therefore, state could not interfere in the domain of rights in the name of promoting some other
value or impose limitation on the scope of rights, unless protection of rights itself required such an
intervention. It stood for a limited government.
A representative legislature, separation of powers, securing dispersal of public authority across
different organs of government and periodic elections were central to the disposition of this
version.
The economic counterpart of this version was free market and laissez-faire.
IN HIS BOOK LIBERALISM, L.T. HOBHOUSE POINTED OUT CERTAIN BASIC

PRINCIPLES OF’ CLASSICAL LIBERALISM. THESE PRINCIPLES ARE:
• Personal liberty
• Civil liberty
• Economic liberty
• Political liberty
• It also included domestic freedom, administrative and racial liberty and international liberty.
CLASSICAL LIBERAL THINKERS
JOHN LOCKE (TWO TREATISES ON CIVIL GOVERNMENT, 1689)
• Repudiates the Divine Rights theory and supports idea of limited sovereignty.
• Positive view of nature of man.
• Existence of an ambiguous Natural Law with individuals possessing certain Natural rights.
• Dual Contract- First: Political Society. Second: Government.
• State artificial creation for protection of rights of people.
MONTESQUIEU (THE SPIRIT OF LAWS, 1748)-
• Montesquieu endeavoured to do for France what Locke had done for England as a liberal. Espoused
the theory of ‘Separation if Powers’.
• System of checks and balances to preserve liberty.
• State enacts laws but not arbitrarily.
ADAM SMITH (WEALTH OF NATIONS, 1776)-
• Propounds an ‘economic view’ of man wherein the sphere of economics is that of freedom.
• Forces of ‘Open Competition’ to govern economics- Laissez Faire.
• Invisible Hand- Economic self-interest leads to the progress of the entire society.
• Three main functions of the State- External Security; Law and Order plus ensuring justice; public
works that are not taken up by private individuals.
HERBERT SPENCER (SOCIAL DARWINISM IN ‘MAN VERSUS STATE’)
• Applies Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ to the society and economy.
• State is not to interfere in the natural development of man and society.
• Limits State’s functions to external security, maintenance of law and order, implementing legal treaties
and agreements.
UTILITARIANISM
JEREMY BENTHAM (PRINCIPLES OF MORALS AND LEGISLATION, 1780)
• Fundamental axiom- ‘Greatest happiness of greatest number’ to determine right or wrong.
• Happiness is seen as the principle of preference of pleasure over pain (Hedonism).
• Felicific calculus- Use various components such as intensity, duration, certainty, remoteness, fecundity
and purity to calculate the amount of pleasure.
• This calculus is meant to guide the State in its prime function-legislation.
• Supported the principles of Laissez faire or Free market economy to maximise public good.
• It was his student and critic J.S. Mill who may be regarded as the pioneer of modern Liberalism.
J.S. MILL (ON LIBERTY, PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY)
• Mill goes beyond Bentham to include freedom of individuality as a component of happiness for the
cultivation of self. He further improved upon Benthamite utilitarianism:
• importance to be given to both quantity and quality of pleasure;
• everyday rules of morality to guide the application of utilitarianism.
• Freedom of expression is paramount for Mill.
• Mill may be seen as balancing between negative and positive liberty. Individuals deserve autonomy for
the cultivation of self, yet this liberty is geared towards developing certain desirable traits or qualities.
• The principle of non-interference in Individual’s life is demarcated by bifurcation between two kinds
of actions:
• Self-regarding actions- Over which the individual is sovereign and these don’t harm others. Here
he prescribes no government or societal interference.
• Other regarding actions- These are actions that might have an impact on others or tend to harm
them in any way.
• Mill talks of a representative government as the perfect avenue for maximisation of happiness as
people through their representatives are able to legislate on their interests. Regular elections and short
terms confirm the same.
• Despite his support for every individual knowing his interests best, Mill is the champion of
“middle rank” who epitomise education, intellect and public spiritedness. However, his franchise
is extended only to male heads of households over 40 years of age.
• Majoritarianism and Mediocre government were weaknesses of democracy. Suggested proportional
representation for minorities and plural voting for the educated middle rank.
• In case of economics he suggested a sphere of freedom. However, he also created space for
government intervention to expand freedom of masses through trade regulation, taxes and
regulation of work hours.
IMMANUEL KANT’S IMPORTANCE:
KANTIAN VIEWS
• Immanuel Kant based his liberalism on the idea of freedom from other people’s choices and universal
rationality. He maintains that all people have a fundamental dignity as rational and moral beings.
This both obligates us to act accordingly and to respect the dignity of others.
• From this starting point, he argues that the state should exist to assure that individuals enjoy “Freedom,
insofar as it can coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with a universal law.”
• Kant distinguished between a real and rational self, which he considered as a higher and a lower self-
moved by desires provoked by the senses. The higher self was the genuine locus of freedom.
• This freedom is limited by what is consistent with reason but is wide-ranging. A large number of
liberties are required for a rational, autonomous person to be able to utilize those capacities.
• These liberties include the freedom of speech, religion, and the right to pursue happiness in any way
a person wants to, so long as it is consistent with everybody else being able to do the same.
• He further argues that no state should make a law that “a whole people could not possibly give its
consent to.
NEW/ POSITIVE LIBERALISM:
Not just freedom of choice but the creative ability to reach full potential as a human being. Accepted the
notion of positive liberty.
▼
Active participation in the political community and its processes.
▼
Human nature is formed and informed by the kind of institutions and supports that nurture and nourish
it and these institutions and supports in turn, reflect the kind of human beings that sustain them.
▼
Opened the way for economic interventionist policies, welfare measures and redistribution of wealth.
▼
• Modern liberals defend welfarism on the basis of equality of opportunity. If particular individuals or
groups are disadvantaged by their social circumstances, then the state possesses a social responsibility
to reduce or remove these disadvantages to create equal, or at least more equal, life chances.
• For example, the expanded welfare state in the UK ,was based on the Beveridge Report (1942), which
set out to attack the so-called ‘five giants’ - want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. It memorably
promised to protect citizens ‘from the cradle to the grave’.
• Economic Management: In addition to providing social welfare, twentieth-century western
governments also sought to deliver prosperity by ‘managing’ their economies. This once again
involved rejecting classical liberal thinking, in particular its belief the doctrine of laissez-faire.
• The Great Depression of the 1930s, sparked off by the Wall Street Crash of 1929, led to high levels of
unemployment throughout the industrialized world and in much of the developing world. This was
the most dramatic demonstration of the failure of the free market.
• To a large extent these interventionist policies were guided by the work of the UK economist John
Maynard Keynes. suggested that governments could ‘manage’ their economies by influencing the
level of aggregate demand. Government spending is, in this sense, an ‘injection’ of demand into the
economy.
• At times of high unemployment, Keynes recommended that governments should ‘reflate’ their
economies by either increasing public spending or cutting taxes. This was done by running a budget
deficit, meaning that the government literally ‘overspends’- FDR’s ‘New Deal’ in US after WW II.
JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
• His important works include: ‘Discourse on the Arts and Sciences’ (1750), ‘Discourse on Inequality’
(1755), the Encyclopaedia article titled ‘Political Economy’ (1755), Emile (1762), and The Social Contract
(1762).
• Rousseau is regarded as the ‘father of French Revolution’ and one of the greatest exponents of the values of
liberty, equality and fraternity. Ebenstein- Tried to synthesise good government with self government.
• Rousseau is a product of Enlightenment and a believer in human equality. However, at the same time
he is a votary of romanticism and protests against intelligence, science and reason.
ROUSSEAU’S CRITICISM OF THE SYSTEMATIC INDIVIDUALISM OF LOCKE:
• Rousseau was critical of this systematic individualism in Locke because, it did not concur with human
nature, the way he understood it.
• For Rousseau, the attributes of rationality, the power to calculate, the desire for happiness, the idea of
ownership, the power to communicate with others and enter into agreement for creating a government
are all attributes acquired by man through living in society and not attributes of a natural man.
• Rousseau thought that it was absolutely false to think that reason by itself would ever bring men
together, if they were concerned only with their individual happiness. Rousseau considered that over
and above self-interest, men have an innate revulsion against sufferings in others. The common basis
of sociability is not reason but feeling.
• State of nature: In Rousseau’s state of nature, man is both amoral and asocial. Primitive people are
without language which is the basis of reasoning and communication. Guided by instinct, not reason
for self-preservation. However, the state of nature is not a state of war. For Rousseau, pity is the only
natural virtue that human beings possess which makes the state of nature peaceful. Regards primitive
humans as ‘noble savages.’
Rise of Civilisation: It is attributed to the discovery of metal and agriculture, bringing in division and
specialisation of labour. It is linked to the founding of private property.
The starting point comes in his work ‘Discourses on Inequality’- modern technology and advancement
has ushered in social inequalities. Accepts only natural inequalities. Social inequalities a creation of
civilisation.
Civil society- to protect property- selfish interests of a few people. The first person who enclosed a piece
of ground and said “This is mine” is real founder of civil society. “Man is born free, but everywhere he is
in chains”
FOR ROUSSEAU, “THINKING MAN IS A DEPRAVED ANIMAL” (SABINE).
• Destroys natural responses like sympathy and pity.
• Makes man a sceptic.
• Cultivation of manners and politeness destroys martial nature.
• Conceals “real selves” of individuals.
• Civilization responsible for the moral fall of man.
• Arts and sciences are garlands of flowers over the chains.
• End of self-sufficiency- increase in social dissensions and dependence between the rich and poor.
Instinct transformed to reason- destroys the natural goodness of humans, increase in vanity and war-
requirement for a higher organisation.
• At the same time, Rousseau does not talk of communalism or ending private property. He regarded
property as a sacred right of citizens. He championed an economic system based on small farmers
owning tracts of land without sharp distinctions or inequalities.
• The distinguishing factor between humans and animals- presence of will.
WHILE ROUSSEAU BEMOANS THE LOSS OF GOLDEN PAST, HE DOES NOT WISH TO
RETURN TO IT BECAUSE IT IS NOT POSSIBLE. INSTEAD, HE STATES:
• Despite the corrupting influence of civilization, real will remains undisturbed.
• Need for a higher form of political organization that would be based on the needs and nature of
human beings.
• General Will: In ‘Social Contract’, Rousseau talks of the higher kind of political organization that
would transform the ‘savage’ into ‘humane person’. The state must be so constructed that both liberty
and social control are possible.
• Importantly, the rights are not transferred to an assembly or single person but to the entire community
of citizens, and each citizen must have an equal voice in the legislative process.
General Will which is an amalgamation of real wills (self-mastery)- moral good, public interest- to not
follow it is wrong- exponent of positive liberty.
Unlike Locke, Rousseau’s idea of ‘popular sovereignty’ rests in the entire population when they abide by
the General Will. Rousseau applies Aristotle’s logic when he says that people are more open to obeying
laws made by themselves.
Rousseau is a champion of direct democracy and associated with the idea of General Will. Through his
work on ‘Social Contract’ he tries to reconcile the idea of liberty with that of authority. Rousseau considers
sovereignty of the people inalienable and indivisible.
If society and polity are appropriately organized, the “dissenters” will recognize that the laws were made
for their own good and will freely grant their obedience. And if the citizen should refuse to obey the
general will, he “shall be compelled to it by the whole body,” that is “man should force to be free.”
“ROUSSEAU’S GENERAL WILL IS HOBBES’ LEVIATHAN WITH ITS HEAD

CHOPPED OFF”.
• Because of this absolute surrender of individual rights to the general will Rousseau is compared to
Hobbes, for when self-interest, as Hobbes believes, is opposed to the public interest, sheer power must
be exercised to maintain social order and real liberty is thereby destroyed.
• Whereas Hobbes sets up a ruler as sovereign, Rousseau draws a sharp distinction between sovereignty,
which always and wholly resides in the people, and government, which is a temporary agent of the
sovereign people. People can be ‘forced to be free’.
• Unlike Locke wherein people transfer sovereignty to the organs of the government, Rousseau retains
the legislative function with people. While special organs are needed for executive and judicial
functions, they remain wholly subordinate to sovereign people- “Voice of the people is voice of God.”
CRITICISM
• Vaughan- While his first phase is of defiant individualism, latter of defiant collectivism. Taylor-
Precursor of modern totalitarianism
• Popper- Rousseau as a romantic collectivist. Not applicable to modern, large societies.
• General Will is an expression of a particular community at a particular point in time- socially relative
and subjective.
• Too pessimistic about the power of reason to establish the ethical basis of the state and too optimistic
about feeling and emotion.
T.H. GREEN (PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL OBLIGATION):
• Green attempted to reverse the terms of classical liberalism by drawing attention to the quality of the
political community and its institutions enabling one to exercise the kinds of choices one would wish
to exercise.
• He argued that a community possessing law and government and which relies not on force, but on the
consent of its citizens is the indispensable condition for freedom.
• In Green’s formulation, rights and law were integral to freedom. While rights safeguard the claims of
individuals and groups, law ensures transcending narrow interests to achieve true freedom.
• The state removes the obstacles to and provides the condition favouring moral development. The state
is not merely governmental and legal institutions of a society, but includes citizens and independent
associations participating in the making and execution of governmental decisions and policy.
• Green regards state as natural and necessary institution. The authority of the state is neither absolute
or omnipotent. It is limited both from within and without. It is limited from within because the law of
the state can deal only with the externality of an action and intentions.
• The authority of the sate is limited from without in the sense that it has to show its respect to the
existence of international law. Like Kant, Green is a believer in international law and international
organizations.
• The sovereign may be a creator of laws but he is also bound by them. The real sustaining power
behind the state is general will. The essence of sovereignty and state is not force but that they represent
the general will of the community.
• According to Green, human consciousness postulates liberty; liberty involves rights and rights demand
the state. Rights are the outer conditions necessary for a man’s inner development of personality.
Rights are inherent in individuals, but they can be interned in individuals only as members of a society
which gives its recognition.
• The rights with which he concerned are not legal rights but ideal rights: they are the rights which
society properly organized on the basis of the good should ideally recognize. Such rights are termed
as natural rights not because they are pre-social but, they are inherent and innate in the moral nature
of associated men who are living in some form of society.
• Green laid the foundations for the modern social welfare state which guarantees old age pension,
unemployment insurance, health insurance and all the other legislative schemes designed to promote
self- security.
HAROLD LASKI (GRAMMAR OF POLITICS, THE STATE IS THEORY AND
PRACTICE):
• Witnessed the crisis of Capitalism, votary of achieving socialist goals through liberal democracy.
• Against the concept of monistic sovereignty and prefers the term ‘authority’ and pluralism.
• Recommends positive intervention by the State.
• State deserves obedience only if it satisfies the wants of the citizens.
MACLVER (THE MODERN STATE, WEB OF GOVERNMENT):
• Opposed to absolutist State and a supporter of pluralist sovereignty.
• Saw “State as an instrument of social man” and advocated positive intervention.
• Problems within the welfare state: Attempt to combine two opposing systems of capitalism and
socialism which as per J. Habermas was bound to produce crisis tendencies which are endemic to the
state:
• Referring to the crisis in the advanced capitalist societies, Habermas holds the view that these societies
experience four levels of crises: economic crisis, rationality crisis, legitimation crisis and motivational
crisis.
Types of Crises
Socio-cultural
Economic Sphere Political Sphere
Sphere
Economic Crisis Rationality Crisis, Legitimation Crisis Motivational Crisis
NEO – LIBERALISM/LIBERALTARIANISM
• The evolution of Welfare state witnessed a backlash in the 1960’s and 70’s especially with the emergence
of Thatcher in UK and Ronald Reagan in USA. Neo-liberals sought return the principles of classical
liberalism focussing on individualism. Against ‘cradle to grave’ welfare State. Neo liberals like Hayek,
Nozick, Friedman blamed the interventionist State for creating a class of dependent, free-loaders
Individual freedom is the fundamental value that

underlies all social relations. Individual should be free
from interference of others.
Attempts to limit and circumscribe the role of the state in the economy
and civil society ( examples of spontaneous order) and valorise the role
of the market.
It asserts the primacy of liberty vis-a-vis other values. The right to property, which
libertarians consider as a matter of convention, is regarded as central to freedom by them.
Libertarians attempt to set up an unbreakable bond between freedom, the market and the efficient
pursuit of policies and measures. Markets facilitate rational allocative decisions by disseminating
relevant knowledge.
AYN RAND (THE FOUNTAINHEAD, ATLAS SHRUGGED)

• Individual is the basic unit of the society and its prime moral concern and the only source of creativity.
• The root of the problem is idea of altruism- the notion that man should place the welfare of others over
ones own.
• Redefines selfishness- responsibility for one’s life and fate- is a virtue. Money is just reward and
estimation for an individual’s excellence.
• Altruism keeps the recipient in a state of child like subservience and is against the idea of moral
dignity.
F.A. HAYEK (CONSTITUTION OF LIBERTY)
• Supports Individualism, non-interference from Society and State.
• State as a impartial umpire or referee with minimum powers. Maintain open competition and non-
coercive functions but not become an instrument of distributive justice.
• All individuals have different talents and skills and equality before law will create difference in actual
status. Removal of the same is coercion.
• Hayek put forward economic and political critique of central planning in particular and economic
intervention in general. He argued that planning in any form is bound to be economically inefficient
because state bureaucrats, however competent they might be, are confronted by a range and complexity
of information that is simply beyond their capacity to handle.
MILTON FRIEDMAN:
• Friedman criticized Keynesianism on the grounds that ‘tax and spend’ policies fuel inflation by
encouraging governments to increase borrowing ,without, in the process, affecting the ‘natural rate’
of unemployment. On the other hand they saw market economy to have numerous benefits like:
• Markets tend towards long-term equilibrium and are self-regulating.
• Second, markets are naturally efficient and productive.
• Third, markets are responsive, even democratic, mechanisms due to existence of competition
• Finally, ,markets deliver fairness and economic justice. The ,market gives all people the opportunity
to rise or fall on the basis of talent and hard work.
ROBERT NOZICK (ANARCHY, STATE AND UTOPIA)
• Follows Locke is asserting presence of certain rights in the state of nature
• He is a supporter of Negative rights over Positive rights focussing on separateness of persons.
• It is State’s mandate to protect negative rights and these protect them against force and fraud.
• Supports laissez faire and procedural form of Justice.
• Nozick supports a night watchman state and was opposed to the policies of progressive taxation
and positive discrimination. He argues that those who own wealth may voluntarily adopt some
redistribution.
CRITICISM:
• According to Hammerton, there is no reason to believe that the rights are natural, pre-existing to the
laws of the society.
• Critics also don’t accept the libertarian idea of freedom as ‘freedom from coercion’. How much freedom
one enjoys, comes down to how much property one has.
• Libertarians view state as inherently wrong/ necessary evil. Many critics argue against this idea as the
State performs many critical and protective functions crucial for human society.
• S. Freeman has pointed out how libertarianism is not itself ‘liberal’:
• they believe in non-coercion and non -initiation of force, while in reality libertarians legitimise
economic injustice by refusing to define it as coercion or initiated force,
• they depend upon the moral autonomy of the individual, while in reality libertarians demand that
the individual accept the outcome of the market forces,
• it believes in political freedom, but some form of libertarian government imposing libertarian
policies on non-libertarians would be necessary,
• libertarians condemn existing states as oppressive, while at the same time they use the political
process in the existing states to implement their policies, and
• they boast of the benefits of libertarianism , but they claim the right to decide for others what
constitutes a ‘benefit’.
EQUALITARIAN LIBERALISM
JOHN RAWLS (A THEORY OF JUSTICE, POLITICAL LIBERALISM)
• Critical of Utilitarianism and uses Kant’s moral theory to a just order should be based on the principles
of “Self before its Ends’ and ‘Right prior to Good’.
• Rawls resorts to the social contract device to formulate the principles on which all can agree to base
their social and political institutions to ensure justice as fairness.
LIBERALISM IN 21ST CENTURY
• Communitarians like A. MacIntyre and Michael Sandel, for example, rejected individualism as facile,
on the grounds that it suggests that the self is ‘unencumbered’, drawing its identity entirely from
within rather than from its social, historical or cultural context. Since community shapes and nurtures
the individual, political life must start with the concern for community and not individual.
• Feminism attacks liberalism as an inadequate vehicle for advancing the social role of women because
it fails to recognize the significance of gender differences, and too often champions a conception of
‘personhood’ that is dominated by male traits and characteristics.
• The advent of Multicultural societies has further presented challenges to Liberals with need for ethnic
and community rights as a means for self-worth.
LIBERAL COSMOPOLITANISM
• Liberalism (in the classical way) is for Peter Boettke fundamentally grounded in the maxim that “all
men are created equal,” and that no one can own another or tell him what to do. From this fundamental
truth, Boettke argues, arises the need to honour the human dignity of others.
• Boettke develops from this his case for a “liberal cosmopolitanism,” which “espouses virtues of
openness, of acceptance, of above all else toleration. This is relevant in contemporary world where
xenophobia, intolerance, war mongering, and autocratic rules are on rise.
• Boettke’s liberalism is inherently “emancipatory.” The classical liberal ideal world is “a system absent
of all privileges,” and presumes an agreement in society that whatever an individual believes, and
regardless of the “lifestyle choices” he follows, others will tolerate it. Everyone, one might say, defines
his own freedom.
SOCIALISM
WHAT IS SOCIALISM?
• Socialism is seen as emerging out of the exploitative conditions created with the rise of Industrial
society permeated with Capitalism.
• There are certain thinkers who may be regarded as proto socialists and laid grounds for the emergence
of Socialism as a full-fledged ideology.
• Rousseau’s appeal for the common good via the General will, Saint-Simon who envisaged society as
an ensemble of men engaged in useful work, Fourier’s phalansteries are all examples of the same.
• Joseph Schumpeter says socialism is- “ that organisation of society in which the means of production
are controlled, and the decisions on how and what to produce and on who is to get what, are made by
public authority instead of by privately-owned and privately managed firms.”
FEATURES OF SOCIALISM:
• As Socialism developed over the years it has acquired numerous sub types so much so that Joad
regards it as “a hat that has lost its shape because everyone wears it.”
• However, despite the divergences there may be certain core elements that are common to all as pointed
out by Andrew Heywood:
Community Unlike liberals, Socialists rest their belief in

humans as social creatures drawing power
from the community. Moreover. Socialists are
firm believers in nurture over nature with the
social circumstances and conditions shaping the
individual.
Cooperation This concept is firmly embedded in the
Socialists view of human nature who believe
it to be cooperative not competitive. It is the
conditioning of a Capitalist system which has
made competition a defining factor. For them
Cooperation makes both moral and economic
sense.
Equality For Socialists, equality of Outcome matters
mainly for 3 reasons:
It upholds justice/fairness.
It is necessary for community and cooperation.
Broadly all humans have similar basic needs and
need satisfaction is necessary for self-realisation.
Social Class For Socialists, it is social class rather than
individuals who are the key to socio- political
change. The focus is specifically on working class
as the catalyst for change.
Community Ownership Private property has been the main evil for
Socialists (Proudhon-All property is theft). For
Socialists wealth is the result of human effort,
hence private acquisition is unjust. Moreover,
property is also seen as divisive and fostering
conflict in the society. Common ownership is
thus seen as vital
SOCIALISM
WHAT IS SOCIALISM?
• Socialism is seen as emerging out of the exploitative conditions created with the rise of Industrial
society permeated with Capitalism.
• There are certain thinkers who may be regarded as proto socialists and laid grounds for the emergence
of Socialism as a full-fledged ideology.
• Rousseau’s appeal for the common good via the General will, Saint-Simon who envisaged society as
an ensemble of men engaged in useful work, Fourier’s phalansteries are all examples of the same.
• Joseph Schumpeter says socialism is- “ that organisation of society in which the means of production
are controlled, and the decisions on how and what to produce and on who is to get what, are made by
public authority instead of by privately-owned and privately managed firms.”
FEATURES OF SOCIALISM:
• As Socialism developed over the years it has acquired numerous sub types so much so that Joad
regards it as “a hat that has lost its shape because everyone wears it.”
• However, despite the divergences there may be certain core elements that are common to all as pointed
out by Andrew Heywood:
Community Unlike liberals, Socialists rest their belief in humans as social creatures
drawing power from the community. Moreover. Socialists are firm
believers in nurture over nature with the social circumstances and
conditions shaping the individual.
Cooperation This concept is firmly embedded in the Socialists view of human

nature who believe it to be cooperative not competitive. It is the
conditioning of a Capitalist system which has made competition
a defining factor. For them Cooperation makes both moral and
economic sense.
Equality For Socialists, equality of Outcome matters mainly for 3 reasons:

It upholds justice/fairness.
It is necessary for community and cooperation.
Broadly all humans have similar basic needs and need satisfaction is
necessary for self-realisation.
Social Class For Socialists, it is social class rather than individuals who are the key
to socio- political change. The focus is specifically on working class as
the catalyst for change.
Community Ownership Private property has been the main evil for Socialists (Proudhon-All
property is theft). For Socialists wealth is the result of human effort,
hence private acquisition is unjust. Moreover, property is also seen
as divisive and fostering conflict in the society. Common ownership
is thus seen as vital
DISCUSS THE KEY FEATURES OF

PRE-MARXIST SOCIALIST THEORY. (PYQ 2015)
EARLY SOCIALISTS:
• Robert Owen was the first to use the word Socialist in 1827 in his Cooperative Magazine. Emphasised
on production on cooperative principles, rather than competitive. Emphasised on transformation of
human nature through education.
• Charles Fourier was appalled by the waste, inefficiency, boredom, and inequality of modern work
which he saw as products of division of labour. Unlike Robert Owen, he did not believe in the efficacy
of big industry. Work should be concentrated in the countryside and small shops in towns where
family life can be lived in communities and where all can know each other. Work can be varied and
enjoyable only if competition is eliminated and organised in cooperatives of small producers.
• Saint-Simon was, in contrast to Fourier, a man of science, industry and large administration. He
believed that social reconstruction should follow the advice of what he called ‘luminaries’ - a learned
elite. They must work towards the redesigning of social institutions with the aim of moral, intellectual
and physical improvement of the poorest who also happen to be the most numerous class in society.
In all of this, the state has to play a central role.
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF EARLY SOCIALISTS:

• Marx was both critical and appreciative of these’ writings on socialism. He critically referred to them
as purely “Utopian” in character.
• There was nothing revolutionary about their ideas.
• They were an assortment of vague and diffuse ideas rather than a coherent theory.
• They talked of things like voluntary agreements, change of heart, propaganda and practical carrying
out of social plans, personal inventive actions, small experiments etc.
• However, Marx remarked in the Communist Manifesto, these ideas became ‘valuable materials for
enlightenment of the working class’.
Types of Socialism:
Reform/ Evolutionary: Revolutionary:

It is the kind of socialism achieved by evolutionary process or It seeks to introduce socialism in its totality so as to replace
by degrees, of by wholesale transformation of society in a capitalist system by the socialist system. It seeks to transform the
single stroke. It admits an attitude of 'compromise'— social system thoroughly instead of accepting small concessions
compromise between capitalism and socialism. for the underprivileged sections.
It insists on organizing the working classes for fighting against

It relies on the democratic method, parliamentary reform and capitalism so as to overthrow the capitalist order and establish
even economic planning with demands of the underprivileged complete socialization of the instruments of production and
including working class being voiced by their representatives. distribution, by revolution.
Seeks to create an equilibrium in society by ensuring rights of It seeks to reverse the position of the dominant and dependent
working class, specifically economic rights, to promote classes of capitalist society, and ultimately to destroy the
common interests of the community. conditions of domination itself so as to secure a classless society.
EVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISMDEFINE SOCIALISM. DISCUSS THE SALIENT

FEATURES OF FABIAN SOCIALISM. (PYQ 2017)DISCUSS THE KEY FEATURES
OF PRE-MARXIST SOCIALIST THEORY. (PYQ 2015)
FABIAN SOCIALISM:
• First developed in England by Fabian society- systematic doctrine of ‘evolutionary socialism’, as a
substitute for the Marxian ‘revolutionary socialism’. Number of differences from Marxist ideas:
• Based on Ricardian theory of rent rather than labour theory of value- Shaw argues, “What the
achievement of socialism involves economically is the transfer of rent from the class which now
appropriates it to the whole people.”
• Not exclusively rely on working class but called “permeation” of middle class, targeted collectivist
liberal politicians and radical social activists.
• Gradual socialism- industry ownership, increased labour representation in legislature and executive,
trade unions, educational movements etc.
• Fabianism arose in the wake of the establishment of democracy in Great Britain, especially during the
years 1865 to 1885. During this period, the working classes had not only obtained the franchise (right-
to-vote) and the legalization of trade unions, but their influence on legislation and the wage-contract
was visibly on the increase.
• Included George Bernard Shaw, Sydney Webb, Beatrice Webb, Sidney Olivier, Graham Wallas, and
G.D.H. Cole.
• Fabianism sought reorganization of society by the emancipation of land and industrial capital from
individual and class ownership and vesting them in the community for the general benefit.
• With community ownership, idle class, living on the labour of others, would necessarily disappear
and political equality of opportunity would be maintained by the spontaneous action of economic
forces
• Fabians were convinced that the spread of socialist ideas would automatically transform democracy
into socialism.
• They insisted on the provision of universal education as an essential means of emancipation of the
working class. He pointed out that the educational system was an essential instrument of fostering
social morality.
GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY:
• One of its most important proponents- Ferdinand Lassalle.
• Lassalle accepted Marxist view of historical materialism- rise of working class and decline of capitalism.
• Differing view on role and nature of state- Instead of overthrowing of State, working class should
organize itself into a political party with a view to securing universal, equal and direct suffrage so as
to make its power legally effective.
• Lassalle envisaged a constitutional and peaceful transition from the capitalist state to a workers’ state.
REVISIONISM:
• Emerged in Germany and was led by Eduard Bernstein. sought to revise some of the basic tenets of
Marxian theory, particularly on the following lines:
• The class struggle had become less intense because the conditions of the working class had
improved rather than deteriorated;
• The middle class had expanded rather than shrunk;
• Large areas of industry had remained in small-scale production rather than concentrated in large-
scale industries.
• Bernstein, therefore, insisted that socialism should be treated more as a movement than an ultimate
goal. Instead of class struggle and class rule, Bernstein preferred democracy, a genuine partnership of
all adult citizens in a limited government as their joint enterprise. Liberal democracy was, to his mind,
the very substance of socialism.
REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM
SYNDICALISM:
• The socialist movement developed in France and Latin countries in the form of Syndicalism. It insists
on the complete independence of labour unions from political parties. In short:
• Syndicalism accepted the class-struggle theory of Marx;
• it preached abolition of the political state;
• it urged industrial action as the only effective means of bringing about a revolutionary change in
society and treated the ‘general strike’ as a means of securing workers’ control over industry; and
• it visualized a social order in which all power would be given to the producer- trade and industrial
unions would serve as the economic framework of society.
• After WWI, it expanded its scope and conceded the equal right of consumers in this sphere of control.
Syndicalism stood for ‘socialization without state’. Its opposition to the state took two major forms:
• the state should have no right in the control of industry; and
• independent economic organizations should be used to restrict and counterbalance the power of the
state.
GUILD SOCIALISM:
• Guild Socialism originated as a trend in the British labour movement which enjoyed great ideological
success in the period from 1916 to 1926. It tried to combine the good points of socialism with those of
the ancient guild system. In short:
• it upheld the Marxian emphasis on class struggle;
• it stood for the abolition of the wage system and demanded representation of the workers in
industrial control;
• it sought to modify Syndicalism by introducing the importance of consumer side by side with the
worker; and
• it sought to abolish the old state which was an instrument of exploitation.
• It insisted that a new organization must be evolved to take charge of the many civic activities necessary
to the life of the community. It advocated pluralistic view of society.
CRITICAL EVALUATION:
• Lack of coherence;
• Not based on revolutionary consciousness of working class;
• Legitimized bourgeoise State by acceptance of democratic means as the ideal route.
• Vijay Prashad argues that the onslaught of globalisation led structural and subjective developments
that weakened worker power:
• First, major technological changes in the world of communications, database management and
transportation that allowed firms to have a global reach. The global commodity chain of this period
enabled firms to disarticulate production.
• Second, the third world debt crisis debilitated the power of national liberation states and states
that — even weakly — had tried to create development pathways for their populations in Africa,
Asia and Latin America leading to IMF’s SAP.
• Third, the collapse of the USSR and the Eastern bloc, as well as the changes in China provided
international capital with hundreds of millions of more workers.
• Need for inter-sectionalism in socialism- Issues of racism, patriarchy, caste, communalism need to be
ingrained.
MARXISM
WHAT IS MARXISM?
• Marxism, in its proper sense, first appeared in the middle of the 19th century in response to the
oppressive conditions created by the capitalist system.
• During the decades beginning with the 1830s and the 1840s the ideas of the Utopian socialists were
subjected to severe criticism by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
• They sought to replace Utopian socialism by scientific socialism. Marx calls his socialism as ‘Scientific
Socialism’ because:
• It offers the economic interpretation of history by using the scientific methodology of dialectical
materialism.
• It explains not only the true causes of exploitation, but also offers the scientific remedy of revolution
and dictatorship of the proletariat to cure the social ills of exploitation.
• It also provides for a scientific mechanism to establish a classless and exploitation less society.
MARXIST THOUGHT:
Main Tenets of Classical/

Orthodox Marxism (Mature Main Tenets of Neo-Marxism
Marx) (Young Marx)
Dialectical Materialism, Hegemony, Alienation,

Historical Materialism, Human Emancipation,
Class Struggle, Theory Relative Autonomy of
of Surplus Value State
V. Lenin, Rosa
Luxemberg, Mao Gramsci, Althusser and
Zedong the Frankfurt School
THEORIES OF ORTHODOX MARXISM:
• Communist parties in the 20th century, particularly led by Lenin and the Bolsheviks in USSR
sought to adapt the theories of Marx and Engles to capture political power.
• However, the conditions prevalent in Tsarist Russia were very different from those seen by Marx
as ripe for Marxism. In fact, the Mensheviks were not in favour of socialist revolution due to:
• Russia was still economically backward and primarily agricultural.
• Majority Russians worked on land, tiny and disorganised workers community.
• At Feudal stage, awaiting Bourgeoisie Revolution and not Socialist.
• Lenin considered bourgeoise democracy as sham and vouched for revolution and need to prevent
counter revolution from within and without.
LENIN ON ‘PUSH HISTORY’:

• Marx had expressed considerable faith in the revolutionary potential of the working class. But in
Lenin’s argument, the spontaneity element inherent in Marx gave way to selectivity of time and place.
• He argued that without strong leadership from outside its ranks, the working class could never rise
beyond trade unionism. For Lenin, consciousness (that is, the conscious will of a vanguard party) was
necessary for revolutionary success.
• Rosa Luxemburg was critical of this idea. She argued that since the decision about time, place and
strategy of the revolution was to be decided by the Communist Party, the spontaneity element of a
revolution which is inherent in Marx would give way to selectivity of time and place. This, she further
added, would blunt the self-emancipatory efforts of the working class.
LENIN ON PARTY AS VANGUARD OF PROLETARIAT:
• In ‘Development of Capitalism in Russia’, Marx tried to offer a capitalist interpretation of Tsarist
Russia- Presence of wage-labour but not conscious of their exploitation.
• Lenin highlighted the difficulty of carrying out secretively these twin tasks:
• creating a national level organisation of Russian wage workers and
• raising their level of political consciousness.
• The Leninist strategy on these two issues is contained in his ‘What is to be Done’. In this work, Lenin
argued that in conditions prevailing in Russia there was need of a Communist Party which could act as
Vanguard of Proletariat- should consist of or at least be led by whole time professional revolutionaries.
• Unlike Marx, Lenin also argued, the workers would have to pull along large elements of the peasantry
in any revolutionary transformation of Russian society.
LENIN ON DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM:

• Lenin advocated a certain type of organizational structure for the party- Democracy + Centralism.
• It meant that the hierarchical structure of the Communist party should be such that each higher organ
of the party should be elected by the lower organ and all the party matters should initially discuss
freely at all the levels of the organisation, from the lowest to the highest.
• However, once a decision has been taken by the highest organ it should be imposed strictly on all the
lower organs and all should abide by it.
• This was contrary to Marx’s belief wherein he was critical of such centralized, dominant parties. Rosa
Luxemburg, a contemporary of Lenin and herself a radical Marxist, thought so, and criticized Lenin’s
theory of the tight party.
LENIN ON ‘WEAKEST LINK THEORY’:

• The Bolshevik Revolution took place in a capitalistically under-developed country like Russia in 1917
which raised questions regarding Marx’s prescribed historical Materialism- In Capitalism, bourgeoise
grow stronger, but so do their gravediggers.
• Lenin tried to reconcile this aspect by inventing ‘the weakest link of the chain’ argument. It meant
that Tsarist Russia where capitalism was not yet fully developed constituted the weakest link of the
imperialist chain and strategically it is quite appropriate to break the chain at its weakest rather than
at its strongest point.
• For Lenin, capitalist State equals class rule. Need to replace it with socialist State. Replacement of
bureaucratic military state by soviets modelled on the lines of the Paris Commune. Instead of Marxist
notion of withering away of the state, during the transitional phase use the state apparatus to achieve
their and economic goals.
LENINISM AND IMPERIALISM:
• Rise of revisionism due to growing stability of capitalism by scholars like Bernstein.
• Rejected by orthodox Marxists like V.I. Lenin. In his work, ‘Imperialism, the Highest Stage of
Capitalism’, Lenin argues that capitalism was able to stabilize itself temporarily through the imperialist
penetration of underdeveloped countries.
Imperialism for Generation of Increase wages of

Dampen
cheap labour and super markets proletariat at
revolutionary
raw materials and expansion of home in capitalist
fervour
from colonies markets countries
Industrialisation
Capitalism as a
of Third World- Workers of the
Imperialism world system
enters the world World Unite!
phenomenon
system
• With Internationalism being a core component of Lenin’s ideology, his critique of Imperialism comes in
stark contrast to Marx’s ‘Asiatic Mode of Production’ which to an extent seemed to justify Colonialism.
• Lenin charts the development of Capitalism and considers Imperialism to be the highest stage of
Capitalism. According to Lenin, Capitalism progresses in three stages:
• Mercantilism
• Industrial Capitalism
• Finance Capitalism (Industrial + Banking Capital) leading to Monopoly
The tremendous concentration of industry into fewer and

fewer hands.
Monopoly It was characterised by an enormous growth in the
Capitalism significance of banks, from mere intermediaries lending
money to firms expanding their operations, to overseers of
the advanced economies.
• It is when Capitalism reaches the stage of Financialisation that it transforms into a World system,
creating relations of dependency among countries. The advanced capitalists of the core countries look
for markets to invest their capital in leading to rise of Imperialism.
• As finance capital grew more powerful, so it became more concentrated in a small number of countries.
By 1910, four countries—Britain, the U.S., France and Germany—accounted for 80 percent of the
world’s financial securities (loans, bonds, shares etc).
• Lenin wrote: “In one way or another, nearly the whole of the rest of the world is more or less the
debtor to and tributary of these international banker countries, these ‘four pillars’ of world finance
capital”.
LENINISM ON NATIONALISM IN THIRD WORLD :
• Marx was supportive of the supportive of the ‘civilizing and developmental’ cause of capitalism in the
developing world.
• On the other hand, Lenin supported the idea of communist parties working with the nationalist parties
in their struggle for independence in the developing world. This was seen as one of the purposes of the
Comintern. At its second congress, Lenin put forward the ‘Twenty-One Conditions’ which included:
• The demarcation between communist parties and other socialist groups.
• The build-up of party organisations along democratic centralist lines.
• It stipulated that a united front should be formed between the proletariat, peasantry and national
bourgeoisie in the colonial countries.
• The 11th thesis stipulated that all communist parties must support the bourgeois-democratic liberation
movements in the colonies. Criticised by some delegates including MN Roy who preferred giving
support to communist movements in these countries instead.
Stalinism- ‘Second Revolution’- Doctrine of ‘Socialism in One Country’ (1924). Advent of Planning, mixed
economy (agriculture- pvt; large industry public). 1929- State Collectivisation including agriculture.
‘Gosplan’- State planning committee. Circular flow of power- party leader dictatorial.
Trotsky- Bureaucratic degeneration and another revolution needed to throw away strata of State
bureaucrats.
Rosa Luxemburg- Against the reformist approach of Bernstein and argued it had lost sight of scientific
socialism. She argued that socialism has its end in revolution. Luxemburg advocated the mass strike as
the single most important tool of the proletariat, Western as well as Russian, in attaining a socialist
victory. The mass strike, the spontaneous result of “objective conditions,” would radicalize the workers
and drive the revolution forward.
MAO’S MODIFICATION
• Adapts Marxism to the needs of Asiatic societies. His idea was to fight the forces of Feudalism persisting
in China a well as aid the anti-imperialist struggle. (China divided into ‘spheres of influence’).
• His division between Antagonist and non-Antagonist Dialectics encourages a temporary alliance with
the Nationalist Bourgeoisie to throw away the yolk of imperialism.
• His 100 flower Campaign and Cultural Revolution looked to thwart counter revolutionary trends by
ensuring the idea of a permanent revolution. Mao emphasised on both knowledge as well as action.
• Violence for Mao was seen as an adequate way to enable the collapse of Feudalism and Imperialism-
‘Power comes through the barrel of gun.
HOW DID MAO MODIFY MARXISM AND LENINISM?
• Focus on Feudalism: Unlike Marx, whose primary agenda was overthrowing capitalism, Mao was a
staunch critic of the feudal system. During the course of this rebellion, Mao wrote his first major work
Analysis of Classes in the Chinese Society.
• Here, he identified the various strata of Chinese peasantry- small, marginal, middle and the big
peasant and the revolutionary potential of each of them. He highlighted the contradiction between
the peasantry and the feudal lords. He argued that in the Chinese conditions, the peasantry was going
to be the vanguard of the revolution, unlike Russia. The urban centred revolution, Mao thought, was
bound to fail because of very small proletariat.
• Supporter of Nationalism: Unlike Marx, Mao advocated a strategy of mass mobilization of peasants
which is known as Mao’s Mass-line. Here, he took a highly nationalist posture against the Japanese
invasion and tried to organise the Chinese people around the national sentiment.
• Differentiating Contradictions and Antagonism: In Marxist theory, the main vehicle of all changes
in society is contradiction. Mao further elaborated this idea. For him, contradictions or the unity of
opposites (thesis and anti-thesis) leading to a higher level and transforming quantity into quality
(synthesis) was the fundamental law of historical development.
• While for Marx contradiction and antagonism were used interchangeably, this was not the case for
Mao. Lenin expressed the view that contradictions would remain even in a socialist society, but
antagonisms would not. In his famous essay titled “On Contradictions”, he formulated the notions of
antagonistic contradictions and non-antagonistic contradictions:
Types of Contradictions
Non-Antagonist Contradictions: Antagonist Contradictions: Leads

Can be resolved peacefully, lack to open conflict and can’t be
of open conflict- in feudal China resolved peacefully- Chinese
between peasantry and people and comprador
proletariat, between proletariat bourgeoise, between colonised
and national bourgeoise countries and imperialism
• United Front Strategy and New Democracy: Mao realized that the peasantry in China was not strong
enough ta win the revolutionary struggle against imperialism and feudalism. Therefore, it was
necessary to seek the help of the other classes of Chinese society.
• The nature of such a United Front would depend on the historical situation with the purpose of resolving
the principal contradiction- imperialism. It consisted of Chinese peasantry with the proletariat, the
petty bourgeoisie and even the national bourgeoisie.
• In pursuance of his United Front strategy, Mao gave a call in 1940 for a new democratic republic of
China. It was to be a state under the joint dictatorship of several classes. In 1945, he proposed a state
system which is called New Democracy. While the united front consisted of an overwhelming majority
of the Chinese people, the leading position in the alliance had to be in the hands of the working class.
He called such a state as the ‘People’s Democratic Dictatorship’. It was a combination of two aspects-
democracy for the people and dictatorship over the ‘enemies of the people’ or the ‘running dogs of
imperialism’.

• Permanent Revolution: Mao realised the need to continuously push the agenda of revolution to avoid
the coming up of new bourgeoise. During 1942-43, Mao consolidated his position in the CPC by
eliminating all his possible potential rivals through rectification campaign.
• In the early 1950s, Mao gave his famous call of “Let Hundred Flowers Bloom” which allowed different
view- points in the CPC to be expressed freely and openly. Later, he attempted collectivization of
agriculture followed by a call for a Great Leap Forward to bring about quick transition to communism
in China.
• Mao learnt lessons from post revolution Soviet Union and warned against the emergence of the new
bourgeois class who were beneficiaries of the transitional period.
NEO- MARXISM
NEO MARXISM / YOUNG MARX
Neo Marxism goes beyond Classical Marxism and “deterministic” nature that Marxism had come to be
associated with. It is linked to the exploration of earlier writings of Marx which were more complex-
Young Marx (Alienation, Relative Autonomy etc.). The idea of class conflict is not the overwhelming
feature and the base superstructure relationship is more interdependent.
GRAMSCI & HIS CONTRIBUTION

• Antonio Gramsci- ‘Prison Notebooks’ – Italian Marxist. Father of both critical and structural school of
Neo-Marxism.
• Unlike Marx, Gramsci analyses Superstructure. He seeks to answer why the inevitability of the
destruction of Capitalism hadn’t seen the light in advanced capitalist economies.
• Unlike the Marxist model, Gramsci divides the superstructure into two parts- State and Civil Society.
The Civil Society lies closer to the base of Economics. Superstructures aren’t merely reflections of the
base but have an identity of their own as well.
• Hegemony: Consent is actively manufactured in the Civil Society. It is manufactured and enforced via
various Social institutions such as Church, educational institutions, mass media, press etc.
CRITICAL SCHOOL
• George Lukacs’ theory of reification in his work History and Class Consciousness seen as a theory of
ideology, but also of practice- Praxis. Reification for Lukacs means taking social relations for things.
He treats it as a problem of capitalist society related to the prevalence of the commodity form
• The Critical or the Frankfurt School developed in the 1930’s with many prominent Marxist scholars
relocating to United States due to rising Nazism.
• Horkheimer rejects the notion of objectivity of knowledge. Knowledge is embedded in a historical and
social progress.
• Herbert Marcuse- Eros and Civilization –Rationalisation of Domination. Basic human needs and
desires, such as sexual desire made slave to reason. Need complete freedom- Eros= Logos
• In his One Dimensional Man- Humans are multi-dimensional, but under post Capitalism, only one
dimension as consumer important. Develops the idea of New Totalitarianism wherein domination no
longer requires force or the presence of an authority figure. Technology and mass media has watered
down the critical thinking of individuals.
• Theodore Adorno- He picks up the idea of popular demand and advertising and picks up Music
as space of this onslaught of popularisation. He starts with Marx’s concept of ‘ fetishisation of
commodities’ and Lukacs’ reification to explore how art has been commodified in capitalism.
CRITICAL SCHOOL
• Jurgen Habermas- ‘Legitimation Crisis’-Points to the inherent contradiction in the Welfare State
wherein the goals of the socio-economic policies do not sit well with the economic structure prevalent
in the society. People will finally understand the contradiction therein.
STRUCTURALIST
The Structuralists head back to the work of Mature Marx and consider his later writings to be more
authentic than his earlier works.
Louis Althusser: For Althusser, Superstructure is relatively autonomous of base. Relationship between
Base and Superstructure consists of:
• Over determinism-an effect arises from a variety of causes acting together rather than from a
single (economic) factor.
• Relative autonomy- It asserts that the superstructure has a degree of independence from economic
forces.
• Reciprocal action of the superstructure on the base
Extending the theory of those like Gramsci he makes a division between Repressive State apparatus
and Ideological State apparatus which help reproduce relations of production-
• RSA- It functions as a unified entity and through public institutions like police, jails, government,
army uses violent and non-violent coercive means to subordinate the masses.
• ISA- It is more divided and plural in nature and mostly functions in the private realm through
social institutions like Church, families, education etc. These institutions reinforce the ruling class
ideology.
Ideology for Althusser:
• Ideology is eternal since it omnipresent in its immutable form.
• “Ideology is a ‘Representation’ of the Imaginary Relationship of Individuals to their Real Conditions
of Existence “
• Ideology has a material existence
• Ideology constitutes individuals as subjects
INSTRUMENTALIST VS STRUCTURALIST DEBATE:
• Ralph Miliband: ‘State in a Capitalist Society’- Dedicated to C. Wright Mills, the book made the case
for defining the state as effectively a capitalist patsy.
• Advanced Capitalist Society, a small number of people continue to own disproportionate share of
wealth. Managerial Capitalism is mistakenly considered “more closely concerned with the public
interest than oldstyle owner capitalism”.
• Instrumentalist theory of Capitalist State- Elite recruitment is hereditary. Unequal economic power
results in unequal political power. Thus, State serves the interest of the capitalists as it is itself
predominated by them.
• The state in these class societies is primarily and inevitably the guardian and protector of the economic
interests which are dominant in them its ‘real’ purpose is to ensure their continued predominance, not
to prevent it.
• Nicos Poulantzas: Poulantzas developed his structural theory of relative autonomy of the State which
may be most clearly understood in context of hi debate with Miliband. Following in the Althusserian
tradition, Poulantzas saw State as ‘objectively’/structurally capitalist.
• He contends that if interests of the dominant class coincide with that of the State, it is by reason of the
system itself: the direct participation of members of the ruling class in the state apparatus is not the
cause but the effect.
• Miliband criticised Poulantzas view as being super deterministic- follows that there is really no
difference between a state ruled, say, by bourgeois constitutionalists, whether conservative or social-
democrat, and one ruled by, say, Fascists.
CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE OF MARXISM (PYQ 2019)
• One of the most crucial aspects of Marxism was its emphasis on the fact that philosophical problems
arise out of real-life conditions, and they can be solved only by changing those conditions—by
remaking the world.
• As per Wolfgang Streeck, capitalism in 21st century is the suffering from following disorders-;
• declining growth
• oligarchic rule
• a shrinking public sphere
• institutional corruption and international anarchy
• Thomas Piketty in his “Capital in the Twenty-first Century” uses data to show us the real nature of
social relations and, by doing that, forces us to rethink concepts that have come to seem natural and
inevitable- market as self-optimising and meritocracy.
• Piketty says that for thirty years after 1945 a high rate of growth in the advanced economies was
accompanied by a rise in incomes that benefitted all classes, but these were an anomaly.
• Since the 1980’s concentration of private wealth has increased. In the United States, according to the
Federal Reserve, the top 10% of the population owns 72%of the wealth, and the bottom 50% has 2%.
Need for universal and progressive wealth tax.
• Modern democracies attempt to impose political equality on economic inequality it has no way of
alleviating.
• Wolfgang Streeck further argues that the relevance of the Marxism can be gauged from the following:
• the message of Brexit that is blow to the belief that the European Union (E.U.) is a zone of democracy,
integration, cooperation and transnationalism.
• capitalism and popular reactions like occupy wall street movement
• secessionist tendencies in countries such as Britain and Spain.
• the refugee crisis in Europe
• globalisation and delinking,
• and the growth of worldwide inequality produced by global markets penetrating national political
economies and making them ungovernable.
• The COVID-19 pandemic further highlighted the global inequalities- health care and drug access,
vaccines availability, presence of health staff, capacity of states etc. Eric Schultz in his Inequality,
Class, and Economics argues how the pandemic further increased inequalities- the net worth of the
infamous Forbes 400 increased by one trillion dollars while plunging 77 million more people into
extreme poverty in 2021.
• Elections of 2021 in Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia resulted in the Left coming to power. These events
signalled the return of the Left to the forefront of the history of the Caribbean and Latin America.
• Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro blamed the IMF and its neo liberal allies and underlined the
search in the world for alternatives. With respect to contemporary new social movements, Barker
notes, the analysis of labour and genuine anti-capitalist movements should be linked to other forms of
oppression and exploitation within capitalism for Marxism to stay relevant.
• Thomas Piketty in his book Capitalism and ideology argues that hyper-capitalism can be transcended
through the development of participatory socialism and transnational democracy based on social,
fiscal, and climate justice.
FASCISM AND ITS MAIN TENETS
FASCISM AND ITS MAIN TENETS

• Fascism emerged in the 20th century and was an innovation of Mussolini during and after the First
World War. W. Ebenstein- “It is a totalitarian organisation of government and society by a single party
dictatorship, intentionally nationalist, racist, militaristic and imperialist.”
• The term ‘fascism’ derives from the Italian word fasces, meaning a bundle of rods with an axe blade
protruding that signified the authority of magistrates in Imperial Rome. By the 1890s, the word fascia
was being used in Italy to refer to a political group or band, usually of revolutionary socialists.
• Fascism and its emergence are located between the two World Wars and the specific conditions that
emerged then. It emerged as revolt against modernity, against the liberal ideas and values of the
Enlightenment on one hand and Communist ideology on the other.
• Germany, under Hitler and Italy under Mussolini are seen as epitomising Fascist ideologies. However,
the same spread to Hungary, Romania, Spain under Franco, Imperial Japan and Peron’s Argentina.
• Reason for the emergence of fascism
• The emergence of ‘reactionary’ ideology of Fascism in Europe was a result of a number of factors that
permeated the region during the time:
1. Democratic government had only recently been established in many parts of Europe, and democratic
political values had not replaced older, autocratic ones. Ebenstein has tried to show that the conditions
of capitalism do not by themselves give rise to fascism, but it arises only where democracy is particularly
weak
2. The regimes were still weak and unstable, hinging on a coalition of parties.
3. European society had been disrupted by the experience of industrialization, which had particularly
threatened a lower middle class of shopkeepers, small businessmen etc.
• MacIver notes how fascism particularly appealed to small businessmen, such as individual
shopkeepers, who felt their livelihood threatened on the one hand by the rising working class with its
revolutionary socialism, and on the other by the monster of monopoly capitalism.
• But fascist militia were recruited from a subclass of the tradeless dregs of the working class without
class loyalty or self-respect. In fact, fascism sought to muster support from diverse sections of society
through false promises, appeals and tactics.
• Laski argues that fascism created the myth of the nation to secure concentration of economic and
political control in the hands of a small number of persons and to demand unquestioning obedience
and devotion from the masses to the authority so created.
4. The Russian Revolution had spread fear amongst the propertied classes that social revolution was
about to spread throughout Europe. (Counterrevolutionary).
5. Rising unemployment and economic failure produced an atmosphere of crisis, especially after the
Great Depression which started in 1929.
• Laski contends that the crisis in Capitalism forced it to take recourse to Fascism.
• While certain thinkers look at Fascism as a child of its times, others such a Eric Fromm regard it as
an ever-present danger (the fear of Freedom).
• Wilhelm Reich, a neo-psycho analyst, in his Mass Psychology of Fascism explains Fascism as a
result of extreme neurotic or pathological impulses that lay dormant in the patriarchal family set-up.
• Another liberal interpretation traces fascism as a product of mass society where traditional solid
identities based on kinship, religion, craft and guild and residence break down and a new amorphous
mass-society is created[such as “war-veterans”, “tax-payers”, “sport-fans”, or simply “national-
citizens.
• Lastly, it has been seen as a form of Bonapartism or an autonomous authoritarian state led by a
charismatic leader independent of any specific class-interests or class-domination.\
CENTRAL IDEAS OF FASCISM
• The main themes that Fascism developed can be seen in reasons that led to its emergence. Despite it
being regarded as coherent ideology, there are certain ideas that may be seen as being central to it.
Hitler, for instance, preferred to describe his ideas as a Welt Anschauung, or ‘world view’, rather than
a systematic ideology.
• Anti-rationalism
• Struggle
• Reactionary and counter-revolutionary
• Leadership and elitism
• Ultra-nationalism
• State controlled economy
• Anti-rationalism- In the late nineteenth century thinkers had started to highlight the limits of
Enlightenment ideas of human reason and draw attention to other, perhaps more powerful, drives and
impulses e.g. Nietzsche’s ‘Ubermensch’ and ‘will to power.’ Fascism gave political expression to the
most radical and extreme forms of counter-Enlightenment thinking e.g. anti- intellectualism, reflected
in a tendency to despise abstract thinking and revere action (Mussolini- Act, not talk). Abandoning
the standard of universal reason, fascism has placed its faith entirely in history, culture and the idea
of organic community. It led to the generation of ‘political myth’ to unify people on its totalitarian
agenda.
• Struggle- Darwin’s idea of ‘natural selection’ was developed by the liberal philosopher and sociologist
Herbert Spencer into the idea of the ‘survival of the fittest’, the belief that competition amongst
individuals would reward those who work hard and are talented, and punish the lazy or incompetent.
In contrast to traditional humanist or religious values, such caring, sympathy and compassion, fascists
respect a very different set of martial values: loyalty, duty, obedience and self-sacrifice.
• Reactionary and Counter-Revolutionary: The doctrine of fascism arose as a theory of reaction to
democracy, socialism and communism. Instead of regarding individual as an end and the state as a
means, fascism exalts the state as an end and reduces individual to the means.
• Fascism repudiates the progressive doctrine of human equality as the basis of their rational organization
into nation or other associations. On the contrary, it seeks unity through homogeneity.
• Fascism may also be regarded as counter-revolutionary and against communism because it sought to
promote concentration of economic control in fewer hands as also to stop diffusion of political power.
It tries to replace materialism by a mystical political idealism. It rejects the theory of class-conflict in
favour of the organic unity of the nation-state that claims to represent a unified national interest.
• Leadership and Elitism- The Dictionary of Political Science states how Fascism sought to reject equality
in the favour of the principle of hierarchy, focussing on a supreme leader whose will is law. Fascists
believe that society is composed, broadly, of three kinds of people:
1. First and most importantly, there is a supreme, all seeing leader who possesses unrivalled authority.
2. Second, there is a ‘warrior’ elite, exclusively male and distinguished, unlike traditional elites, by
its heroism, vision and the capacity for self-sacrifice.
3. Third, there are the masses, who are weak, inert and ignorant, and whose destiny is unquestioning
obedience.
• The fascist approach to leadership, especially in Nazi Germany, was crucially influenced by Friedrich
Nietzsche’s idea of the Übermensch, the ‘over-man’ or ‘superman’, a supremely gifted or powerful
individual. The role of the leader is to awaken the people to their destiny, to transform an inert mass
into a powerful and irresistible force.
• Ultra-nationalism- Fascism seeks to use the creative power of the myth to muster support across
sections in the society. It relies on faith and motion as evoking human action. Instead of the individual,
Fascism exalts the State as an end and reduces the individual to means.
• It seeks to destroy individual liberty by encouraging homogeneity and absolute obedience to the State.
Fascist nationalism did not preach respect for distinctive cultures or national traditions, but asserted
the superiority of one nation over all others. According to Griffin, the mythic core of generic fascism
is the conjunction of the ideas of ‘palingenesis’, or recurrent rebirth, and ‘populist ultra-nationalism’.
• State controlled economy/ Authoritarian Corporatism- In the name of national interest, Fascism seeks
to control industry, production and the economic system. Class conflict is considered false and organic
unity of the nation is focussed on.
• According to Ebenstein, while Capitalism is not intrinsically linked to Fascism, when it fails to
accommodate the democratic aspirations of the people, it degenerates into Fascism. Corporatism
means incorporation of organised interests into political system.
• Authoritarian Corporatism opposes both the free market and central planning. As an economic form,
it is characterized by the extension of direct political control over industry and organized labour.
The Fascist state controlled major economic interests. Working-class organizations were smashed and
private business was intimidatedated, class-collaborationist, integrated national-economic structure
had emerged.
CRITICISM:
• Fascism is by no means a systematic doctrine. It is a queer mixture of incongruous elements. It sought
to mix up different theoretical elements only to evolve an instrument of mass appeal and mass
mobilization for the attainment of some political goals projected by an elite who happened to control
political as well as economic power.
Its an attempt to protect capitalism in its decadent phase- myth of nation

to curb class conflict and international communism.
Marxist Gramsci- ideological propaganda of the fascists sought to preserve

criticism capitalist 'hegemony' and 'structures of domination'
Trotsky- The widespread fear of uncertainty in a time of crisis served to

provide an authoritarian basis for fascism, particularly middle class.
It is totalitarian character and rejects individual liberty, democratic

methods, constitutionalism, human rights and welfarism.
It sought to accentuate the irrational element in human nature while

liberalism pleads for man's freedom treating him primarily as a
rational being.
Liberal
critique: It repudiates the liberal faith in the natural and social equality of
men, through its cult of hero-worship, superiority of the elite and
racist doctrines.
It hits at the pluralistic nature of society by establishing the

monopoly of a single political party and eliminating free and open
competition for political power.
ANARCHISM AND ITS MAINS TENETS

ANARCHISM AND ITS MAINS TENETS:
• Anarchism has usually been associated with disorder and chaos. Since Greek times it has been
associated with the idea of living without rule. Modern anarchist ideas have been associated with
thinkers like William Goodwin and P.J. Proudhon.
• Anarchism was associated with the workers’ movement since the 19th century. After their split with
Marxists, Anarchists developed the idea of Syndicalism. Syndicalism was a form of revolutionary
trade unionism, popular in France, Italy and Spain, which made anarchism a genuine mass movement
in the early twentieth century.
• Anarchism’s appeal as a political movement has been restricted by both its ends and its means. The
goal of anarchism, the overthrow of the state and dismantling of all forms of political authority, is
widely considered to be unrealistic, if not impossible.
• Central Ideas of Anarchism
• Anti-Statism- The defining feature of anarchism is its opposition to the state and the accompanying
institutions of government and law. Anarchists have a preference for stateless society in which free
individuals manage their affairs by voluntary agreement, without compulsion or coercion. Since
human beings are free and autonomous creatures, to be subject to authority means to be diminished,
to have one’s essential nature suppressed and thereby succumb to debilitating dependency.
• Anarchists reject the liberal notion that political authority arises from voluntary agreement, through
some form of ‘social contract’, and argue instead that individuals become subject to state authority
either by being born in a particular country or through conquest. Furthermore, the state is a coercive
body whose laws must be obeyed because they are backed up by the threat of punishment. For the
Russian born US anarchist Emma Goldman, government was symbolized by ‘the club, the gun, the
handcuff, or the prison’.
• Natural Order- Anarchists not only regard the state as evil, but also believe it to be unnecessary.
William Goodwin in contrast to the Social Contract theory assumptions suggested that human
beings are essentially rational creatures, inclined by education and enlightened judgement to live
in accordance with truth and universal moral laws. He thus believed that people have a natural
propensity to organize their own lives in a harmonious and peaceful fashion. Indeed, in his view it is
the corrupting influence of government and unnatural laws, rather than any ‘original sin’ in human
beings, that creates injustice, greed and aggression.
• At the heart of anarchism lies an unashamed utopianism, a belief in the natural goodness, or at
least potential goodness, of humankind. From this perspective, social order arises naturally and
spontaneously; it does not require the machinery of ‘law and order’. However, Anarchists like
Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin believe despite having a moral core, humans can selfish and
competitive as well.
• Anti-Clericalism- Anarchists are against all forms of compulsory authority including organised
religion. Anarchists believe religious and political authority go hand in hand. Further religion seeks to
impose a moral code on individuals and make them abide to some acceptable behaviour. Individuals
are robbed of moral autonomy and made to conform to standards of good and evil. Modern anarchists
are attracted to religions such as Taoism and Zen Buddhism which offer prospects of personal insight,
toleration, respect and natural harmony.
• Economic Freedom- Anarchists challenge both the political and economic systems. Bakunin argued
that ‘political power and wealth are inseparable’. In the nineteenth century, anarchists usually Bakunin
argued that in every developed society three social groups can be identified: a vast majority who are
exploited; a minority who are exploited but also exploit others in equal measure; and ‘the supreme
governing estate’, a small minority of ‘exploiters and oppressors pure and simple’.
There are two major anarchist

traditions, one of which is
collectivist and the other
individualist:
Collectivist anarchists
Individualist anarchists
advocate an economy
support the market and
based upon cooperation
private property.
and collective ownership.
INDIVIDUAL ANARCHISM:
PHILOSOPHICAL ANARCHISM:
1. Complete focus on individual autonomy- every individual unique and truly ‘owns himself; he
recognizes no duties to others, and does what is right for himself, within the limit of his might.
2. It rejects the idea of legitimate authority in the sense that no individual, whether state official or
not, has the right to command the obedience of another.
3. It was originally founded by W. Godwin himself in his essay Enquiry Concerning Political Justice.
Also endorse by R.P. Wolff.
4. Recognise rational authority of experts within their fields of competence and the moral authority
of basic social norms, such as ‘contracts should be kept’.
5. Only recognise persuasive power so if members of a commune or workers’ cooperative actually
participate in decision-making, their decisions may be deemed morally binding.
LIBERTARIAN ANARCHISM:
1. It represents the contemporary version of ‘individualist anarchism’ with beginnings traced to
Herbert Spencer- ‘blessedness of anarchy’ envisages the development of ‘market society’ to a stage
where the state is dissolved and society becomes self-regulated.
2. It stands for the revival of laissez faire individualism which believes in minimum interference of
the state in economic activities of people.
3. F.A. Hayek in Law, Legislation and Liberty, observed that social order exists independently of the
state—an order spontaneously generated, a product of human sociability.
4. Nozick in his Anarchy, State and Utopia argued that the state has no legitimate powers beyond the
functions of protection, justice and defence- stay away from voluntary exchanges among individuals.
5. They stand for restricting the role of the state to minimum possible level. They do not recommend
to abolish the state altogether.
COLLECTIVIST ANARCHISM:
SOCIALIST ANARCHISM:
• It insists on freedom of individual, defined as the capacity to satisfy his needs. It regards social and
economic equality as a necessary condition to secure maximum freedom of all. Rejects both capitalist
private property and the state- All property is theft.
• P.J. Proudhon supported ‘mutualism’- ‘mutual aid’ as the appropriate method of achieving its
goal. Liberty is the mother, not the daughter, of order. All political parties are a variety of despotism
so is also critical of Marx’s idea of ‘dictatorship of proletariat’.
• Instead of violent method of overthrowing capitalism, Proudhon recommended the (peaceful)
method of direct action and the practice of mutualism- society organised as a network of autonomous
local communities and producer associations, linked by ‘the federal principle’.
• Each person might possess his means of production (tools, land, etc.) either singly or collectively,
but should only be rewarded for his labour.
• Also developed by Peter Kropotkin, a Russian thinker. In Mutual Aid—a Factor of Evolution.
• Kropotkin argued that the principle of ‘the struggle for existence and survival of the fittest’ as
enunciated by Charles Darwin does not apply to the sphere of social relations.
• If human beings are not corrupted by the state and law, they would develop bonds of instinctive
solidarity which would make government unnecessary.
• Kropotkin favoured a system of ‘communism’ where everything belongs to everyone, and
distribution is made according to needs. Kropotkin’s version of socialist anarchism is called ‘communist
anarchism’.
REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM:
• Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian revolutionary, is regarded the chief exponent.
• Supports strategy of encouraging popular insurrections through the tactic of ‘propaganda by the
deed’.
• The capitalist and landed property would be expropriated and collectivized, and the state would
be abolished. It would be replaced by autonomous, but federally linked, communes.
• It believes in collectivization of the means of social production, it is also called ‘collectivism’.
• Vision of a socialist society which would be organized from below upwards, not from above
downwards.
ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM:
• George Sorel Reflections on Violence was its chief exponent.
• Sorel argued that law and institutions of every enduring society contain a form of structural
violence. Unjust violence should be fought with just type of violence.
• It was based on the idea to turn trade unions into revolutionary instruments of class struggle.
Instead of ‘communes’, anarcho- syndicalism sought to make trade unions basic units of new society.
• Sorel commended the method of ‘general strike’ as the fit instrument for the workers to fight
against capitalism. He recommended the use of ‘myth’ to mobilize masses into action.
• Since Sorel relied on organized groups to overthrow capitalist state, and provide for its alternative,
he is not regarded a full-fledged anarchist.
PACIFIC ANARCHISM:
• It stands for abolition of the state in a peaceful manner on moral grounds.
• Its chief exponent, Leo Tolstoy was inspired by ‘the law of love’, expressed in the Sermon on the
Mount.
• This made him denounce the state as ‘organized violence’- tries to fight evil with another evil, i.e.
with the help of police and military force- calls on people to disobey its immoral commands.
• Private property enables the few to lead a luxurious life by exploiting others’ labour. Both of them
should be abolished for the regeneration of humanity.
• Also inspired Mahatama Gandhi.
CRITICISM:
• It takes a too optimistic view of human nature.
• In the contemporary world which is severely afflicted by the problems of worldwide terrorism,
crime and environmental pollution, the need of regulation has become all the more evident and
pressing.
• Requirement for not just domestic but global authority now.
FEMINISM, WAVES AND FEATURES
INTRODUCTION
• The term first coined by Socialist Charles Fourier in the 19th century, to refer to the question of equal
rights for women. Early Feminism may be traced to post Enlightenment era with early writers like
Wollstonecraft and J.S. Mill.
• The term first coined by Socialist Charles Fourier in the 19th century, to refer to the question of equal
rights for women. Early Feminism may be traced to post Enlightenment era with early writers like
Wollstonecraft and J.S. Mill.
• Feminism as an ideology gained prominence in the 20th century and further gained prominence in the
1960’s. Feminism as an ideology hits at the gender norms and subjugation penetrated in the society
due to existence of Patriarchal domination.
• Many Feminist scholars such as Coole further point to the masculine bias in mainstream political
theories and ideologies.
Jane Mansbridge and Susan Moller Okin refer to feminism as a political stance and not a systematic
theory, inextricably linked with political change. Another characteristic of feminist theory, they cite,
is its experiential plurality.
WHAT IS PATRIARCHY?
• It means ‘rule of the father”. Originally this term was used to describe a social system based on the
authority of male head of the household. Now it is applied to denote male domination in general,
including its occurrence in labour market as well as domestic division of labour.
• Kate Millet, one of the earliest feminist scholars to use the term Patriarchy in 1970s, developed on
sociologist Max Weber’s conception of domination to argue that throughout history the relationship
between the sexes has been one of domination and subordination- through social authority and
economic force. Patriarchy as a system not an individual phenomena but a part of structure.
• Patriarchy takes different forms in different geographical regions and different historical periods.
For instance, as the historian Uma Chakravarty has pointed out, the experience of patriarchy is not
the same among tribal women as among women in highly stratified caste society or in India versus
industrialised western countries.
• The term “patriarchies” is therefore found useful by feminist scholars to refer to this fluidity. Need to
interlink other issues with patriarchy- race, class, gender, ethnicity, caste, religion etc.
• The differences within Feminism may be seen at in two ways:
• Temporal (First, Second, Third wave, Post Feminism).
• Ideological (Liberal, Socialist, Radical, New Feminist traditions).
• Liberal Feminism
• Marxist/ Socialist
• Radical Feminism
• Post-Modern Feminism
• Intersectional Feminism
• Eco-feminism
• Cyber Feminism
TRENDS IN FEMINISM:
• First Wave Liberal Feminism- The first major modern text in this regard was Vindication of Rights of
Women by Mary Wollstonecraft who used the enlightenment ideas to stress on equality of men and
women on the basis of ‘Personhood.’ Wollstonecraft- “feminine” NOT biologically determined, but a
social construct, viz. Gender. She denies that women are by nature more focussed on pleasure and less
capable of rationality than men.
• J. S. Mill and his wife Harriet Mill argued in favour of education, employment, equal citizenship and
political rights.
• Second Wave Liberal Feminism: Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique marked the resurgence
of liberal feminist thought in the 1960s. It underlined the cultural myth that women seek security
and fulfilment in domestic life and ‘feminine’ behaviour, a myth that serves to discourage women
from entering employment, politics and public life in general. In the Second Stage, Friedan discussed
the problem of reconciling the achievement of ‘personhood’, made possible by opening up broader
opportunities for women in work and public life, with the need for love, represented by children,
home and the family.
• Virginia Woolf- A Room of one’s own- real creativity can only take place away from the domestic
preoccupations
• Criticism: The philosophical basis of liberal feminism lies in the principle of individualism which
stresses on equal treatment and equal rights, regardless of their sex, race, colour, creed or religion.
Liberal feminism is essentially reformist: it seeks to open up public life to equal competition between
women and men, rather than to challenge what many feminists see as the patriarchal structure of
society itself.
• Their interiorisation of masculine ideals and value-systems has resulted in their substituting masculine
for human- reinforcing a value-system that valourizes these qualities over and above the so-called
feminine qualities of sensitivity, nurturing and tenderness.
• The socialist feminists level yet another criticism against the liberals. Not only have liberal feminists
been too ready to accept and own masculine values, their very idea of the self as an autonomous,
rational agent is a fundamentally male concept – and a concept related to the WASP mentality, at that
• First wave Marxist/ Socialist Feminists- It became prominent in the second half of 20th century.
Socialist feminists argue that the relationship between the sexes is rooted in the social and economic
structure itself.
• The classic statement of this argument was developed in Friedrich Engels’ The Origins of the Family,
Private Property and the State- female oppression operates through the institution of the family. The
‘bourgeois family’ is patriarchal and oppressive because men wish to ensure that their property will
be passed on only to their sons.
• Marxist feminists also point out that though women’s work under capitalism is trivialised and women
seen primarily as consumers rather than producers, they are in fact primarily producers.
• Second Wave Marxist and Socialist feminists, like Ann Foreman and Alison Jaggar- multiple layers
of alienation experienced by woman- from her own body, from herself, from other women and from
nature. Tries to ensure her body conforms to external standards.
• Point to theory of ‘fetishization of commodities’ in making relations as prostitution and surrogate
motherhood, as being an exercise in free choice. Sheila Rowbatham- linking all struggles of oppressed
groups together.
• Marginalisation experienced by all women regardless of their economic condition- enables women
to perceive themselves as a class and move towards a class consciousness that rejects as false
consciousness all attempts to convince them that wifely and motherly duties cannot be recompensed
as work because they are undertaken out of love.
• Socialist feminists argue that women constitute a ‘reserve army of labour’, which can be recruited into
the workforce when there is a need to increase production, but easily shed and returned to domestic
life during a depression.
• Juliet Mitchell suggested that women fulfil four social functions:
1. they are members of the workforce and are active in production;
2. they bear children and thus reproduce the human species;
3. they are responsible for socializing children; and
4. they are sex objects.
Criticism: Kate Millet criticizes Engels ignores the fact that woman is viewed,
emotionally and psychologically, as chattel property by the poor as well as,
and often even more than, the rich.
Simone de Beauvoir, tracing the oppression of women to their position as the

Other in her book The Second Sex, insists that the relations between men and
women will not automatically change with the change from capitalism to
socialism, for women are just as likely to remain the Other in the latter as in
the former.
Jane Flax holds that Engels has stressed the importance of production at the
expense of reproduction. She is convinced that the overthrow of mother-right
probably reflected a change in the perception of reproduction.
• Second wave Radical Feminists- This emerged with the advent of ‘Second wave’ feminism. Radical
feminism argues that feminists must not underplay the biological difference between the sexes and
attribute all difference to “culture” alone. To do so is to accept the male civilization’s devaluing of the
female reproductive role.
• Radical feminists claim that patriarchal social values have denigrated “feminine” qualities and that
it is the task of feminism to recover these qualities, and this difference between men and women, as
valuable. Carol Gilligan’s book, ‘In a Different voice’- because the primary care-giver in childhood -
given the sexual division of labour - is invariably a woman (the mother), the process by which men
and women come to adulthood is different.
• Boys come into adulthood learning to differentiate from the mother, while girls do so by identifying
with the mother. This results, Gilligan argues, in women having a more subjective, relational way of
engaging with the world, while men have a more objective mode. Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second
Sex- the idea of not being born but ‘becoming a woman’ and formulation of the idea of a ‘sisterhood’.
• Shulamith Firestone in her celebrated work ‘The Dialectic of Sex’ argued that basis of women’s
subordination was ultimately biological. The survival of women and children required that infants
should depend on lactating women and women in turn, should depend on men- material conditions
for ending this hitherto Free themselves from the tyranny of their reproductive biology and diffusing
the child-bearing and child-rearing role to society as a whole, men as well as women.
• Kate Millet in Sexual Politics argued that the relationship between the sexes was based on power and
further sustained by an ideology. It was similar to the relationship between classes and races. Hence
it should be treated as political relationship.
• The central feature of radical feminism is the belief that sexual oppression is the most fundamental
feature of society and that other forms of injustice – class exploitation, racial hatred and so on – are
merely secondary.
• Both accepted that human nature is essentially androgynous. However, radical feminism encompasses
a number of divergent elements, some of which emphasize the fundamental and unalterable difference
between women and men.
• Radical feminists such as Susan Griffin and Andrea Dworkin, believe that women’s reproductive
biology, the process of gestation and the experience of mothering, fundamentally affects their
relationship to the external world. Women are, therefore, in this understanding, closer to nature and
share in the nature’s qualities of fecundity, nurturing and instinct. These qualities have been rejected
by patriarchal society but feminists should accept and revalue these qualities.
• Ecofeminists like Vandana Shiva draw upon this understanding, arguing that the feminine world-
view is more respectful of nature, and that women are better attuned towards ecologically sustainable
development practices.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIBERAL AND RADICAL FEMINISM (PYQ)
LIBERAL FEMINISM RADICAL FEMINISM
Generally associated with first and second wave of Generally associated with second and third wave
feminism. of feminism.
Apply principles of liberalism to women’s It advocates a radical restructuring of the existing
conditions within the existing system. system.
Gender inequality can be eliminated when women It views patriarchy and male supremacy, in which
get the same rights as men through legal, political, men dominate and oppress women, is so deep-root-
social and other means within the existing system. ed in society that the only way to bring change is to
completely reorder the society. It strictly opposes
the existing social and political organization since
they are inherently based on patriarchy.
Does not challenge heterosexual relations or de- It demands complete restructuring of institutions
mand overhauling of marriage and family values. of marriage, motherhood, the concept of the nucle-
ar family etc.
Mainly centred on pressuring governments for Uses onsciousness-raising groups, organizing pub-
grant of these rights and laws. lic protests, providing active services and organiz-
ing art and culture events.
• Third Wave New Feminist Traditions- With increasing debates among the Feminist strands, it has
become increasingly difficult to compartmentalise them. The new strands include psychoanalytical
feminism, postmodern feminism, black and Dalit feminism and lesbian feminism.
• The central feature of psychoanalytical feminism is to see the process through which women and
men are engendered and sexual difference is constructed as psychological rather than biological.
Postmodern or post structural feminists have taken issue with forms of feminism, such as cultural
feminism, which proclaim that there is no such thing as a fixed female identity, the notion of ‘woman’
being nothing more than a fiction.
‘PERSONAL IS POLITICAL’. COMMENT (PYQ- 2010/2013)
• The personal is political, also termed ’The private is political’, is a political argument used as a rallying
slogan of student movement and second-wave feminism from the late 1960s as a challenge to nuclear
family and family values popularized by feminist scholar Carol Hanisch.
• Various feminists have interpreted the nature of the connection between the personal and political in
divergent ways:
• The restriction of women to the private sphere is a political issue. The home is seen by some feminists
as a site of oppression because women have had little choice but to adhere to the role of housewife and
carry out domestic duties that are a product of socialization.
• Furthermore, the slogan tackles the perception that women enjoy a transcendent identity irrespective
of ethnicity, race, class, culture, marital status, sexuality and (dis)ability by encouraging individuals
to think about personal experience politically.
• Politics is power which takes place in both the private and public sphere because issues that affect the
private sphere (such as right to abortion; free contraception; equal pay) are also located in the public
sphere. More simply, personal issues are affected by law making and enforcement.
• The phrase has heavily figured in black feminism such as Kimberlé Crenshaw who observed that this
process of recognizing as social and systemic what was formerly perceived as isolated and individual
has also characterized the identity politics of African Americans, other people of color, and gays and
lesbians, among others.
• Further in Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan broke new ground as she explored the idea of women
finding personal fulfilment outside of their traditionally seen roles.
• Third-wave feminists tend to focus on ‘everyday feminism’ for example, combining feminist values
and statements with fashion, relationships and reclaiming traditional feminised skills . They increased
the importance assigned to such practices and openly declared them to be political.
• However, Liberal feminists argue that the phrase is dangerous because it erodes necessary political
boundaries. Furthermore, according to some critics, the interpretation of the phrase to be about women
being oppressed in the home has a very narrow focus on middle class white women.
CENTRAL IDEAS OF FEMINISM
• Sex-Gender divide- For the longest time the inequality between men and women was considered
natural or a result of ‘biology.’ While sex refers to the biological differences between women and
men, gender would refer to an array of social and political meanings attached to one’s self. One of the
leading theorists, Simone Beauvoir in her criticism of Freud noted how “One is not born, but becomes
a woman.”
• Sex and gender may not always coincide in most individuals. If we were to take out the process
of socialization from the process of upbringing children, then there is absolutely no scientific or
philosophical logic by which males would turn out to be masculine men and females would necessarily
be feminine women.
• Feminist anthropologists, like Margaret Mead, have examined different cultural contexts to determine
what is meant by masculinity and femininity across various cultures.
• Nivedita Menon takes recourse to Judith Butler’s understanding of sexuality to say that, “Butler uses
the term heterosexual matrix to designate the grid produced by institutions, practices and discourses,
looking through which it appears to be “a fact of nature” that all human bodies possess one of two
fixed sexual identities, with each experiencing sexual desire only for the “opposite sex.”
• Scholars like Alison Jaggar argue that “sex” and “gender” are dialectically and inseparably related,
and the conceptual distinction that the earlier feminists established between the two is not sustainable
beyond a point. What is meant here is that two processes are involved: human intervention changes
the external environment and simultaneously, changes in the external environment shape and change
the human body.
Long-term evolutionary sense: Human bodies have

evolved differently in different parts of the globe, due to
differences in diet, climate and the nature of work
performed. Women’s bodies have been shaped by social
restrictions and by norms of beauty. The rapid
improvements in women's athletic records over the past
The changes two decades is an indication that social norms had shaped
happen in biology and restricted women's physical development
two senses:
Short term sense: Neurophysiology and hormonal

balances arc affected by social factors like anxiety, physical
labor, and the level and kind of social interaction, just as
much as social interaction is affected by people’s
neurophysiology and hormonal balances
• Sameness-Difference debate- Anne Philips, Iris Marion Young and Nancy Fraser have been part of
this very complex debate on the positions of sameness and difference. The sameness and difference
debate is being used in fields like citizenship and multiculturalism. Liberal feminists champion legal
and political equality with men.
• Egalitarian forms of feminism link ‘difference’ to patriarchy, seeing it as a manifestation of oppression
or subordination. From this viewpoint, the feminist project is defined by the desire to liberate women
from ‘difference’. However, other feminists champion difference rather than equality. Difference
feminists regard the very notion of equality as either misguided or simply undesirable.
• Iris Marion Young proposes the concept of ‘differentiated citizenship’. This would ensure that while
groups will get the universal citizenship rights, they will also be entitled to certain special group
rights, in order to overcome the disadvantage that incurs as a result of being part of groups such as
certain genders and sexualities, ethnic identities and race.
POST MODERN FEMINISTS

• While radical feminists argue that the sex/gender distinction underplays sex differences, the school of
post-modern feminist thought holds that it over-emphasizes the biological body.
• According to Judith Butler, ‘gender’ is not the cultural inscription of meaning on a pre-given ‘sex’,
rather, gender as a way of thinking and as a concept, produces the category of biological sex. Butler,
thus, suggests a ‘radical discontinuity’ between sexed bodies and culturally constructed genders.
• Butler further uses the term heterosexual matrix to designate the grid produced by institutions,
practices and discourses, looking through which it appears to be ‘a fact of nature’ that all human
bodies possess one of the two fixed sexual identities, with each experiencing sexual desire only for the
‘opposite sex’.
• Through such norms, a wide range of bodies are rendered invisible and/or illegitimate, for instance,
infants born with no clear determining sexual characteristics, or eunuchs, or men and women who
choose not to follow the dress norms prescribed for their gender.
• All these are either marginalized, criminalized or forced to fit into the existing two- sex model in some
way or the other. Most modern languages have no way of speaking of a human who does not fit into
either sex.
• Feminist scientists such as Ruth Bleier and Evelyn Fox Keller have argued that a rigid sex/gender
distinction restricts biological sex—that is, sex defined as anatomical, hormonal or chromosomal—
as something to be studied by the biomedical sciences, while gender is to be studied by the social
sciences.
• Nelly Oudshoorn argues that ‘one-sex’ model of humanity, with the woman as a lesser version of the
male body, dominated biomedical discourse for thousands of years.
• Nivedita Menon argues bipolar model of masculinity/femininity and the devaluing of the feminine
are characteristic only of modern Western civilization. Even in Western culture, the two-sex model
was entrenched by law and the state only with the advent of modernity.
• Pre-modern Indian cultures, too, had greater space for a variety of sexual identities— eunuchs, for
example, had a socially acknowledged status in Indian society that they have lost in contemporary
times. Again, the Sufi and Bhakti traditions drew upon notions of androgyny and often rejected the
two-sex model.
FOURTH WAVE INTERSECTIONAL FEMINISM
• The concept that power is experienced through identities, not through one single axis like gender
or race/caste but by the intersections of multiple axis. The result is not a sum total of all axis in a
mechanical way but a completely different experience of power itself.
• Intersectional Feminism as a term, was first coined by American professor Kimberle Crenshaw in
the year 1989. It is the study of overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of
oppression, domination, or discrimination.
• Crenshaw argues that “All inequality is not created equal.” An intersectional approach shows the way
that people’s social identities can overlap, creating compounding experiences of discrimination.
• For example, race, class, and gender influence each other and intersect both. Caste and gender are
interrelated and influence each other. There are different axes of oppression like caste, class, race,
gender, ethnicity, ability, among others that are important in this context.
IMPORTANT FEATURES
• It recognizes systems of privilege and oppression at work within Feminism: Feminist praxis cannot be
fully understood unless we understand how issues like caste, class, gender, ability, sexuality among
others intersect and influence each other.
• Varying degrees of impact of discrimination: Using an intersectional lens also means recognizing the
historical contexts surrounding an issue. Long histories of violence and systematic discrimination
have created deep inequities that disadvantage some from the outset.
• In her article ‘Under Western Eyes’, Chandra T. Mohanty brings post-colonial discourse to
understanding intersectional feminism. She analyzes the claim of a ‘global sisterhood’ and criticizes
that the ‘Western’ feminists are – more or less implicitly – the leading activists in the sisterhood and
the ‘Third World Women’ are powerless and are seen as objects and victims.
• Uniqueness of experience and marginalization: Further, while we try and understand intersectional
feminism, the mere inclusion of women from the marginalized communities is not going to address
issues of ‘all women’.
• Further, those who suffer from different kinds of oppression do not simply suffer ‘more’ as compared
to others who don’t suffer as much, as rightly pointed out by Prof. Mary John. Rather we need to
understand how these oppressions are different from each other and unique in their own contexts.
Zoya Hassan talks about the issue of Muslim women and personal law in context of India and the
need to understand the peculiarity of issues.
• The concept of ‘Brahmanical patriarchy’ was elaborated by Ambedkar in his critique of endogamy
(marrying only within caste). The body of an Upper caste woman becomes the site of caste purity
and therefore is under extremely regimented control. Dalit feminists also see this as comparative high
value in contrast to dalit women’s bodies which are vulnerable targets not just to for underpaid labour,
but also for sexual exploitation, by the whole society.
• The theoretical impulse in this field came from Gopal Guru’s evocative statement – ‘Dalit women
speak differently’. Women here are seen as markers of caste and sexual boundaries. Scholars like
Sharmila Rege have made important contributions in the field, by pitching the argument at the level
of unique position and experience of the Dalit woman.
• Dalit feminists like Swathy Margaret Maddela, have been critical about the famous bahujan theorist
Kancha Ilaih’s remark that dalit patriarchy is more democratic because of the stereotype of the mobile
dalit woman in comparison with the tied up savarna woman. Special forms of debasement are
recognized by dalit feminists to characterize the violations of the dalit woman’s body.
• Need for Standpoint Theory: It is a feminist theoretical perspective that argues that knowledge stems
from social position. The perspective denies that traditional science is objective and suggests that research
and theory have ignored and marginalized women and feminist ways of thinking. The American
sociologist Patricia Hill Collins, in her book Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and
the Politics of Empowerment, proposed a form of standpoint theory that emphasized the perspective
of African American women. Collins argued that the matrix of oppression—an interlocking system of
race, gender, and class oppression and privilege—has given African American women a distinctive
point of view from which to understand their marginalized status.
• Need for Transversal Politics: According to Yuval-Davis, ‘transversal politics has been developed as
an alternative to the assimilationist and universalistic politics on one hand and identity politics on
the other. Drawing from a standpoint epistemology, transversal politics recognizes the importance of
difference. But this difference is used to encompass equality rather than negate it.
ECO FEMINISM:
• Ecofeminism is both an activist and academic movement which sees interlinkages between:
• Nature and women,
• Domination of nature and exploitation of women.
• The term ‘ecofeminism’ was first used by Francoise d’ Eaubonne in 1974 and became one of the aspects
of the third wave of feminist movement.
• Braidotti (1994) defines ecofeminism as ‘the feminist position most explicitly concerned with
environmental degradation’.
• Sherry Ortner draws from her understanding of Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex to look at how
women are perceived to be physiologically closer to nature and therefore inferior.
• The biological essentialism associated with women by Ortner was criticised by many theorists
including Bina Aggarwal. However, proponents of this theory find support in ecofeminists such as
Ariel Salleh who places women’s reproductive functions within the domain of nature and offer an
alternate world view.
• Salleh criticises ‘Deep Ecology’ as representing the requirements of white, middle class men who see
nature as a means of reconnecting with the human ‘ego’ and is removed from any concerns regarding
the environment.
• Deep ecology is an environmental philosophy that promotes the inherent worth of all living beings
regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs, and the restructuring of modern human
societies in accordance with such ideas.
• Nature Feminism: According to Karen Warren, the western world’s values, beliefs and attitudes about
itself and its inhabitants have been shaped by:
• Oppressive patriarchal conceptual framework;
• Explain and justify relations of domination and subjugation.
• Logic of domination, structuring an argument in a way that justifies subordination- ‘power over’.
• Hierarchical thinking by drawing value dualis
• Bina Agarwal lays out certain key ideas within ecofeminism.
• First, there is an important connection between the domination and exploitation of nature.
• In patriarchal thought women are seen to be closer to nature—and men as closer to culture. Nature
in turn is seen to be inferior to culture, and therefore women are inferior to men.
• Third, the domination and oppression of nature and of women have occurred together.
• Fourth, the feminist movement and the environment movement must stand together to create a
more equitable and just society.
• Vandana Shiva finds the Western ecofeminist movement as lacking in the way it presents the association
between women and nature. Her formulation of a more inclusive and dynamic theory, draws on
Indian cosmological and philosophical thinking to project a new relationship between gender and
nature.
• Unlike in the West, the opposition between the male and the female, and in turn between nature
and culture, does not exist in Indian philosophical thought- looks at both the male and female as the
expression of the same person—and not separate from each other.
• Purusha+ Prakriti= Shakti (the source of everything and in turn pervades everything.)
• Shiva finds Beauvoir’s formulation to be characteristic of Western feminist thought that accepts the
duality and opposition of the male and female— further placing the woman as weak and therefore
oppressed. In fact, the answer to the woman problem, for Beauvoir, lies in masculinizing women.
• For Shiva such a formulation is problematic especially when the categories of masculine and feminine
are themselves socially constructed. Shiva supports another line of that looks at a transgender ideology
wherein the feminine principle is seen in both men and women, destroyed by colonialism.
• Bina Agarwal finds Shiva’s theory different from the Western feminist perspective in the sense that it
explores aspects that the latter have left out in their formulation. Yet, the theory is not without some
drawbacks:
• Shiva’s theory places all Third-World women under one category.
• Within India itself the theory does not take into account other historical, cultural and social
processes and ideas that may have impacted the relationship with nature. The dependence on Hindu
philosophical thought does not apply to other systems of thought and practices in India.
• Agarwal contends that Shiva does not include the impact of precolonial structures and practices
upon the environment and on women such as caste, class.
• Cecille Jackson criticizes eco feminism for failing to take into account differences of class and ethnicity.
Biehl criticizes ecofeminism for retaining stereotypes of women that exist in the patriarchal society
such as women as being ‘nurturing’.
CYBER – FEMINISM
• Cyber feminism emerged at a particular moment in time, 1992, simultaneously at three different points
on the globe. In Canada, Nancy Paterson, a celebrated high-tech installation artist, penned an article
called “Cyber feminism”.
• In Australia, VNS Matrix Josephine Starrs, Julianne Pierce, Francesca da Rimini and Virginia Barratt
coined the term to label their radical feminist acts and their blatantly viral agenda: to insert women,
bodily fluids and political consciousness into electronic spaces.
• In a similar year, British cultural theorist Sadie Plant formulated a term to describe her recipe for
defining the feminizing influence of technology on Western society and its inhabitants.
• In 1997 at the first International Cyber feminist conference in Germany, the “100 Anti-Theses of Cyber
feminism” was drafted to make cyber feminism open and free of classification.
• Cyber feminism refers to feminism(s) applied to and/or performed in cyberspace. At the first
International cyber feminist conference, delegates avoided stating what cyberfeminism was and
instead devised the 100 anti-theses and defined what cyber feminism was not.
• Equity studies have documented the massive historical resistance to women getting the education,
credentials, and jobs especially in the STEM sector available to similarly talented men. (Boys’ clubs in
tech- Uber, Alphabet, Apple- In India also, Uber, Zomato).
• According to Donna Haraway, cyber feminism was born mainly as a reaction to “the pessimism of
the 1980s feminist approaches that stressed the inherently masculine nature of techno-science”, so it
became a counter movement against the “toys for boys” perception of new Internet technologies.
• Neelam Kumar outlines in “Gender and Stratification in Science: An Empirical Study in the Indian
Setting” how women in India have been marginalized, excluded or even barred entry to many
science institutions in the 19th century, and how issues such as neo- liberal policies of globalization,
privatization of research, reduced Government aid and the increased cost of education in the 20th
century have only worsened this exclusion.
• Cyberfeminist education projects for both men and women in technology, programming, and software
and hardware design address traditional gender constructions and biases built into technology.
• Today, the web has become a fertile petri dish for hate. Social media trolling, death and rape threats
have all highlighted the need for cyberfeminism in contemporary world (example of rape threats to
Agrima Joshua).
• Cyber avatars as sexualising women, pornography, morphing of images.
• Cyber-feminists instead focused on technology as a liberating force.
POST MODERN FEMINISTS
• While radical feminists argue that the sex/gender distinction underplays sex differences, the school of
post-modern feminist thought holds that it over-emphasizes the biological body.
• According to Judith Butler, ‘gender’ is not the cultural inscription of meaning on a pre-given ‘sex’,
rather, gender as a way of thinking and as a concept, produces the category of biological sex. Butler,
thus, suggests a ‘radical discontinuity’ between sexed bodies and culturally constructed genders.
• Butler further uses the term heterosexual matrix to designate the grid produced by institutions,
practices and discourses, looking through which it appears to be ‘a fact of nature’ that all human
bodies possess one of the two fixed sexual identities, with each experiencing sexual desire only for the
‘opposite sex’.
• Through such norms, a wide range of bodies are rendered invisible and/or illegitimate, for instance,
infants born with no clear determining sexual characteristics, or eunuchs, or men and women who
choose not to follow the dress norms prescribed for their gender.
• All these are either marginalized, criminalized or forced to fit into the existing two- sex model in some
way or the other. Most modern languages have no way of speaking of a human who does not fit into
either sex.
• Feminist scientists such as Ruth Bleier and Evelyn Fox Keller have argued that a rigid sex/gender
distinction restricts biological sex—that is, sex defined as anatomical, hormonal or chromosomal—
as something to be studied by the biomedical sciences, while gender is to be studied by the social
sciences.
• Nelly Oudshoorn argues that ‘one-sex’ model of humanity, with the woman as a lesser version of the
male body, dominated biomedical discourse for thousands of years.
• Nivedita Menon argues bipolar model of masculinity/femininity and the devaluing of the feminine
are characteristic only of modern Western civilization. Even in Western culture, the two-sex model
was entrenched by law and the state only with the advent of modernity.
• Pre-modern Indian cultures, too, had greater space for a variety of sexual identities— eunuchs, for
example, had a socially acknowledged status in Indian society that they have lost in contemporary
times. Again, the Sufi and Bhakti traditions drew upon notions of androgyny and often rejected the
two-sex model.
FOURTH WAVE INTERSECTIONAL FEMINISM
• The concept that power is experienced through identities, not through one single axis like gender
or race/caste but by the intersections of multiple axis. The result is not a sum total of all axis in a
mechanical way but a completely different experience of power itself.
Intersectional Feminism as a term, was first coined by American professor Kimberle Crenshaw in the year
1989. It is the study of overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression,
domination, or discrimination.
Crenshaw argues that “All inequality is not created equal.” An intersectional approach shows the way
that people’s social identities can overlap, creating compounding experiences of discrimination.
For example, race, class, and gender influence each other and intersect both. Caste and gender are
interrelated and influence each other. There are different axes of oppression like caste, class, race,
gender, ethnicity, ability, among others that are important in this context.
IMPORTANT FEATURES
• It recognizes systems of privilege and oppression at work within Feminism: Feminist praxis cannot be
fully understood unless we understand how issues like caste, class, gender, ability, sexuality among
others intersect and influence each other.
• Varying degrees of impact of discrimination: Using an intersectional lens also means recognizing the
historical contexts surrounding an issue. Long histories of violence and systematic discrimination
have created deep inequities that disadvantage some from the outset.
• In her article ‘Under Western Eyes’, Chandra T. Mohanty brings post-colonial discourse to
understanding intersectional feminism. She analyzes the claim of a ‘global sisterhood’ and criticizes
that the ‘Western’ feminists are – more or less implicitly – the leading activists in the sisterhood and
the ‘Third World Women’ are powerless and are seen as objects and victims.
• Uniqueness of experience and marginalization: Further, while we try and understand intersectional
feminism, the mere inclusion of women from the marginalized communities is not going to address
issues of ‘all women’.
• Further, those who suffer from different kinds of oppression do not simply suffer ‘more’ as compared
to others who don’t suffer as much, as rightly pointed out by Prof. Mary John. Rather we need to
understand how these oppressions are different from each other and unique in their own contexts.
Zoya Hassan talks about the issue of Muslim women and personal law in context of India and the need
to understand the peculiarity of issues.
• The concept of ‘Brahmanical patriarchy’ was elaborated by Ambedkar in his critique of endogamy
(marrying only within caste). The body of an Upper caste woman becomes the site of caste purity
and therefore is under extremely regimented control. Dalit feminists also see this as comparative high
value in contrast to dalit women’s bodies which are vulnerable targets not just to for underpaid labour,
but also for sexual exploitation, by the whole society.
• The theoretical impulse in this field came from Gopal Guru’s evocative statement – ‘Dalit women
speak differently’. Women here are seen as markers of caste and sexual boundaries. Scholars like
Sharmila Rege have made important contributions in the field, by pitching the argument at the level
of unique position and experience of the Dalit woman.
• Dalit feminists like Swathy Margaret Maddela, have been critical about the famous bahujan theorist
Kancha Ilaih’s remark that dalit patriarchy is more democratic because of the stereotype of the mobile
dalit woman in comparison with the tied up savarna woman. Special forms of debasement are
recognized by dalit feminists to characterize the violations of the dalit woman’s body.
• Dalit feminists think that dalit women’s experience in Brahmanical patriarchy cannot be reduced to an
addition of class, caste and gender as theorized by dalit men and savarna women in India. Anupama
Rao connects the spectacular nature of public shaming to the everyday power deployments that are
part of a caste society.
• Need for Standpoint Theory: It is a feminist theoretical perspective that argues that knowledge stems
from social position. The perspective denies that traditional science is objective and suggests that research
and theory have ignored and marginalized women and feminist ways of thinking. The American
sociologist Patricia Hill Collins, in her book Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and
the Politics of Empowerment, proposed a form of standpoint theory that emphasized the perspective
of African American women. Collins argued that the matrix of oppression—an interlocking system of
race, gender, and class oppression and privilege—has given African American women a distinctive
point of view from which to understand their marginalized status.
• Need for Transversal Politics: According to Yuval-Davis, ‘transversal politics has been developed as
an alternative to the assimilationist and universalistic politics on one hand and identity politics on
the other. Drawing from a standpoint epistemology, transversal politics recognizes the importance of
difference. But this difference is used to encompass equality rather than negate it.
ECO FEMINISM:
• Ecofeminism is both an activist and academic movement which sees interlinkages between:
• Nature and women,
• Domination of nature and exploitation of women.
• The term ‘ecofeminism’ was first used by Francoise d’ Eaubonne in 1974 and became one of the
aspects of the third wave of feminist movement.
• Braidotti (1994) defines ecofeminism as ‘the feminist position most explicitly concerned with
environmental degradation’.
• Sherry Ortner draws from her understanding of Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex to look at how
women are perceived to be physiologically closer to nature and therefore inferior.
• The biological essentialism associated with women by Ortner was criticised by many theorists
including Bina Aggarwal. However, proponents of this theory find support in ecofeminists such as
Ariel Salleh who places women’s reproductive functions within the domain of nature and offer an
alternate world view.
• Salleh criticises ‘Deep Ecology’ as representing the requirements of white, middle class men who see
nature as a means of reconnecting with the human ‘ego’ and is removed from any concerns regarding
the environment.
• Deep ecology is an environmental philosophy that promotes the inherent worth of all living beings
regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs, and the restructuring of modern human
societies in accordance with such ideas.
• Nature Feminism: According to Karen Warren, the western world’s values, beliefs and attitudes about
itself and its inhabitants have been shaped by:
• Oppressive patriarchal conceptual framework;
• Explain and justify relations of domination and subjugation.
• Logic of domination, structuring an argument in a way that justifies subordination- ‘power over’.
• Hierarchical thinking by drawing value dualisms.
• Bina Agarwal lays out certain key ideas within ecofeminism.

• First, there is an important connection between the domination and exploitation of nature.
• In patriarchal thought women are seen to be closer to nature—and men as closer to culture. Nature
in turn is seen to be inferior to culture, and therefore women are inferior to men.
• Third, the domination and oppression of nature and of women have occurred together.
• Fourth, the feminist movement and the environment movement must stand together to create a
more equitable and just society.
• Vandana Shiva finds the Western ecofeminist movement as lacking in the way it presents the association
between women and nature. Her formulation of a more inclusive and dynamic theory, draws on
Indian cosmological and philosophical thinking to project a new relationship between gender and
nature.
• Unlike in the West, the opposition between the male and the female, and in turn between nature
and culture, does not exist in Indian philosophical thought- looks at both the male and female as the
expression of the same person—and not separate from each other.
• Purusha+ Prakriti= Shakti (the source of everything and in turn pervades everything.)
• Shiva finds Beauvoir’s formulation to be characteristic of Western feminist thought that accepts the
duality and opposition of the male and female— further placing the woman as weak and therefore
oppressed. In fact, the answer to the woman problem, for Beauvoir, lies in masculinizing women.
• For Shiva such a formulation is problematic especially when the categories of masculine and feminine
are themselves socially constructed. Shiva supports another line of that looks at a transgender ideology
wherein the feminine principle is seen in both men and women, destroyed by colonialism.
• Bina Agarwal finds Shiva’s theory different from the Western feminist perspective in the sense that it
explores aspects that the latter have left out in their formulation. Yet, the theory is not without some
drawbacks:
• Shiva’s theory places all Third-World women under one category.
• Within India itself the theory does not take into account other historical, cultural and social
processes and ideas that may have impacted the relationship with nature. The dependence on Hindu
philosophical thought does not apply to other systems of thought and practices in India.
• Agarwal contends that Shiva does not include the impact of precolonial structures and practices
upon the environment and on women such as caste, class.
• Cecille Jackson criticizes eco feminism for failing to take into account differences of class and ethnicity.
Biehl criticizes ecofeminism for retaining stereotypes of women that exist in the patriarchal society
such as women as being ‘nurturing’.
CYBER – FEMINISM
• Cyber feminism emerged at a particular moment in time, 1992, simultaneously at three different points
on the globe. In Canada, Nancy Paterson, a celebrated high-tech installation artist, penned an article
called “Cyber feminism”.
• In Australia, VNS Matrix Josephine Starrs, Julianne Pierce, Francesca da Rimini and Virginia Barratt
coined the term to label their radical feminist acts and their blatantly viral agenda: to insert women,
bodily fluids and political consciousness into electronic spaces.
• In a similar year, British cultural theorist Sadie Plant formulated a term to describe her recipe for
defining the feminizing influence of technology on Western society and its inhabitants.
• In 1997 at the first International Cyber feminist conference in Germany, the “100 Anti-Theses of Cyber
feminism” was drafted to make cyber feminism open and free of classification.
• Cyber feminism refers to feminism(s) applied to and/or performed in cyberspace. At the first
International cyber feminist conference, delegates avoided stating what cyberfeminism was and
instead devised the 100 anti-theses and defined what cyber feminism was not.
• Equity studies have documented the massive historical resistance to women getting the education,
credentials, and jobs especially in the STEM sector available to similarly talented men. (Boys’ clubs in
tech- Uber, Alphabet, Apple- In India also, Uber, Zomato).
• According to Donna Haraway, cyber feminism was born mainly as a reaction to “the pessimism of
the 1980s feminist approaches that stressed the inherently masculine nature of techno-science”, so it
became a counter movement against the “toys for boys” perception of new Internet technologies.
• Neelam Kumar outlines in “Gender and Stratification in Science: An Empirical Study in the Indian
Setting” how women in India have been marginalized, excluded or even barred entry to many
science institutions in the 19th century, and how issues such as neo- liberal policies of globalization,
privatization of research, reduced Government aid and the increased cost of education in the 20th
century have only worsened this exclusion.
• Cyberfeminist education projects for both men and women in technology, programming, and software
and hardware design address traditional gender constructions and biases built into technology.
• Today, the web has become a fertile petri dish for hate. Social media trolling, death and rape threats
have all highlighted the need for cyberfeminism in contemporary world (example of rape threats to
Agrima Joshua).
• Cyber avatars as sexualising women, pornography, morphing of images.
• Cyber-feminists instead focused on technology as a liberating force.
POLITICAL THEORY- ITS MEANINGS
AND APPROACHES
POLITICS OCCUPIES A WIDE AREA AND MAY BE DIFFERENTLY DEFINED AS A
SCIENCE, THEORY OR PHILOSOPHY:
• Political Science- Child of the 20th century- essentially empirical, claiming to describe, analyse and
explain government and other political institutions in an impartial manner. It became especially
popular in the 1950’s and 60’s during the behavioural revolution in USA.
• Political Theory- Subfield of Political science and involves the analytical study of ideas and concepts.
Specific political theories cannot be considered as the final understanding of an event as its meaning
is always open to future interpretations. Political theory supplies ideas, concepts and theories for the
purpose of analysis, description, explanation and criticism, which in turn are incorporated in political
science.
• Political Philosophy- Philosophy is generally seen as a ‘second order’ discipline that deals with
critically evaluating political beliefs and also attempting to clarify and redefine concepts involved
in political discourse. It concerns the distinction between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ and the larger issues of
politics. Political philosophy is a part of normative political theory, for it attempts to establish inter-
relationships between concepts.
• As a theory, Bluhen in his book Theories of Political System explains, political theory “stands for an
abstract model of the political order… a guide to the systematic collection and analysis of political
data”.
• Andrew Hacker in his book Political Theory: Philosophy, Ideology, Science, enlarging the point of
view, says that political theory as a “theory, in ideal terms, is dispassionate and disinterested.
As History of Political Thought

As a technique of analysis
Usages of
Political As a conceptual clarification
Theory:
As formal model building
As theoretical Political Science
POLITICAL THEORY –MEANING:
• The meaning of Political Theory often defines on what we understand by the term ‘political.’ David
Held argues that prior to the 1970s, ‘political’ mainly dealt with nature and structure of government; it
was treated as a domain separate from society and the personal. However, ‘political’ has increasingly
changed today, making the subject of political theory also more diverse and complex.
• David Held defines political theory as “a network of concepts and generalizations about political
life involving ideas, assumptions and statements about the nature, purpose and key features of
government, state and society and about the political capabilities of human beings”.
• In his book Political Science Dictionary, he is describing it as “a body of thought that seeks to evaluate,
explain and predict political phenomena.”
• As a sub-field of Political Science, it is concerned with political ideas, values and concepts, and the
explanation of prediction of political behaviour.
• In its broad sense, it has two main branches:
1. one is political philosophy or normative theory, with its value, analytic, historical and speculative
concerns.
2. The other is empirical theory, with its efforts to explain, predict, guide, research and organize
knowledge through the formulation of abstract models, and scientifically testable propositions.
• According to Sabine, ‘Political theory is, quite simply, man’s attempts to consciously understand and
solve the problems of his group life and organization. It is the disciplined investigation of political
problems not only to show what a political practice is, but also to show what it means. In showing
what a practice means, or what it ought to mean, political theory can alter what it is.”
RAJIV BHARGAV DEFINES THEORY AS “A PARTICULAR FORM OF LANGUAGE-
DEPENDENT SYSTEMATIC EXPRESSION” HAVING 6 DISTINCT FEATURES:
• Conceptual sensitivity involving not only an elaboration of different conceptions of an idea, but also
the reasoning as to the choice of the conception.
• Theories should also have a rational structure.
• A third characteristic of theory is its aspiration to truth and objectivity.
• There should be some degree of generality in a statement to qualify as theory.
• It should be committed to unearthing background assumptions and presumptions of our beliefs,
statements, values and actions.
• Theories cannot be purely speculative. It should pass through the empirical phenomena and lived
experiences.
APPROACHES TO STUDY POLITICS
• The approaches to the study of Politics can be broadly divided into two main categories of Traditional
and Modern approaches based on the problems being looked at and the tools and methods being
employed to study the same.
• A second typology may be in terms of Normative and empirical approaches. Dyke stressed that an
approach consists of the “criteria of selection of both problems and questions to consider as well as the
criteria for selecting the data.”
TRADITIONAL APPROACHES:
• The traditional approach to the study of politics and political system was widely prevalent till the
outbreak of WWII. It is primarily concerned with the study of organizations, activities of the state,
principles and the ideas which underlie political organizations and activities.
• Characteristics of Traditional Approaches:
• Traditional approaches are largely normative and stresses on the values of politics and what ought
to be.
• Emphasis is on the study of different political structures and institutions.
• Traditional approaches make very little attempt to relate theory, research and practice.
• These approaches believe that since facts and values are closely interlinked, studies in political
science can never be overtly scientific.
THE CLASSICAL/ TRADITIONAL PARADIGM, ACCORDING TO SHELDON
WOLIN, CONSISTED OF THE FOLLOWING:
• Classical political theory aimed at acquiring reliable knowledge about matters concerning the people
and rational basis of action.
• It sought to identify the political with the public, the common: the Greek polis, the Roman res publica.
• Its basic unit of analysis was always the political whole relating to ruling, warfare, education,
relationship between social classes and concepts like justice, equality, liberty etc.
• It laid emphasis on order, balance, equilibrium, stability and harmony.
• It laid stress on comparative studies for comprehensive understanding of political phenomena and
available alternatives.
• Classical political theory had been, largely, ethical and moral in perspective.
• With its focus on ideal, revealed the classical tradition as bold and radical.
THE TRADITIONAL APPROACH IS FURTHER DIVIDED INTO
• Philosophical
• Philosophical
• Legal
• Institutional
PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH:
• This approach is regarded as the oldest approach to the study of Politics and political- system. The
emergence of this approach can be traced back to the times of Greek philosophers like Plato and
Aristotle. Leo Strauss was one of the main advocates of the philosophical approach. Strauss believes
believes that “philosophy is the quest for wisdom and political philosophy is the attempt truly to
know about the nature of political things and the right or good political order.”
• As per Vernon Van Dyke, a philosophical analysis is an effort to clarify thought about the nature of the
subject and about ends and means in studying it. Secondly, it aims at evolving a critical evaluation of
the existing institutions, laws and policies through efforts to arrive at truth by the use of reason.
• Philosophy, as Kant says, has answered three questions: “What can I know?” “What must I do?”
and “What can I hope for?” and this is what makes philosophy a lodestar of life. Political philosophy
mainly dwelled on the logic of the grounds and limits of political obligation. Concepts of individual
rights and revolution, justice, equality, freedom are by-products of this debate.
• The issue with the normativists is that while professing values which they cherish, they portray them
as universal and absolute. They do not realise that ethical values are relative to time and space with a
heavy subjective content in them.
The exponents of empirical theory take normativists to task for:
• relativity of values;
• cultural basis of ethics and norms;
• ideological content in the enterprise and;
• abstract and utopian nature of the project.
• In recent times, again the old sensibility within the normative theory has re-emerged and the passion
for good life and good society has been matched by methodological and empirical astuteness. John
Rawls’ A Theory of Justice is a case in point which attempts to anchor logical and moral political
theory in empirical findings.
HISTORICAL APPROACH:
• According to the advocates of this approach, political theory can only be understood when the
historical factors in which it is evolved are taken into consideration such as in theories of Hegel and
Marx. Karl Popper has labelled this approach as ‘historicism.’
• Sabine believes that each political theory is advanced in response to a particular situation. According to
him Political theory without history is a structure without a base. Hence it is necessary to understand
the same to evaluate the relevance of that theory in present situation.
Moreover, any political theory is not only a product of history, it also served as an instrument of moulding
history by its ideological force. However, all great political theories are valid for all times.
• One can never understand a text without its context. Plato’s communism was significantly different
from what is claimed to be Marx’s communism, and one can understand communism of each by
understanding the history of their respective times.
• Renewed interest in history of political thought for contemporary theory building for example- Rawls’
theory of justice on Locke and Kant’s thought, Marcuse has built his neo-Marxist theory of freedom by
reverting to Hegel’s concept of ‘civil society’.
• Critics of the historical approach point out that it is not possible to understand ideas of the past ages
in terms of the contemporary ideas and concepts.
David Easton has warned against living ‘parasitically on ideas a century old’ and failing to develop a ‘new
political synthesis’.
LEGAL APPROACH:
• It focuses its attention on legal and constitutional framework. This approach regards the state as the
fundamental organization for the creation and enforcement of laws. Moreover, all political processes
to become effective and stable must culminate in legal provisions.
• This approach is concerned with the legal process, legal bodies or institutions, justice and independence
of judiciary. The advocates of this approach are Cicero, Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, Jeremy Bentham,
John Austin, Dicey and Sir Henry Maine.
• However, legal approach may prove inadequate in understanding the complex political forces,
processes and behaviour which might operate outside legal-formal framework
INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH
• The scholars of this approach seek to study organisation and the various organs of government.
Institutions are regarded as a set of offices, with given boundaries of functioning and some form of
organisation or hierarchy.
• According to V.V. Dyke, “An institution is any persistent system of activities and expectations or any
stable pattern of group behaviour.”
• It gives independent identity to the systematic study of politics.
• It exemplifies a shift from normative to empirical approach, and from a historical to a contemporary
concern within the sphere of traditional approaches. However, it relies heavily on description rather
than explanation.
• Some drawbacks of the institutional approach are:
a. with its preoccupation with the institutions, it neglected the individual;
b. in the absence of overarching institutions governing international politics, it practically neglected
the study of international politics; it confined its attention to international relations and description
of the United Nations and its associated agencies and left the study of international politics to
historians and students of international law;
c. being concerned with the established institutions alone, it neglected the role of violence or threat
of violence, political movements and agitations, war and revolutions, etc.; and finally
d. it neglected the role of informal groups and processes in shaping politics.
SHORT COMINGS OF TRADITIONAL APPROACHES:
• Apart from all the criticisms listed, traditional approaches were idealistic also, as their concern went
beyond how and why political events happen to what ought to happen.
• In a similar vein, the traditional approaches had been criticized for taking library sources and
contemplation as ultimate for its research. Critics such as Lowell maintained that “the actual laboratory
of the political scientist is the outside world of public life; it is there that they must be opened at first
hand.”
MODERN: CONTEMPORARY APPROACH TO POLITICAL THEORY
• Contemporary approaches signify a departure from traditional by firstly focussing on the real character
of politics and secondly, they try to understand politics in totality.
• Contemporary political theory is mainly concerned with the explanation, investigation and ultimately,
with the comprehension of what relates to politics: concepts, principles and institutions. Brian Barry
says that political theory attempts to “study the relation between principles and institutions”.
• Modern political theory encompasses in itself a host of diverse trends such as the institutional
structural, scientific, positivistic, empirical, behavioural, post-behavioural and the Marxist. These
trends dominated the greater part of the twentieth century.
FEATURES OF CONTEMPORARY APPROACH TO POLITICAL THEORY:
Opposition to Universalism: They argue that the appeal to universal

principles are tantamount to standardisation. Multiculturalists and
Communitarians called universalist theories as ‘exclusivist’ at the core.
Critique of Grand Narratives: The grand narratives of both the liberal and
the marxist variety have come under fire on the premise that there is an
The broad thrusts
which bring overarching or transcendental ‘foundation’ of reality and truth.
many of the
contemporary Post – positivism: The contemporary theories call value free enterprises as
theories together: useless and believe that political theory is an inherently normative and
politically engaged project.
Empirical and Comparative: This kind of empirical – comparative

methodology would be a check on the broad generalisation across cultures
and continents.
ITS FEATURES CAN BE SUMMED UP AS UNDER:

• Facts and data constitute the bases of study. These are accumulated, explained and then used for
testing hypothesis.
• Human behaviour can be studied, and regularities of human behaviour can be expressed in
generalisations.
• Subjectivity gives way to objectivity; philosophical interpretation to analytical explanation; purpose to
procedure; descriptive to observational; normative to scientific.
• Values are to support facts, substance to form, and theory to research, and status quo to social change.
• Inter-disciplinary synthesis is to be achieved with quantitative methodology and an emphasis on
‘what is’ rather than ‘what ought to be’.
MODERN APPROACHES MAY BE DIVIDED INTO:
• Behavioural Approach
• Post-Behavioural Approach
• Systems of Political Analysis
• Systems Analysis
• Communications Model
• Decision Making Model
• Marxian Analysis

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INTRODUCTION TO IDEOLOGY

WHAT IS PURPOSE OF IDEOLOGY

AS PER ANDREW HEYWOOD, IDEOLOGY PERFORMS A NUMBER OF CRUCIAL

• Political ideas also help to shape the nature of political systems.

Daniel Bell is an exponent of the “functional approach to ideology.

• It implies an action orientation ability to promote or undermine legitimacy,

• potential for attaining social solidarity,

• And value integration.

A political belief system.

So various understandings of The ideas of the ruling class.

An officially sanctioned set of ideas used to legitimize a political system

GRAMSCI (PRISON DIARIES) AND NEO MARXISTS:

MANNHEIM AND SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE

MANHEIM IDENTIFIES DIFFERENT CATEGORIES:

MAIN PROBLEM IS RELATIVISM & KNOWLEDGE OF OBJECTIVE TRUTH

LIBERALISM AND CLASSICAL LIBERALISM

2. free market liberalism,

3. democratic liberalism, and

On the whole, according to, to him, liberalism stands for:

• free life as the prime pursuit of politics,

• government is based on consent and contract,

• constitutionalism and the rule of law,

• social justice based upon merit, and

IN HIS BOOK LIBERALISM, L.T. HOBHOUSE POINTED OUT CERTAIN BASIC

“ROUSSEAU’S GENERAL WILL IS HOBBES’ LEVIATHAN WITH ITS HEAD

Individual freedom is the fundamental value that

AYN RAND (THE FOUNTAINHEAD, ATLAS SHRUGGED)

Community Unlike liberals, Socialists rest their belief in

Cooperation This concept is firmly embedded in the Socialists view of human

Equality For Socialists, equality of Outcome matters mainly for 3 reasons:

DISCUSS THE KEY FEATURES OF

CRITICAL EVALUATION OF EARLY SOCIALISTS:

• There was nothing revolutionary about their ideas.

Reform/ Evolutionary: Revolutionary:

It insists on organizing the working classes for fighting against

EVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISMDEFINE SOCIALISM. DISCUSS THE SALIENT

Main Tenets of Classical/

Dialectical Materialism, Hegemony, Alienation,

• Russia was still economically backward and primarily agricultural.

• Majority Russians worked on land, tiny and disorganised workers community.

• At Feudal stage, awaiting Bourgeoisie Revolution and not Socialist.

LENIN ON ‘PUSH HISTORY’:

• creating a national level organisation of Russian wage workers and

• raising their level of political consciousness.

LENIN ON DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM:

LENIN ON ‘WEAKEST LINK THEORY’:

Imperialism for Generation of Increase wages of

The tremendous concentration of industry into fewer and

Non-Antagonist Contradictions: Antagonist Contradictions: Leads

GRAMSCI & HIS CONTRIBUTION

FASCISM AND ITS MAIN TENETS

Its an attempt to protect capitalism in its decadent phase- myth of nation

Marxist Gramsci- ideological propaganda of the fascists sought to preserve

Trotsky- The widespread fear of uncertainty in a time of crisis served to

It is totalitarian character and rejects individual liberty, democratic

It sought to accentuate the irrational element in human nature while

It hits at the pluralistic nature of society by establishing the

ANARCHISM AND ITS MAINS TENETS

• Central Ideas of Anarchism

There are two major anarchist

Simone de Beauvoir, tracing the oppression of women to their position as the

Long-term evolutionary sense: Human bodies have

Short term sense: Neurophysiology and hormonal

POST MODERN FEMINISTS