Week 3 — Political Ideologies

Introduction to Political Science Free sample edition

Why this matters

A nursing student in a debate about who pays for health care and a business major weighing a new work rule both meet people with whole packages of ideas.

In plain language

This week is about the big packages of ideas people bring to politics. An ideology (a connected set of ideas about how society should work and who should hold power) explains why two people can look at the same bus line, tax bill, or border and want opposite things. You will meet liberalism, conservatism, the socialist family, and four smaller families, each described by what its own supporters believe. You will read two famous texts side by side, the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) and Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), without picking a winner. Our job is to describe each ideology fairly, never to rank them, and to sort its claims into empirical (checkable against evidence) and normative (argued from values).

Already covered: Week 1 gave you the toolkit and the line between empirical and normative claims; Week 2 gave you power, authority, legitimacy, and the state.
This week: what an ideology is, the major ideologies and the smaller families, two classic texts read charitably, a platform sort, and the left–right spectrum.
How they connect: every ideology is an answer to Week 2's question, why obey and what the state is for, and every ideology mixes Week 1's two kinds of claim.
Where we're going next: Week 4, Political Theory & Philosophy, digs into the ideas these ideologies argue over: justice, liberty, equality, and rights.

Focus

What do the major ideologies value, fear, and argue, and how do we describe them fairly?

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

[ ] define an ideology and describe one without ranking it
[ ] tell the two wings of liberalism apart and avoid the U.S.-usage trap
[ ] sort socialism, communism, and social democracy
[ ] label a claim empirical or normative by its kind

To-do

Plan your week

Read Chapter 3 (about 45 minutes), then the lecture and slides.
Work the lecture tutorial (60–90 minutes) and the practice set (about 20 minutes).
Do the workshop (about 90 minutes), the discussion, and the assignment.
Take the quiz.

This week's checkpoint: sort Statement 1 by family and by kind.

You've got this

Take it in order, and ask your instructor early.

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