Old Ideologies

Traditionalist Conservatism

Denijs van Alsloot, Ommegang in Brussels, 31 May 1615 (1616; Wikimedia Commons; click to enlarge))

Authoritarian Nationalist Populism?

(Redbubble.net; fair use)

How libertarians might have written "Star Wars" (Reason TV; fair use)

POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES IN A WORLD OF IDENTITIES

Thomas J. Donahue

POLSH312/PEACH312

Spring 2020

Th 1:30pm-4pm

Office hours: W 2-4, Hall 01B, or by apptmt

Mailbox: Hall Building faculty mailroom

tjdonahueAThaverford.edu

Modern politics is a contest of ideas. Sometimes the contest is violent: In the 20th and 21st century, tens of millions of people have been killed in the name of systems of political ideas. Sometimes the contest is verbal: Liberals debate socialists, conservatives quarrel with anarchists, nationalists denounce libertarianism. But what do these ideologies amount to? What is it that they offer to people? Why have so many died in their names?

This course examines many of the leading ideologies of our time: liberalism, conservatism, socialism, communism, anarchism, republicanism, secularism, neo-liberalism, libertarianism, nationalism, fascism, imperialism, multiculturalism, feminism, and political Islam. We look at how ideologies explain to people their social world, give them a set of standards for evaluating politics, make them feel that they are part of a group with a purpose, and give them a set of instructions they can use to help further that purpose. For each of these major ideologies of our day, we examine its key concepts, questions, doctrines, principles, values, and underlying rationale. We examine the boundaries between these ideologies, and the varieties that many of them have created. By the end of the course, students should have a command of these basic features of each ideology, as well as some sense of their historical development and inter-relationships. The aim is to help each student see what each ideology says and why it says it, so that they can decide for themselves among the current set of ideologies, or build their own.

Course Requirements. To earn full credit, you must:

(1) Participate in class discussion. I know many people find this daunting. Nevertheless, try. One main aim of the course is to help you improve in argument.

(2) Submit 6 short papers. This has two parts. (I) In the third session, you must submit in hard copy a paper of less than 350 words describing the ideology held by the author of a book review, which you will read. In the last session, you must submit a paper of the same length, describing to what extent you would write that paper differently, given what you have learned in the course. Both of these should also be posted to our Moodle forum, before the beginning of class when you submit a hard copy. (II) Each session, you may submit in hard copy and to the Moodle forum a paper, of not more than 350 words, that examines some thesis that that week’s reading has argued. The paper should state the thesis and then argue for or against it. If you argue for it, you should provide your own reasons for it--not the author's reasons. Here's an example: "Judith Shklar argues that it was better to proceed with the Tokyo and Nuremberg Trials than to summarily punish the accused, as Winston Churchill had proposed. I shall argue instead that it would have been better to follow Churchill's proposal and summarily punish the accused. My main reason will be that summarily punishing the top leaders while avoiding trials would have given the world the punishment it wanted to see, while ensuring that no one could argue that the Allies were using corrupt and unjust legal procedures to obtain predetermined political results. By contrast, the trials muddied the distinction between normal times and extraordinary times, and thus encouraged people to think that the Allies valued neither legality nor justice." Click here for guidelines on writing response papers. Note that for full credit, you need only submit 4 such papers, in both hard copy and Moodle forum post. You must submit one response paper by the fourth session, and three by the ninth session. The deadlines are marked on the syllabus.

(3) Submit a paper proposal. You are required to submit, in Week 8, a proposal for your final paper. The proposal should state a question concerning one of the topics covered in the course, say why the question is important, state your answer to the question (i.e., your thesis), give the key reasons by which you will defend the thesis, state two serious objections to your thesis, and state how you will respond to the objections. The proposal should be not more than 800 words long.

(4) Submit a final paper. You are required to submit, on the last day of exams, a final paper. The paper should state a question concerning one of the topics covered in the course, say why the question is important, state your answer to the question (i.e., your thesis), defend the thesis with argument, state two serious objections to your thesis, and respond to the objections. The paper should be not more than 4,000 words long.

Course Assessment. Course marks will be computed on the following distribution: Class Participation: 20%; Response Papers: 30% (5% each); Paper Proposal: 20%; Argumentative Paper: 30%

Course format. The course will be discussion oriented. I will usually begin sessions by presenting a thesis advanced in the week’s reading. I will discuss its implications. I will then ask one or many of you whether you think the thesis true or false, and why. We shall then examine the reasons you offer for your view. We shall then turn to the reasons the text offers in defense of the thesis. I will ask you what you think of those reasons, and so forth. The course in part aims to improve your skill in reasoned argument.

Course Objectives. By the end of the course, students should

(1) Have become familiar with the key concepts of the theories and arguments of each ideology covered in the course;

(2) Have strengthened their skills in applying these concepts to current debate about the problems of political morality;

(3) Have honed their ability to specify how and why specific values clash when dealing with those problems;

(4) Have improved their skills in specifying the disagreement over the relevant facts involved in disagreement between ideologies.

(5) Have learned how to accurately describe the structure of a theory, specifying its key concepts, its main claims, the basic model underlying it, and the question to which it is an answer;

(6) Have honed their skills in specifying the structures of arguments, breaking them into premises-axioms, middle premises-lemmas, and conclusions-theorems;

(7) Have improved their ability in distinguishing between similar concepts denoted by the same word and spotting equivocations;

(8) Have honed their skills in evaluating and challenging the premises of an argument with rational and well-ordered arguments of their own;

(9) Have improved their ability to evaluate the deductive validity or inductive strength of an argument’s progress from premises to conclusions;

(10) Have worked out for themselves a detailed and developed argument arguing a thesis about one of the questions covered in the course.

E-mail policy. You are welcome to e-mail me with questions about the course. I try to answer e-mails within 48 hours of receipt. Don’t expect an answer before then. Fast generally means shoddy.

Academic Dishonesty: Don’t do it! Here is Haverford College's official language on the subject:

"A Note from Your Professor on Academic Integrity at Haverford:

"In a community that thrives on relationships between students and faculty that are based on trust and respect, it is crucial that students understand a professor’s expectations and what it means to do academic work with integrity. Plagiarism and cheating, even if unintentional, undermine the values of the Honor Code and the ability of all students to benefit from the academic freedom and relationships of trust the Code facilitates. Plagiarism is using someone else's work or ideas and presenting them as your own without attribution. Plagiarism can also occur in more subtle forms, such as inadequate paraphrasing, failure to cite another person’s idea even if not directly quoted, failure to attribute the synthesis of various sources in a review article to that author, or accidental incorporation of another’s words into your own paper as a result of careless note-taking. Cheating is another form of academic dishonesty, and it includes not only copying, but also inappropriate collaboration, exceeding the time allowed, and discussion of the form, content, or degree of difficulty of an exam. Please be conscientious about your work, and check with me if anything is unclear."

I may, at any time, use tools like turnitin.com to detect plagiarism.

Students with Disabilities, Special Needs, or Having Difficulties: Here is the Haverford Office of Access and Disability Services' Statement, which I affirm:

"Haverford College is committed to supporting the learning process for all students. Please contact me as soon as possible if you are having difficulties in the course. There are also many resources on campus available to you as a student, including the Office of Academic Resources (https://www.haverford.edu/oar/) and the Office of Access and Disability Services (https://www.haverford.edu/access-and-disability-services/). If you think you may need accommodations because of a disability, you should contact Access and Disability Services at hc-ads@haverford.edu. If you have already been approved to receive academic accommodations and would like to request accommodations in this course because of a disability, please meet with me privately at the beginning of the semester (ideally within the first two weeks) with your verification letter."

Writing response papers: Here are guidelines on what I’m looking for, and what I’m not looking for, but other teachers might be: https://sites.google.com/site/tjdonahu/home/writing-response-papers

How to understand and use theories: Puzzled? You're not alone! Even the professionals find this difficult. Click here for some tips on how to do it: https://sites.google.com/site/tjdonahu/home/using-theories

How to do political philosophy: The approach used in this course is political philosophy. For some tips on how to do it, click here:

https://sites.google.com/site/tjdonahu/home/political-philosophy-why-and-how

REQUIRED BOOKS

[1] Andrew Heywood, Political Ideologies: An Introduction, 5th edition (Palgrave, 2012)

[2] Roger Scruton, The Meaning of Conservatism (St. Augustine's Press, 2002)

RECOMMENDED BOOKS

[1] Carl Cohen, Four Systems: Individualist Democracy, Socialist Democracy, Communism, Fascism (University of Michigan Library, 2014)

[2] Michael C. Dawson, Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African-American Ideologies (UChicago Press, 2001)

[3] L. T. Hobhouse, Liberalism (Oxford UP, 1964)

[4] Tony Wright, Socialisms: Old and New (Routledge, 1996)

[5] Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies, ed. Michael Freeden and Marc Stears (Oxford UP, 2013)

[6] Michael Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach (Oxford UP, 1996)

[7] Barbara Goodwin, Using Political Ideas (Wiley Blackwell, 2009)

GUIDES TO WRITING GOOD PAPERS: THE PROSE, THE PROBLEM, AND THE ARGUMENT

[1] Richard Lanham's Paramedic Method.

It transforms slow-starting sentences with obscure subjects into sentences with clear actors and actions.

[2] The Bennett rules for writing decent prose in theoretical papers.

Jonathan Bennett says: Prefer verbs to nouns. Prefer adverbs to adjectives. Avoid intensifiers ( like "very" or "extremely"). Use sparingly the abstract nouns--big words from Latin and Greek ending with "--ation," "--ity," "-ism," "-ology," "-nomy," etc.--; don't cram a sentence full of them.

[3] Joseph M. Williams and Gregory G. Colomb, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace (Longman, 2010).

Explains why and when to use Lanham's Method and Strunk and White's rules; and when to break them. Explains how to organize information in a sentence: put the familiar at the front, and the new at the end. Also explains how to make paragraphs coherent: each paragraph should have a point sentence articulating its main point, and this should come either at the end of the paragraph's introductory sentence, or at the paragraph's end.

[4] "From Questions to Problems," Section 4.2 of Wayne Booth et al., The Craft of Research.

Crucial for writing research papers. You need more than a topic. You need more than a research question. You need more than a thesis. You need a research problem, which tells a definite audience what is the bigger question they can't fully answer until they've followed your answering of your research question.

[5] Anthony Weston, A Rulebook for Arguments (Hackett, 2008).

RECOMMENDED REFERENCES AND BACKGROUND READING ON OUR PROBLEMS

[1] The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta

A free resource which is probably the most comprehensive encyclopedia of philosophy ever compiled. Authoritative articles by scholars.

[2] The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought, ed. David Miller (Blackwell, 1987)

[3] The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 1st edn (1987); 2nd edn (2008)

One of the most comprehensive dictionaries of economics ever. Authoritative articles by scholars.

SCHEDULE

Week 1. Introduction to the Course

Optional reading:

Terence Ball and Richard Dagger, “Ideology and Ideologies,” Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal (Pearson 2009):

L. T. Hobhouse, “Before Liberalism,” “The Elements of Liberalism,” Liberalism (Oxford UP, 1964): 9-29

Norberto Bobbio, Left and Right: The Significance of a Political Distinction (Polity, 1996)

Week 2. Liberalism: The Dominant Ideology of the Modern World?

Andrew Heywood, “Liberalism,” Political Ideologies, pp. 23-64

Stephen Holmes, "The Liberal Idea," Passions and Constraint: On the Theory of Liberal Democracy (UChicago Press, 1995): 13-41; previously printed in The American Prospect (1991)

Michael Walzer, “Liberalism and the Art of Separation,” Political Theory 12 (1984): 315-330

So you'd like to see a 21st-century liberal outlook on the world...

Check out The New York Times (here sounding characteristic liberal themes) or The Economist or listen to NPR (formerly National Public Radio).

So you'd like to see a statement of principles that almost all liberals (classical, social, and neo-) support...

1947 Oxford Manifesto of the Liberal International

So you'd like to see a famous argument that the United States has always been a liberal polity...

Check out Gordon Wood, The Liberal Tradition in America (1955)

So you'd like to learn about the history--good and bad--of liberalism, and how it was adopted in non-European cultures, as well as liberal political parties...

Click here for audio and texts.

Week 3. (1) Populism: Liberalism's Current Challenger? (2) Internal Nationalism, National Solidarity, and Patriotism. (3) National Self-Determination and Liberation.

Cas Mudde and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser, "Populism," Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies, pp. 493-512

Andrew Heywood, “Nationalism,” Political Ideologies, pp. 143-174

David Miller, “National Self-Determination,” On Nationality, pp. 81-108

So you'd like to know more about nationalism and populism as ideologies...

Click here for images and materials.

Week 4. Liberal Identities.

Anthony Appiah, "Introduction," The Lies that Bind: Rethinking Identity

Charles Kurzman, "Liberal Islam and Its Islamic Context," Liberal Islam

Michael Dawson, "Black Liberalism," Black Visions

(1) Social Liberalism: Liberalism Merged with Socialism? (2) Liberalism Worldwide.

L. T. Hobhouse, “The Heart of Liberalism,” “The State and the Individual,” Liberalism, pp. 63-88

Guido de Ruggiero, “What Liberalism Is,” History of European Liberalism, pp. 347-369

John Charvet and Elisa Kaczynska-Nay, "Introduction: What Is Liberalism?" The Liberal Project and Human Rights (Cambridge UP, 2008): 1-16

FIRST SHORT-PAPER ASSIGNMENT DUE: Read this book review by Thaddeus Russell of Michael Lind, The Next American Nation (1995). In less than 350 words, write a diagnosis of Russell's own ideology. What is it? What are its main doctrines? Why do you think that is his ideology, and not another one? Feel free to use whatever sources you like. Please hand in a hard copy at the beginning of class, and also post your paper to the class Moodle forum.

So you'd like to see a social-liberalism outlook on the world...

Check out Britain's Guardian newspaper, The American Prospect, or Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. (The Nation, which from the 2000s through the beginning of the Great Recession looked almost indistinguishable from a social liberal magazine, seems recently to have recommitted firmly to social democracy.)

So you'd like to learn about the varieties of black liberalism...

Check out Michael C. Dawson, "A Vision of Freedom Larger than America Is Prepared to Accept?" Black Visions, pp. 238-315

So you'd like to learn about social-liberal political groups, social-liberal think tanks, and the history of social liberalism's dark underbelly...

Click here for links.

Week 4. (Traditionalist) Conservatism: Dissident from Liberalism, Foe of Modernity: The Challenge to

Individualism and Free-Market Capitalism in the Name of a Traditional Community.

NOTE: THIS IS NOT THE LIBERTY- CONSERVING CONSERVATISM OF THATCHER-REAGANISM OR TODAY'S NATIONAL REVIEW, OR NEO-CONSERVATISM, OR THE CURRENT IDEOLOGY OF THE BRITISH CONSERVATIVE PARTY. ALL OF THOSE ARE VARIANTS OF LIBERALISM.

Andrew Heywood, “Conservatism,” Political Ideologies, READ pp. 65-88 ONLY

Roger Scruton, “Authority and allegiance,” “Constitution and the State,” The Meaning of Conservatism (St. Augustine’s Press, 2002): 17-63

DEADLINE TO SUBMIT A RESPONSE PAPER.

So you'd like to see traditionalist conservative outlooks on the world, traditionalist organizations, videos on why traditionalism is so marginal to the politics of North

America and Europe, and socialist traditionalist conservatism (yes, it exists)...

Click here for materials.

Week 5. (1) A Contemporary Version of Traditionalist Conservatism, Continued. (2) Christian

Democracy: A Conservative Ideology?

Roger Scruton, “Law and Liberty,” “Property,” “Establishment,” The Meaning of Conservatism (St. Augustine’s Press, 2002):

64-110, 148-174

Paolo Pombeni, “Christian Democracy,” Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies¸ed. Michael Freeden and Marc Stears (Oxford UP, 2013): 312-328

So you'd like to see a 21st-century Christian Democratic outlook, or learn about Christian Democratic political parties...

Click here.

Week 6. Socialism: The Challenge to Individualism and Capitalism in the Name of a Cooperative and

Solidary Humanity: (1) An Overview of Socialism: Foe, Conscience, or Culmination of Liberalism? (2)

Marx’s Socialism.

Andrew Heywood, “Socialism,” Political Ideologies, pp. 99-140

Terence Ball and Richard Dagger, “The Socialism of Karl Marx,” Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal (Pearson, 2009): 132-147

So you'd like to see a 21st-century socialist outlook on the world...

Check out Jacobin magazine, Le monde diplomatique (English edition.), or L'Humanite, formerly the newspaper of the French Communist Party

So you'd like to see 21st-century Marxist socialist outlooks...

Check out The Socialist Standard (non-Leninist Marxism), The Socialist Worker (Trotskyist), a lecture by Alex Callinicos on the history of Trotskyism/International Socialism

So you'd like to see a 21st-century Christian socialist outlook, or a 21st century conservative socialist outlook...

Click here for links to video and texts.

So you'd like to see a documentary on Marx's life and ideas, learn about black Marxism, or watch a biopic of Rosa Luxemburg, leading Belle Epoque Marxist...

Click here for links to video and texts.

Week 7. Varieties of Socialism: (1) Democratic Socialism; (2) Social Democracy and Market-Democratic

Socialism: Liberalism in Socialist Get-up?

Carl Cohen, “Socialist Democracy,” Four Systems (Random House, 1982): 41-68

Bernie Sanders, "Democratic Socialism," Speech of 19 November 2015 at Georgetown University

Tony Wright, “A New Socialism?” Socialisms: Old and New, pp. 124-149

So you'd like to see how in January 1924 the heads of government of Great Britain, Germany, and Russia were all self-proclaimed socialists professing different varieties of socialism...

Click here.

So you'd like to see a 21st-century democratic socialist outlook on the world, or learn about current democratic socialist organizations...

Click here for links and images.

So you'd like to see a 21st-century social-democratic outlook, or learn about current social-democratic organizations...

Click here for links and images.

SPRING BREAK!

Week 8. (1) Varieties of Socialism: Leninist Communism: Liberalism's Modernist and Statist Adversary.

(2) Anarchism: Anti-statist Opponent of Liberalism.

Carl Cohen, “Communism,” Four Systems (Random House, 1982): 171-235 [Click here for Part 1] [Click here for Part 2]

Andrew Heywood, “Anarchism,” Political Ideologies, pp. 175-202

PAPER PROPOSAL DUE!

So you'd like to learn about the history of Communist movements, 21st-century Communist outlooks, current Communist organizations, and what life was like in Communist regimes like Cuba...

Click here for links to videos and websites.

So you'd like to learn about the history of anarchism, 21st-century anarchist outlooks, and anarchist organizations, both left-wing and right-wing...

Click here for links to videos and websites.

Week 9. (1) Neo-liberalism and Classical Liberalism. (2) Libertarianism, both Right and Left.

Andrew Gamble, “Economic Libertarianism,” Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies, pp. 405-422

Raymond Plant, “The Nature of the Neo-liberal State and the Rule of Law,” The Neo-liberal State (Cambridge UP, 2012): 5-27

David Boaz, "What Is Libertarianism?" (the introductory essay)

Sheldon Richman, "Libertarian Left" The American Conservative (3 February 2011)

So you'd like to know more about think tanks, sacred texts, and organs of opinion for neo-liberalism and libertarianism...

Click here for links.

DEADLINE TO HAVE SUBMITTED A TOTAL OF THREE REGULAR RESPONSE PAPERS FOR SEMESTER.

Week 10. (1) Civic Republicanism: Liberalism's Uneasy Comrade-in-Arms and Multiculturalism's

Contrary? (2) Secularism. (3) Religious Fundamentalism: An Anti-modern Ideology?

Cecile Laborde, “Republicanism,” Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies,ed Michael Freeden and Marc Stears (Oxford UP,

2013): 513-536

Rajeev Bhargava, "Political Secularism," Oxford Handbook of Political Theory, ed. John Dryzek et al (Oxford UP, 2006): 636-655. Pre-print:

read pp. 1-16, 22-24 ONLY

Andrew Heywood, "Religious Fundamentalism," Political Ideologies, READ pp. 281-293 ONLY

So you'd like to see people living out civic republicanism, or learn about civic republican political parties...

Click here.

So you'd like to see a 21st-century civic republican outlook on the world...

Check out Nouvel Observateur.

So you'd like to see a diagnosis of what's happened to US culture that is influential among many U. S. Christian fundamentalists: it blames what they call "cultural Marxism"...

Check out "Why Are We in Decline--Cultural Marxism"

Week 11. (1) Internal Nationalism, National Solidarity, and Patriotism. (2) National Self-Determination

and Liberation. (3) Populism: The Ideology of Donald Trump?

Andrew Heywood, “Nationalism,” Political Ideologies, pp. 143-174

David Miller, “National Self-Determination,” On Nationality, pp. 81-108

Cas Mudde and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser, "Populism," Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies, pp. 493-512

So you'd like to know more about nationalism and populism as ideologies...

Click here for images and materials.

Week 12. (1) Nationalisms of the New Left? Social Movements as Nation-Creators (2) Liberal Imperialism, aka Neo-conservatism, aka Paleo-social-liberalism: Left-liberals reject the New Left. (3) Multiculturalism, aka the New Left in Middle Age: Contrary of Civic Republicanism, A Variety of Liberalism, Destroyer of Class Solidarity?

Brian Walker, "Social Movements as Nationalisms; or, On the Very Idea of a Queer Nation," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 26, Supplementary Volume 22 (1997): 505-547

Irving Kristol, "The Neoconservative Persuasion," The Weekly Standard 25 August 2003

Andrew Heywood, “Multiculturalism,” Political Ideologies, pp. 310-333

So you'd like to know more about how neo-conservatism/paleo-liberalism was created by social liberals rejecting the New Left, neo-conservative magazines, neo-conservative think tanks, etc...

Click here for links to video and texts.

So you'd like to know more about multiculturalist magazines, or about how multiculturalism arose out of the New Left, how it broke with the labor movement, how it won the battles over school curricula, and multiculturalist policy groups...

Click here for links to video and texts.

Week 13. (1) Fascism: The Contrary of Liberalism? (2) Modernism: A Political Ideology that Is the

Contrary of Traditional Conservatism?

Andrew Heywood, “Fascism,” Political Ideologies, pp. 203-228

Carl Cohen, “Fascism,” Four Systems, pp. 115-169

Stephen Eric Bronner, "The Modernist Impulse: Subjectivity, Resistance, Freedom," Modernism at the Barricades: Aesthetics, Politics, Utopia (Columbia UP, 2012): 1-20

So you'd like to see 21st-century fascist outlooks on the world...

Click here for video and texts.

So you'd like to know more about modernism's aim to create "a new, non-decadent Man," and its attitudes toward design and making things new...

Click here for materials.

Week 14. (1) Feminism. (2) Political Islam.

Clare Chambers, “Feminism,” Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies, pp. 562-578

Andrew Heywood, “Feminism,” Political Ideologies, pp. 230-255

Michaelle Browers, “Islamic Political Ideologies,” Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies, pp. 627-643

Andrew Heywood, "Islamic Fundamentalism," Political Ideologies, pp. 294-300

LAST SHORT-PAPER ASSIGNMENT DUE: Read again this book review by Thaddeus Russell of Michael Lind, The Next American Nation (1995). Then read again the response paper you submitted on it. In less than 350 words, describe to what extent you would write the paper differently now, given what you have learned in the course.

So you'd like to see a 21st-century (liberal) feminist outlook on the world...

Check out Ms. magazine.

So you'd like to learn about the history of feminism in the rich and poor countries, how feminism combines with liberalism or socialism, and about the structure of black feminist thought...

Click here for links to video and texts.

So you'd like to see a 21st-century Political-Islam outlook on the world, or learn about the history and future of political Islam...

Click here for links to video and texts.

FINAL PAPER DUE VIA E-MAIL LAST DAY OF EXAMS BY NOON EASTERN TIME (FOR SENIORS, 5pm EASTERN