User:JasonMacker/Draft:Introduction to political ideologies

Anarchism

Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or hierarchy, primarily targeting the state and capitalism. Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state with stateless societies and voluntary free associations. Anarchism is described as being part of the libertarian wing of the socialist movement (libertarian socialism).

Although traces of anarchist ideas are found all throughout history, modern anarchism emerged from the Enlightenment. During the latter half of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century, the anarchist movement flourished in most parts of the world and had a significant role in workers' struggles for emancipation. Various anarchist schools of thought formed during this period. Anarchists have taken part in several revolutions, most notably in the Paris Commune, the Russian Civil War and the Spanish Civil War, whose conclusion marked the end of the classical era of anarchism. In the last decades of the 20th and into the 21st century, the anarchist movement has been resurgent, growing in popularity and influence within anti-capitalist, anti-war and anti-globalisation movements.

Anarchists employ a range of approaches to social change, often categorised as revolutionary or evolutionary, though the two frequently overlap and are reflected in a diversity of tactics. Evolutionary approaches generally favour gradual and often nonviolent change, while revolutionary approaches seek to destroy oppressive states and institutions. Many facets of human civilisation have been influenced by anarchist theory, critique, and praxis. (Full article...)

Fascism

Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/ FASH-iz-əm) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement that rose to prominence in early-20th-century Europe. Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Opposed to communism, democracy, liberalism, pluralism, and socialism, fascism is at the far-right of the traditional left–right spectrum. What constitutes a precise definition of fascism has been a longrunning and complex debate among scholars.

The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I before spreading to other European countries, most notably Germany. Fascism also had adherents outside of Europe. Fascists saw World War I as a revolution that brought massive changes to the nature of war, society, the state, and technology. The advent of total war and the mass mobilization of society erased the distinction between civilians and combatants. A military citizenship arose, in which all citizens were involved with the military in some manner.^[1] The war resulted in the rise of a powerful state capable of mobilizing millions of people to serve on the front lines, providing logistics to support them, and having unprecedented authority to intervene in the lives of citizens.^[1]

Fascism views forms of violence—including political violence, imperialist violence, and war—as means to national rejuvenation.^[2] Fascists often advocate for the establishment of a totalitarian one-party state, and for a dirigiste economy, which is a market economy in which the state plays a strong directive role through market intervention with the principal goal of achieving national economic self-sufficiency, or "autarky". Fascism emphasizes both palingenesis—national rebirth or regeneration—and modernity when it is deemed compatible with national rebirth. In promoting the nation's regeneration, fascists seek to purge it of decadence. Fascism may also centre around an ingroup-outgroup opposition and demonization of "Others", such as various ethnicities, immigrants, nations, races, political opponents of fascist parties, religious groups, and sexual and gender minorities. In the case of Nazism, this involved racial purity and a belief in a master race. Such demonization has motivated fascist regimes to commit massacres, forced sterilizations, deportations, and genocides.^[3] During World War II, the genocidal and imperialist ambitions of the fascist regimes of the Axis powers resulted in the murder of millions of people.

Since the end of World War II in 1945, fascism has been largely disgraced, and few parties have openly described themselves as fascist; the term is often used pejoratively by political opponents. The descriptions neo-fascist or post-fascist are sometimes applied to contemporary parties with ideologies similar to, or rooted in, 20th-century fascist movements. (Full article...)

Liberalism

Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property, and equality before the law. Different liberals espouse various and sometimes conflicting views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support liberal democracy, private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history.

Liberalism became a distinct movement in the Age of Enlightenment, gaining popularity among Western philosophers and economists. Liberalism sought to replace the norms of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy, the divine right of kings, and traditional conservatism with representative democracy, rule of law, and equality under the law. Liberals also ended mercantilist policies, royal monopolies, and other trade barriers, instead promoting free trade and marketization. The philosopher John Locke is often credited with founding liberalism as a distinct tradition based on the social contract, arguing that each man has a natural right to life, liberty and property, and governments must not violate these rights. While the British liberal tradition emphasized expanding democracy, French liberalism emphasized rejecting authoritarianism.

Leaders in the British Glorious Revolution of 1688, the American Revolution of 1776, and the French Revolution of 1789 used liberal philosophy to justify the armed overthrow of royal sovereignty. The 19th century saw liberal governments established in Europe and South America, and it was well-established alongside republicanism in the United States. In Victorian Britain, it was used to critique the political establishment, appealing to science and reason on behalf of the people.

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, liberalism in the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East influenced periods of reform, such as the Tanzimat and Al-Nahda, and the rise of constitutionalism, nationalism, and secularism. These changes, along with other factors, helped to create a sense of crisis within Islam, which continues to this day, leading to Islamic revivalism.

Before 1920, the main ideological opponents of liberalism were communism, conservatism, and socialism; liberalism then faced major ideological challenges from fascism and Marxism–Leninism. During the 20th century, liberal ideas spread further, especially in Western Europe, as liberal democracies won both world wars and the Cold War.

Liberals sought and established a constitutional order that prized important individual freedoms, such as freedom of speech and freedom of association; an independent judiciary and public trial by jury; and the abolition of aristocratic privileges. Later waves of modern liberal thought and struggle were strongly influenced by the need to expand civil rights. Liberals have advocated gender and racial equality in their drive to promote civil rights, and global civil rights movements in the 20th century achieved several objectives towards both goals. Other goals often accepted by liberals include universal suffrage and universal access to education. In Europe and North America, the establishment of social liberalism (often called simply liberalism in the United States) became a key component in expanding the welfare state.

21st-century liberal parties continue to wield power and influence throughout the world. The fundamental elements of contemporary society have liberal roots. The early waves of liberalism popularised economic individualism while expanding constitutional government and parliamentary authority. (Full article...)

Marxism–Leninism

Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology that became the largest faction of the communist movement following the October Revolution. It was the predominant ideology of most communist governments in the 20th century. It was developed in the Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin and drew on Bolshevism, Leninism, and Marxism. It was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, Soviet satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various countries in the Non-Aligned Movement and Third World during the Cold War, as well as the Communist International. It is the ideology of the ruling parties of China, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam, as well as other communist parties. The state ideology of North Korea is derived from Marxism–Leninism.

Marxism–Leninism holds that a two-stage communist revolution is needed to replace capitalism. A vanguard party, organized through democratic centralism, seizes power on behalf of the proletariat and establishes a one-party communist state. The state controls the means of production, suppresses opposition, counter-revolution, and the bourgeoisie, and promotes Soviet collectivism, to pave the way for a communist society that is classless and stateless.

After Lenin's death in 1924, Marxism–Leninism became a distinct movement in the Soviet Union when Stalin and his supporters gained control of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). It rejected the notion among Western Marxists of world revolution as a prerequisite for building socialism, in favour of the concept of socialism in one country. The transition from capitalism to socialism was signified by the introduction of the first five-year plan and the 1936 Soviet Constitution. By the late 1920s, Stalin established ideological orthodoxy in the CPSU, Soviet Union, and Communist International to establish universal Marxist–Leninist praxis. The formulation of the Soviet version of dialectical and historical materialism by Stalin and his associates, such as in Stalin's text Dialectical and Historical Materialism, became the official Soviet interpretation of Marxism, and was taken as example by Marxist–Leninists in other countries. This text became the foundation philosophy of Marxism–Leninism. In 1938, Stalin's textbook History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) popularised Marxism–Leninism.

The internationalism of Marxism–Leninism was expressed in supporting revolutions in other countries, initially through the Communist International, then through the concepts of national democratic states and states of socialist orientation after de-Stalinisation. The establishment of other communist states after World War II resulted in Sovietisation, and these states tended to follow the Marxist–Leninist model of five-year plans and rapid industrialisation, political centralisation, and repression. During the Cold War, Marxist–Leninist countries like the Soviet Union were a major force in international relations. With the death of Stalin and ensuing de-Stalinisation, Marxism–Leninism underwent revisions and adaptations such as Guevarism, Titoism, Ho Chi Minh Thought, Hoxhaism, and Maoism, with the latter two constituting anti-revisionist Marxism–Leninism. These adaptations caused splits between communist states, resulting in the Tito–Stalin split, the Sino-Soviet split, and the Sino-Albanian split. As the Cold War concluded with the demise of much of the socialist world, many surviving communist states reformed their economies and embraced market socialism. Complementing this economic shift, the Communist Party of China developed Maoism into Deng Xiaoping Theory. Today this comprises part of China's governing ideology, with the latest developments including Xi Jinping Thought. Meanwhile, the Communist Party of Peru developed Maoism into Marxism–Leninism–Maoism. The latest developments to Marxism–Leninism–Maoism include Gonzaloism, Maoism-Third Worldism, National Democracy, and Prachanda Path. Ongoing Marxist–Leninist(–Maoist) insurgencies include those waged in the Philippines, India, and Turkey. The Nepalese Civil War, fought by Marxist–Leninist–Maoists, ended in their victory in 2006.

Criticism of Marxism–Leninism overlaps with criticism of communist party rule and focuses on the actions and policies of Marxist–Leninist leaders, notably Stalin and Mao Zedong. Communist states have been marked by centralised state control by the communist party, political repression, state atheism, collectivisation and labour camps. Some historians state that the repression and totalitarianism came from Marxist–Leninist ideology. Others offer different explanations and criticise focus on the upper levels of society, and concepts such as totalitarianism, which obscure the reality of the system. While the emergence of the Soviet Union as the first nominally communist state led to communism's association with Marxism–Leninism and the Soviet model, several academics say that Marxism–Leninism in practice was a form of state capitalism. The socio-economic nature of communist states, especially of the Soviet Union during the Stalin era (1924–53), has been much debated, varyingly being labelled a form of bureaucratic collectivism, state capitalism, state socialism, or a unique mode of production. The Eastern Bloc, including communist states in Central and Eastern Europe as well as the Third World socialist regimes, have been described as "bureaucratic-authoritarian systems", and China's socio-economic structure has been referred to as "nationalistic state capitalism". (Full article...)

Political Islam

Political Islam is the interpretation of Islam as a source of political identity and action. It advocates the formation of state and society according to (the advocates understanding of) Islamic principles, where Islam serves as a source of political positions and concepts. Political Islam is generally used interchangeably with the term Islamism by authors inside and outside of academia, and thought of as the political element of the Islamic revival that began in the 20th century, rather than just any form of political activity by Muslims. However, there have also been new attempts to distinguish between Islamism as religiously based political movements and political Islam as a national modern understanding of Islam shared by secular and Islamist actors. (Full article...)

Conservatism

Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in which it appears. In Western culture, depending on the particular nation and the particular time period, conservatives seek to promote and preserve a range of institutions, such as the nuclear family, organized religion, the military, the nation-state, property rights, rule of law, aristocracy, and monarchy.

The 18th-century Anglo-Irish statesman Edmund Burke, who opposed the French Revolution but supported the American Revolution, is credited as one of the forefathers of Western conservative thought in the 1790s along with Savoyard statesman Joseph de Maistre. The first established use of the term in a political context originated in 1818 with François-René de Chateaubriand during the period of Bourbon Restoration that sought to roll back the policies of the French Revolution and establish social order.

Conservatism has varied considerably as it has adapted itself to existing traditions and national cultures. Thus, conservatives from different parts of the world, each upholding their respective traditions, may disagree on a wide range of issues. One of the three major ideologies along with liberalism and socialism, conservatism is the dominant ideology in many countries across the world, including Hungary, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Poland, and Russia. Historically associated with right-wing politics, the term has been used to describe a wide range of views. Conservatism may be either libertarian or authoritarian, populist or elitist, progressive or reactionary, moderate or extreme. (Full article...)

Christian democracy

Christian democracy is an ideology inspired by Christian social teaching to respond to the challenges of contemporary society and politics.

Christian democracy has drawn mainly from Catholic social teaching and neo-scholasticism, as well as the Neo-Calvinist tradition within Christianity; it later gained ground with Lutherans and Pentecostals, among other denominational traditions of Christianity in various parts of the world. During the nineteenth century, its principal concerns were to reconcile Catholicism with democracy, to answer the "social question" surrounding capitalism and the working class, and to resolve the tensions between church and state. In the twentieth century, Christian democrats led postwar Western and Southern Europe in building modern welfare states and constructing the European Union. Furthermore, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, Christian democracy has gained support in Eastern Europe among former communist states suffering from corruption and stagnation.

On the European left–right political spectrum, Christian democracy has been difficult to pinpoint, as Christian democrats have often rejected liberal economics and individualism and advocated state intervention, while simultaneously defending private property rights against excessive state intervention. This has meant that Christian democracy has historically been considered centre-left on economics and centre-right on many social and moral issues. More recently, Christian democrats have positioned themselves as the centre-right, as with both the European People's Party and European Christian Political Party, with which many Christian democratic parties in Europe are affiliated. Christian democrats support a "slightly regulated market economy", featuring an effective social security system, thus a social market economy.

Worldwide, many Christian democratic parties are members of the Centrist Democrat International. Examples of major Christian democratic parties include the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, the Dutch Christian Democratic Appeal, The Centre in Switzerland, the Spanish People's Party, the Mexican National Action Party, the Austrian People's Party, and the Christian Democratic Party of Chile. Many Christian democratic parties in the Americas are affiliated with the Christian Democrat Organization of America.

Christian democracy continues to be influential in Europe and Latin America, although it is also present in other parts of the world. (Full article...)

Green politics

Green politics, or ecopolitics, is a political ideology that aims to foster an ecologically sustainable society often, but not always, rooted in environmentalism, nonviolence, social justice and grassroots democracy. It began taking shape in the Western world in the 1970s; since then, green parties have developed and established themselves in many countries around the globe and have achieved some electoral success.

The political term green was used initially in relation to die Grünen (German for "the Greens"), a green party formed in the late 1970s. The term political ecology is sometimes used in academic circles, but it has come to represent an interdisciplinary field of study as the academic discipline offers wide-ranging studies integrating ecological social sciences with political economy in topics such as degradation and marginalization, environmental conflict, conservation and control and environmental identities and social movements.

Supporters of green politics share many ideas with the conservation, environmental, feminist and peace movements. In addition to democracy and ecological issues, green politics is concerned with civil liberties, social justice, nonviolence, sometimes variants of localism and tends to support social progressivism. Green party platforms are largely considered left in the political spectrum. The green ideology has connections with various other ecocentric political ideologies, including ecofeminism, eco-socialism, degrowth and green anarchism, but to what extent these can be seen as forms of green politics is a matter of debate. As the left-wing green political philosophy developed, there also came into separate existence opposite movements on the right-wing that include ecological components such as eco-capitalism and green conservatism. (Full article...)

Identity politics

Identity politics is politics based on a particular identity, such as ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, denomination, gender, sexual orientation, social background, political affiliation, caste, age, education, disability, opinion, intelligence, and social class. The term encompasses various often-populist political phenomena and rhetoric, such as governmental migration policies that regulate mobility and opportunity based on identities, left-wing agendas involving intersectional politics or class reductionism, and right-wing nationalist agendas of exclusion of national or ethnic "others".

The term identity politics dates to the late twentieth century, although it had precursors in the writings of individuals such as Mary Wollstonecraft and Frantz Fanon. Many contemporary advocates of identity politics take an intersectional perspective, which they argue accounts for a range of interacting systems of oppression that may affect a person's life and originate from their various identities. To these advocates, identity politics helps center the experiences of those they view as facing systemic oppression so that society can better understand the interplay of different forms of demographic-based oppression and ensure that no one group is disproportionately affected by political actions. Contemporary identity labels—such as people of specific race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age—are not mutually exclusive but are, in many cases, compounded into one when describing hyper-specific groups. An example is that of African-American homosexual women, who can constitute a particular hyper-specific identity class.

Criticism of identity politics often comes from either the center-right or the far-left on the political spectrum. Many socialists, anarchists and Marxists have criticized identity politics for its divisive nature, claiming that it forms identities that can undermine their goals of proletariat unity and class struggle. On the other hand, many conservative think tanks and media outlets have criticized identity politics for other reasons, such as that it is inherently collectivist and prejudicial. Center-right critics of identity politics have seen it as particularist, in contrast to the universalism espoused by many liberal politics, or argue that it detracts attention from non-identity based structures of oppression and exploitation.

A leftist critique of identity politics, such as that of Nancy Fraser, argues that political mobilization based on identitarian affirmation leads to surface redistribution—that is, a redistribution within existing structures and relations of production that does not challenge the status quo. Instead, Fraser argued, identitarian deconstruction, rather than affirmation, is more conducive to leftist goals of economic redistribution. Marxist academics such as Kurzwelly, Pérez, and Spiegel, writing for Dialectical Anthropology, argue that because the term identity politics is defined differently based on a given author's or activist's ideological position, it is analytically imprecise. The same authors argue in another article that identity politics often leads to reproduction and reification of essentialist notions of identity, which they view as inherently erroneous. (Full article...)

Libertarianism

Libertarianism (from French: libertaire, lit. 'libertarian'; or from Latin: libertas, lit. 'freedom') is a political philosophy that holds liberty and personal sovereignty as primary values. Many libertarians believe that the concept of freedom is in accord with the non-aggression principle, according to which each individual has the right to live as they choose, as long as they do not violate the rights of others by initiating force or fraud against them.

Libertarianism has been broadly shaped by liberal ideas. Libertarians advocate the expansion of individual autonomy and political self-determination, emphasizing the principles of equality before the law and the protection of civil rights, including the rights to freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of choice. They generally support individual liberty and oppose authority, state power, warfare, militarism and nationalism, but some libertarians diverge on the scope and nature of their opposition to existing economic and political systems.

Schools of libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and non-state power. Different categorizations have been used to distinguish these various forms of libertarianism. Scholars have identified distinct libertarian perspectives on the nature of property and capital, typically delineating them along left–right or socialist–capitalist axes. (Full article...)

Nationalism

Nationalism is an ideology or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining its sovereignty (self-determination) over its perceived homeland to create a nation-state. It holds that the nation should govern itself, free from outside interference (self-governance), that a nation is a natural and ideal basis for a polity, and that the nation is the only rightful source of political power. It further aims to build, and maintain, a single national identity, based on a combination of shared social characteristics such as culture, ethnicity, homeland, language, politics (or government), religion, traditions, or belief in a shared singular history, and to promote national unity or solidarity. There are various definitions of a "nation", which leads to different types of nationalism. The two main divergent forms are ethnic nationalism and civic nationalism.

The moral value of nationalism, the relationship between nationalism and patriotism, and the compatibility of nationalism and cosmopolitanism are all subjects of philosophical debate. Nationalism can be combined with diverse political goals and ideologies, such as conservatism (national conservatism and right-wing populism) or socialism (left-wing nationalism).

Nationalism is seen as positive or negative depending on its ideology and outcomes. Nationalism has been a feature of movements for freedom and justice, has been associated with cultural revivals, and encourages pride in national achievements. It has also been used to legitimize racial, ethnic, and religious divisions, suppress or attack minorities, undermine human rights and democratic traditions, and start wars, being frequently cited as a cause of both world wars. (Full article...)

Pirate politics

Pirate Party is a label adopted by various political parties worldwide that share a set of values and policies focused on civil rights in the digital age. The fundamental principles of Pirate Parties include copyright reform (dismantling copyright monopolies), patent reform, strengthening civil rights including government transparency, the right to privacy, anonymity, freedom of speech, secrecy of correspondence, the principle of subsidiarity, protection from arbitrary authority, and respect for the highest standards of democracy. The movement also advocates for freedom of information, freedom of the press, freedom of expression, digital rights, and internet freedom. The first Pirate Party (Swedish: Piratpartiet) was founded in Sweden in 2006 by Rick Falkvinge. Since then, the movement has expanded to over 60 countries. (Full article...)

Progressivism

Progressivism is a left-leaning political philosophy that seeks to make progress in the human condition through reforms aimed at maximising positive liberty. Progressivism arose during the Age of Enlightenment out of the belief that civility in Europe was improving due to the application of new empirical knowledge.

Cultural progressivism is associated with social liberalism, a centre-left variant of liberalism, and social democracy.

Within economic progressivism, there is some ideological variation. Illustrative examples of this include some Christian democracy and conservative-leaning communitarian movements. While many ideologies can fall under the banner of progressivism, all eras of the movement are characterized by a critique of unregulated capitalism and a call for a more active democratic government to safeguard human rights, promote cultural development, and serve as a check-and-balance on corporate monopolies.

Other types of progressivism include techno-progressivism. (Full article...)

Social democracy

Social democracy is a broad, centre-left social, economic, and political ideology within the wider socialist movement that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, social democracy has taken the form of a predominantly capitalist, yet robust welfare state, with policies promoting social justice, market regulation, and a more equitable distribution of income.^[4]

Social democracy maintains a commitment to representative and participatory democracy. Common aims include curbing inequality, eliminating the oppression of underprivileged groups, eradicating poverty, and upholding universally accessible public services such as child care, education, elderly care, health care, and workers' compensation. Economically, it supports income redistribution and regulating the economy in the public interest.

Social democracy has a strong, long-standing connection with trade unions and the broader labour movement. It is supportive of measures to foster greater democratic decision-making in the economic sphere, including collective bargaining and co-determination rights for workers.

The history of social democracy stretches back to the 19th-century labour movement. Originally a catch-all term for socialists of varying tendencies, after the Russian Revolution, it came to refer to reformist socialists who were strategically opposed to revolution as well as the authoritarianism of the Soviet model, nonetheless the eventual abolition of capitalism was still being upheld as an important end goal during this time. However, by the 1990s social democrats had embraced mixed economies with a predominance of private property and promoted the regulation of capitalism over its replacement with a qualitatively different socialist economic system. Since that time, social democracy has been associated with Keynesian economics, the Nordic model, and welfare states.

Social democracy has been described as the most common form of Western or modern socialism, as well as the reformist wing of democratic socialism. Amongst social democrats, attitudes towards socialism vary: some retain socialism as a long-term goal, with social democracy being a political and economic democracy supporting a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach towards achieving socialism. Others view it as an ethical ideal to guide reforms within capitalism. While both social democracy and democratic socialism once referred to movements seeking to achieve socialism, modern social democracies retain a capitalist system, whereas democratic socialists continue to advocate for its abolition. Nevertheless, the distinction remains blurred in colloquial settings, and the two terms are commonly used synonymously.

The Third Way is an offshoot of social democracy which aims to fuse economic liberalism with social democratic economic policies and center-left social policies. It is a reconceptualization of social democracy developed in the 1990s and is embraced by some social democratic parties; with some political scientists and analysts characterising the Third Way as an effectively neoliberal movement. (Full article...)