Political Ideas AQA
Core Ideologies
Key concepts and terminology:
the individual and freedom
Focus
Students should analyse and evaluate:
core liberal ideas and values concerning the individual and freedom
in their study of the following thinkers students should focus on the aspects indicated after each thinker's name and relate this to liberal thinking on human nature, the state, society and the economy:
John Locke – natural rights, liberty and individualism, fiduciary power of government
John Stuart Mill – criticism of hedonism, freedom, integrity and self respect of the individual, self regarding and other regarding actions
John Rawls – concept of justice, principles of justice
Thomas Hill Green – self development/role of the State, negative and positive freedom
Mary Wollstonecraft – equality and rights, 'revolution controversy', criticisms of aristocracy and republicanism
Betty Friedan – equal rights, Civil Rights and feminist movements in the USA.
Key concepts and terminology:
Focus
Students should analyse and evaluate:
core conservative ideas and values concerning government, the free market and the individual
different strands of conservative thinking from traditional Conservatism to the New Right
in their study of the following thinkers students should focus on the aspects indicated after each thinker's name and relate this to conservative thinking on human nature, the state, society and the economy:
Thomas Hobbes – the concept of human nature/laws of nature, power of the sovereign/the individual, and self-protection
Edmund Burke – Anti-Jacobinism/Whig principles, Burke’s reaction to the American and French Revolutions
Michael Oakeshott – the importance of tradition/criticisms of rationalism, ‘Politics of Faith’ vs ‘Politics of Scepticism’
Ayn Rand – opposition to collectivism and statism, rational and ethical egoism/individual rights
Robert Nozick – limited functions of the State, justification of inequalities of wealth resulting from freely exchanged contracts.
Key concepts and terminology:
human nature, the state, society and the economy
Focus
Students should analyse and evaluate:
differing views and tensions within and between revolutionary socialism and social democracy
in their study of the following thinkers students should focus on the aspects indicated after each thinker's name and relate this to socialist thinking on human nature, the state, society and the economy:
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels – class and class struggle, dialectical materialism
Rosa Luxemburg – inevitability of the triumph of revolution/capacity of the masses, spontaneity/party-oriented class struggle
Beatrice Webb – co-operative movement, cooperative federalism and co-operative individualism
Anthony Crosland – criticism of Marxism/Revisionism, rejection of nationalization as central goal of party, political values of personal liberty, social welfare and equality
Anthony Giddens – rejection of the traditional conception of socialism, the ‘Third Way’ in politics, a combination of right-wing economic and left-wing social policies.
Students will study one of the following five ideologies:
Key concepts and terminology:
nation, sovereignty of the people
Focus
Students should analyse and evaluate:
debates about the nature of nationalism types of nationalism including minority minority nationalism, state nationalism and the extent to which they vary
types and recent developments of State & Minority Nationalism, and the extent these different types of nationalism vary
in their study of the following thinkers students should focus on the aspects indicated after each thinker's name and relate this to nationalist thinking on human nature, the state, society and the economy:
Jean Jacques Rousseau – the 'general will' of the people, sovereignty of the people, opposition to the representative assembly
Johann Gottfried von Herder – importance of language and cultural traditions to create a nation, concept of nationality and patriotism
Giuseppe Mazzini – promotion of ideas of republicanism and nationalism, concept of 'thought and action'
Marcus Garvey – Garveyism, philosophy to inspire a global mass movement and economic empowerment focusing on Africa, pan-Africanism movement
Charles Maurras – integral nationalism, anti-France (anti-Protestants, Jews, Freemasons and foreigners), rejection of democratic principles.
Key concepts and terminology:
Focus
Students should analyse and evaluate:
in their study of the following thinkers students should focus on the aspects indicated after each thinker's name and relate this to feminist thinking on human nature, the state, society and the economy:
Charlotte Perkins Gilman – reform Darwinism, role of females in society, androcentric culture
Simone de Beauvoir – feminist existentialism, patriarchal society, feminism and socialsim
Kate Millett – theory of sexual politics, radical feminism
Sheila Rowbotham – oppresssion of women and the working class, socialist feminism
bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins) – intersectionality, education gap between those lower in the economic scale and the leader of the feminist movement.
Multiculturalism
Key concepts and terminology:
equality of opportunity, anti discrimination
human nature, the state, society and the economy
integration and segregation.
Focus Students should analyse and evaluate:
debates about the nature of multiculturalism
core ideas and values of multiculturalism concerning equality of opportunity, anti-discrimination, assimilation
integration and segregation
in their study of the following thinkers students should focus on the aspects indicated after each thinker's name and relate this to multiculturalist thinking on human nature, the state, society and the economy:
Isaiah Berlin – negative/positive freedom
Will Kymlicka – rights and status of minority cultures, toleration
Charles Taylor – human rights and the dignity of human life, benevolent formula for mutual existence
Tariq Modood – multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, assimilation, liberalism and multiculturalism
Bikhu Parekh – cultural pluralism, the limits of diversity.
Anarchism
Key concepts and terminology:
autonomy of the individual, opposition to and abolition of coercive relationships, opposition to government and society without government
human nature, the state, society and the economy
individual anarchist traditions and collectivist anarchist traditions.
Focus
Students should analyse and evaluate:
debates about the nature of anarchism
core anarchist views and values concerning autonomy of the individual, opposition to and abolition of coercive relationships, opposition to government, society without government
individualist and collectivist anarchist traditions
in their study of the following thinkers students should focus on the aspects indicated after each thinker's name and relate this to anarchist thinking on human nature, the state, society and the economy:
Max Stirner – freedom/the state, individualist anarchism, property
Mikhail Bakunin – collectivist anarchism, syndicalism
Emma Goldman – freedom/self expression, tactical use of violence in the revolutionary struggle
Peter Kropotkin – mutual aid (mutually beneficial co-operation), anarchist communism
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon – anarchy, order without power, workers' associations, co-operatives, property.
Ecologism
Key concepts and terminology:
the intrinsic relationship between humankind and nature, sustainability
human nature, the state, society and the economy
light greens and dark greens.
Focus
Students should analyse and evaluate:
debates about the nature of ecologism
core ecologist views and values concerning the intrinsic relationship between humankind and nature, sustainability
light greens and dark greens
in their study of the following thinkers students should focus on the aspects indicated after each thinker's name and relate this to ecologist thinking on human nature, the state, society and the economy:
Aldo Leopold – wilderness protection/wildlife management, conservation as harmony between men and land
Rachel Carson – grassroots environmentalism, environmental protection agency, environmental movement, sustainable management of resources
EF Schumacher – appropriate technologies, more empowerment of people, sustainable development/technology transfer
Carolyn Merchant – interactions of people and nature, moral concern with participatory democracy.
Murray Bookchin – communalism, anti capitalist, decentralisation, libertarian municipalism/face to face assembly democracy.