Political Ideas AQA

Core Ideologies

Liberalism

Key concepts and terminology:

• the individual and freedom

• human nature, the state, society and the economy

• classical liberalism

• modern liberalism.

Focus

Students should analyse and evaluate:

• debates about the nature of liberalism

• core liberal ideas and values concerning the individual and freedom

• classical liberalism, modern (new/progressive) liberalism

• 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.

Conservatism

Key concepts and terminology:

• government, the free market, the individual

• The History of Conservatism 

• authority, tradition, private property human nature, the state, society and the economy

• traditional conservatism

• the new right.

Focus

Students should analyse and evaluate:

• debates about the nature of conservatism

• 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.

Socialism

Key concepts and terminology:

• Marxism, class analysis and fundamental goals of socialism

• human nature, the state, society and the economy

• revolutionary socialism

• social democracy.

Focus

Students should analyse and evaluate:

• debates about the nature of socialism

• core socialist views and values concerning Marxism, class analysis and the fundamental goals of socialism

• 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:

Nationalism

Key concepts and terminology:

• nation, sovereignty of the people

• human nature, the state, society and the economy

• minority nationalism, state nationalism.

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

• recent developments in nationalism

• 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.

Feminism 

Key concepts and terminology:

• equality of treatment, recognition of gender differences

• human nature,Feminism & Human Nature  the state, society and the economy

• liberal feminism, radical feminism.

Focus

Students should analyse and evaluate:

• debates about the nature of feminism

• core feminist views and values concerning equality of treatment, recognition of gender differences, affirmative action

• liberal feminism and radical feminism, and more recent developments such as difference feminism and post-feminism

• 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  

• Anarchism: core ideas and principles 

• Different types of anarchism 

• Anarchist thinkers and their ideas 

• 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.