Conclusion: Crisis of Ideologies or Ideologies of Crisis?

Abstract

The dominant view in the debate concerning the impact of the concept of globalization on the patterns of established political ideologies is that traditional ideological structures have been thoroughly disrupted by the emerging conceptual framework of what could be termed ‘the global imaginary’. From this perspective, it is no longer useful to think in conventional ideological terms - which were coined for the bygone era of cultural homogeneity, uniform national consciousness and class-based political divisions - and in their place a new vocabulary is needed to make sense of a radically different political reality. Analysis of selected representative variants of interpretations of globalization has led me to oppose this claim and accordingly the argument in this book is that established political ideologies are still meaningful categories with which to map the political world. In making the case for the relevance of conventional ideological structures, this book has demonstrated the endurance of their traditional interpretations today and, at the same time, traced in their erstwhile expressions concerns that anticipate those nowadays herded together under the conceptual umbrella of ‘globalization’. But while my discussion has been emphatic of continuity, it should not have left an impression of ideology as a static construct. Indeed, I have identified within major ideologies important conceptual shifts that have resulted from the rise of the idea of globalization. Yet, the argument that I have made posits that so far those changes have been internal to conventional belief systems and that the latter have therefore proved capable of rearticulating their tenets in light of the new circumstances.