Who’s afraid of ideology?

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is widely considered less dangerous than Liz Truss because he is less ideological. For many journalists, Liz Truss was the personification of ideology – and therefore vile.

The Guardian’s Rafael Behr summed up the mood when he said: ‘Liz Truss’s Tories are higher than ever on ideology – and they’re refusing to sober up.’ He claimed that ‘ideology is a drug for Tory leaders’. Critics of the Conservative party regard the word ideology as a term of abuse to be hurled against the toxic Tories. Sunak is less despised because he is seen as ‘pragmatic’ rather than ideological.

Yet the coupling of Truss with ideological zealotry actually serves as testimony to the political illiteracy of our commentariat. She performed one U-Turn after another. The casual manner with which she ditched her off-the-shelf, free-market script exposed both a lack of conviction and the sensibility of hyper-pragmatism.

In reality, the modern Conservative party and Rishi Sunak are addicted not to the drug of ideology but to its opposite – the politics of ‘what works’. I still remember when back in 2005 it was reported that the British Conservative party was hoping to convince the media to stop calling its members Tories. It seemed that throwing out four centuries of tradition was a small price to pay for appearing non-ideological and modern. The solution for rescuing the ‘nasty party’ was to transform conservatism into an ideology free zone.

This sensibility was clearly articulated by Kieron O’Hara in After Blair: Conservatism Beyond Thatcher (2005) when he suggested that modern conservatism could only be rescued if it was ‘prepared to base itself on as few and as uncontroversial assumptions as could bear its weight’.

Detaching politics from controversial assumptions is now enthusiastically promoted by all the major parties. Instead of addressing people about their beliefs, principles or doctrines, public figures resolutely refer to an ‘an agenda’ or a ‘project’. Hostility to principles and ideology is expressed through a managerial jargon that lacks both precision and substance.

The Labour party too, is zealously committed to not coming across as ideological. Party leader Keir Starmer self-consciously avoids the use of any ‘-isms’. He has adopted the strategy of what one academic, Eunice Goes, has characterised as ‘ideological quietism’. Labour’s vocabulary of ‘what works’ is indistinguishable from those of its opponents. There is no hint of a substantive idea. The language gives pride of place to diversity, transparency, social cohesion, inclusion, best practice, adding value, stake holding and, of course, sustainability.

Who needs ideology or even principles when – as per the former prime minister Boris Johnson – all you need to do is ‘follow the science’?

End of ideology?

That ideology has a bad name is understandable. The nightmare of the totalitarianism is indissolubly linked to the working of radical utopian ideologies. Unfortunately, the traumatic experience with Nazism, Fascism and Communism has provoked a reaction where the attempt to pursue policies motivated by political ideals and principles is regarded with suspicion and dismissed as ideological.

Yet without principles and ideals, democracy itself loses much of its meaning. Debate and arguments become focused on personalities and their character and behaviour rather than political alternatives. It is important to note that an ideology need not posit as its objective the radical transformation of society. It also does not need to project a utopian vision of the world. Nor does ideology merely serve the domain of politics. Most basically it is a coherent and relatively stable system of beliefs and values that bind people together. These beliefs help to explain and justify the goals and means of action, particularly that of organised political action. Ideology is interwoven with the provision of legitimation.

The maintenance of social order in the modern world relies on a coherent ideology that legitimates its institutions and its government. Through offering values that are perceived as authoritative, an ideology works to explain, inspire, integrate, motivate and legitimate.

Historically an ideological worldview stood for ideals, which it presented as its goals for the future. It elaborated an outlook of ‘what ought to be’ and supported forms of action and behaviour that were consistent with the realisation of this ideal. However, political mobilisation focused on what ought to be has become conspicuously rare in recent times, which is why attempts to integrate, motivate and legitimate often appear devoid of ideological form. The consequence is the impoverishment of public life.

Since the 1960s, the utopian hope and vision associated with radical politics have given way to a more pragmatic and realistic political style. Unfortunately, the reaction against radical utopianism led many to reject future-oriented ideals altogether. The tendency to regard ideals and principle with suspicion has fostered a climate where the practice of politics acquired a technocratic and short-termist form. Writing in the New Statesman in September 2004, Richard Reeves observed that ‘ideology is a dirty word in New Labour circles’ and added that ‘without ideology, the role of politicians is no longer to persuade, merely to sell’. A pragmatic, transactional and opportunistic political style that self-consciously distances itself from ideals underpins public life in British society. That is one reason why participation in party politics has so dramatically declined.

It is evident that public life in western societies has fallen under the sway of a short-term, depoliticised regime of technocratic governance. This form of governance emphasises processes and rules and relegates ideals to the margins. Politics often presents itself as an exercise in administrative, technical or managerial functions. Political leaders boast that their proposals are ‘costed’ and that their policies are ‘evidence-based’ and represent ‘best practice’. Their de-politicised rhetoric draws on the vocabulary of management theory to justify their policies. They ‘deliver’ rather than govern. In these circumstances, politics has acquired a distinctly presentist temperament, and its practitioners do not aspire to build a society that is qualitatively different to the existing one.

One regrettable outcome of the anti-ideological turn of public life is that it has encouraged the devaluation of a language that is informed by moral ideals.

Policymakers and politicians find it difficult to justify their work and outlook in the vocabulary of morality. Officials promote policies on the grounds that they are ‘evidence-based’ rather than because they are right or good. Political leaders rarely support a policy on the ground that they believe it to be just. Instead, they declare their support on the ground that ‘research shows’ it to be validated by science.

Paradoxically, despite protestations about avoiding ideology, our political class has turned science into an ‘-ism’. Take the growing ideological use of science – most strikingly encapsulated using the term ‘The Science’ – to authorise policy and action. The instrumental application of science to the sphere of morality plays a key role in the exercise of 21st-century technocratic governance. The mutation of science into scientism offers a striking illustration of an explicitly de-politicised form of ideology. Indeed, scientism is an ideology that self-consciously avoids appearing ideological.

Yet in recent decades scientism has gained greater and greater influence as a source of legitimation for the policies of the governing classes. For many politicians and policymakers, their party-political ideology is secondary to what ‘The Science Says’. When pushed to account for their decision, they are likely to say: ‘we are following the science’. When politicians that they are ‘following the science’, it becomes evident that whatever they are following possesses an ideological imperative that cannot but be obeyed.

Scientism constitutes a politicised view of science that advocates reliance on the authority of the expert to manage the institutions of public life. Scientism is rarely explicit about its political objectives, which is why its role as an ideology is rarely visible and recognised.

It is an ideology without a name that provides legitimating resources that a variety of often competing movements can draw on. The environmentalist movement has abandoned its initial hostility to science and now almost entirely justifies its green ideology by appealing to the verdict of science. ‘The scientists have spoken’ or ‘The science is clear’ are the refrains frequently used by green campaign groups in an updated version of the religious phrase: ‘This is the Word of the Lord.’ A similar pattern was evident during the Covid pandemic when policymakers appealed to the authority of science to close down debate.

The transformation of science into an ‘-ism’ indicates that authoritative policy making and political life require ideals and principles. So why not acknowledge the need for ideals and principles in the conduct of public affairs? Wouldn’t it be better if politicians outlined their goals by arguing for ideas instead of finding refuge in the language of ‘research shows’?

With so little at stake, disagreement about policy issues frequently have the character of a squabble rather than of a debate. Public figures attempt to compensate for their petty posturing through adopting high-octane rhetoric. So paradoxically, one of the consequences of the decline of genuine difference of substance is an escalation of the level of vitriol that different groups and factions express towards one another.

Partisan rage is often misinterpreted as a symptom of deep ideological differentiation. It isn’t. With movements such as Black Lives Matter or Extinction Rebellion, it is all about the performance.

We need parties and movements that genuinely stand for something rather than ones that simply claim to uphold the mantra of supporting ‘what works’. If we had politicians who were not afraid of appearing ideological, then we would finally have public figures who were not afraid to lead.

Frank Furedi’s The Road To Ukraine: How The West Lost Its Way is published by De Gruyter.