3.3 - Political Ideologies
A political ideology is a coherent set of values and beliefs about the goals of government, public policy, and politics. Ideologies give people a framework for understanding what problems exist in society, what role government should play, what policies to pursue, and what values should guide political decisions. They shape political behavior broadly: parties organize around them, leaders invoke them, citizens use them to evaluate policy, and regimes use them to justify themselves.
Individualism
The core belief here is that individual civil liberties and freedom take priority over governmental restrictions. Personal autonomy is the supreme value, government exists to protect individual rights, and the private sphere should be protected from government intrusion. This translates into strong civil liberties protections, free speech and religion, privacy rights, due process, resistance to surveillance, and property rights. It traces back to Enlightenment liberalism and thinkers like John Locke.
The UK's political tradition emphasizes individual liberty, parliamentary protection of rights, and common law safeguards for personal freedom, balanced with some social welfare commitments. Nigeria's Fourth Republic constitution (1999) reflects individualism too, with extensive fundamental rights provisions protecting individuals against government, something democratic advocates emphasized against the collective security justifications used during military rule. Individualism can conflict with social order and security needs, collective welfare goals, and cultural traditions that emphasize community over the individual.
Neoliberalism
The core belief is that government intervention in the economy and society should be limited, since markets allocate resources more efficiently than government planning. Free market capitalism is seen as optimal, the private sector as more efficient than government, and individual responsibility is favored over state dependency. This translates into privatization (selling state-owned enterprises), free trade (eliminating tariffs and barriers), deregulation, ending subsidies, reduced spending and taxation, and central bank independence. Neoliberalism emerged as a response to the economic crises of the 1970s and is associated with Reagan, Thatcher, and the so-called Washington Consensus.
Mexico embraced neoliberal reforms dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s: President Salinas (1988 to 1994) privatized banks and telecommunications, pursued NAFTA, deregulated industries, and reduced state economic intervention, moving the country from post-Revolutionary state-led development toward a market economy. The UK under Margaret Thatcher (1979 to 1990) pioneered neoliberalism too, privatizing British Telecom and British Gas, deregulating financial markets, reducing union power, and cutting spending. Russia's 1990s transition involved "shock therapy," rapid privatization and price liberalization that, while justified by neoliberal ideology, actually produced oligarchs and economic chaos, discrediting pure neoliberalism in the Russian context. Nigeria has attempted partial neoliberal reforms too, like privatizing telecommunications and reducing fuel subsidies, often pushed by structural adjustment programs from international financial institutions in the 1980s and 1990s, though implementation has faced resistance. Critics argue neoliberalism increases inequality, undermines social safety nets, ignores market failures, and disproportionately benefits the wealthy.
Nigeria made its biggest neoliberal moves in 2023. In his inaugural speech on May 29, 2023, President Bola Tinubu announced that "fuel subsidy is gone," ending the gasoline subsidy that had cost the government billions of dollars a year, and weeks later the central bank let the naira's exchange rate float. Gas prices roughly tripled within weeks and inflation climbed, which set off labor strikes and protests. It's a clear example of why eliminating state subsidies, a core neoliberal policy, is so politically hard.
Communism
The core belief is abolishing private property and giving government near-total control of the economy to achieve a classless society. Private property is viewed as exploitation, the means of production should be collectively owned, class struggle drives history, and a proletarian revolution is seen as necessary. This translates into no private ownership of major productive assets, state or collective farms, government-owned factories, central planning, price controls, and elimination of the capitalist class. It draws on Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and revolutionary socialism.
China, despite its market reforms, remains officially communist: the Communist Party maintains ideological commitment to Marxism-Leninism adapted as "socialism with Chinese characteristics," and while private enterprise is allowed, the state still owns major banks, industries, and land, with the constitution declaring China a "socialist state." The Soviet Union practiced communism more purely, with state ownership of all major industries, collective farms, central Five-Year Plans, and a ban on private business. Today few states practice pure communism; China, Vietnam, and Cuba maintain communist party rule alongside market reforms, so the ideology persists even as economic practice evolves. Critics point to economic inefficiency from the lack of market signals, authoritarian politics, suppression of individual freedom, and historical failures involving mass suffering.
Socialism
The core belief is reducing income disparities and nationalizing major private industries to achieve economic equality while still maintaining some market elements. Major industries should be publicly owned, wealth should be redistributed through taxation and services, and workers need rights and protections, all within a social welfare state, ideally under democratic control of the economy. This translates into nationalizing key industries like healthcare, utilities, transportation, and banking, progressive taxation, robust safety nets, universal healthcare and education, strong labor unions, and income supports. Unlike communism, socialism allows a mixed economy with some private property, doesn't necessarily require revolutionary overthrow, and maintains democratic institutions.
The UK historically had socialist periods, particularly the post-WWII Labour government that nationalized coal, steel, and railways and created the National Health Service; even after later privatizations, the NHS and welfare state still reflect socialist influence, and the Labour Party continues to advocate democratic socialism. Mexico's post-Revolutionary governments (1920s to 1980s) practiced a form of state socialism too, nationalizing oil (PEMEX in 1938), running major industries, and redistributing land, justified by revolutionary ideology protecting workers and peasants against exploitation, though neoliberal reforms later rolled back some of this. Socialism continues to influence social democratic parties across Europe, and the Scandinavian "Nordic model" blends capitalism with an extensive welfare state. Critics argue socialism reduces economic efficiency and innovation, high taxation discourages work and investment, and government ownership tends to be less efficient than private ownership.
Fascism
The core belief is an extreme nationalist ideology favoring authoritarian rule and ethnic majority rights over minorities and political opposition. This includes ultra-nationalism, ethnic or racial hierarchy, a strong authoritarian leader, suppression of opposition, militarism, totalitarian state control, a corporate state blending government and business, and rejection of both liberal democracy and communism. In practice this meant discriminatory laws against minorities, authoritarian governance, suppression of dissent, propaganda, militaristic foreign policy, persecution of ethnic "others," and a cult of personality around the leader. Fascism emerged in the interwar period (1920s to 1940s) in Italy, Germany, and Spain as a reaction against both democracy and communism.
No course country is currently fascist, but some elements appear in various contexts. Russia under Putin shows some characteristics, extreme nationalism, ethnic Russian prioritization, authoritarian control, suppression of opposition, militarism, and a personal cult, though it's not fully fascist. Nigeria's Biafran Civil War (1967 to 1970) involved ethnic nationalism and fears of domination that, while not purely fascist, showed how majority-minority tensions can drive violent conflict, and Boko Haram's religious-ethnic ideology contains elements of extremist exclusionary nationalism too. Far-right movements globally still invoke nationalist, anti-immigrant, authoritarian themes, and historical fascism (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy) remains universally condemned for genocide, war crimes, and totalitarian oppression, considered illegitimate in democratic discourse.
Populism
The core belief is supporting the interests of common people over elites, framing politics as a struggle between virtuous people and a corrupt establishment. This includes seeing the people as virtuous and elites as corrupt and self-serving, favoring direct popular will over institutional mediation, anti-establishment rhetoric, charismatic leadership claiming to embody the popular will, and suspicion of intermediary institutions like parties, media, and courts. Populism comes in different forms: left populism frames the struggle as people versus economic elites, pushing wealth redistribution and worker rights, while right populism frames it as people versus cultural elites, pushing nationalism, immigration restriction, and traditional values. Importantly, populism isn't a complete ideology like communism or liberalism, it's more of a political style and framework that can be filled with different substantive content.
Mexico's AMLO (president from 2018 to 2024) exemplified left populism, portraying himself as a champion of "the people" against corrupt elites, attacking what he called the "mafia of power," expanding social programs, and holding daily press conferences directly addressing citizens; his successor and ally, Claudia Sheinbaum (president since October 2024), kept both the daily press conferences and the social programs. Russia's Putin uses populist rhetoric portraying himself as defender of ordinary Russians against Western elites and domestic oligarchs (while protecting favored ones), combined with nationalist appeals to Russian civilization against a supposedly decadent West. The UK's Brexit campaign used populist rhetoric of "taking back control" from EU elites, framing it as people versus establishment. Nigeria's Buhari campaigned in 2015 as an incorruptible outsider fighting a corrupt establishment, combining populist anti-elite rhetoric with promises of stability and integrity. Critics argue populism oversimplifies complex issues into people versus elites, undermines institutional checks and balances, can enable authoritarian tendencies, may scapegoat minorities as part of a supposed corrupt elite, and resists compromise. Populism shows up across the ideological spectrum and regime types precisely because it's a style rather than a substantive ideology, it can be filled with left, right, nationalist, or other content.
Combining Ideologies
In practice, countries and movements combine ideologies rather than adopting just one. China combines communist party ideology with neoliberal economic practices, maintaining political control while implementing market reforms, what's often called "socialism with Chinese characteristics." The UK combines individualism (its civil liberties tradition) with socialism (the NHS and welfare state) in a kind of social democracy. Mexico's Morena governments (AMLO from 2018 to 2024, and Sheinbaum since 2024) blend populism (AMLO's style), nationalism (an emphasis on sovereignty, like nationalizing lithium in 2022), and social democracy (welfare expansion), all while still operating within the neoliberal global economy inherited from previous decades. These ideological tensions, individualism versus communitarianism, neoliberalism versus socialism, nationalism versus cosmopolitanism, order versus liberty, shape political competition, with parties representing different positions competing for power and public support.