The Ideology of Power and the Power of Ideology

by Therborn, Goran

• ISBN13: 9781859842126
• ISBN10: 1859842127
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-07-17
• Publisher: Verso

Summary

Few concepts have been so intensively discussed or so widely sponsored as that of “ideology.” Whether read as the expression of social classes or attributed a material independence and efficacy, whether devalued as false and non-scientific or asserted as the necessary element of social practice, “ideology” has become an ineluctable conceptual reference across a range of works dealing with subjects as varied as science and politics, gender and cultural production.

In this book, Göran Therborn makes a decisive contribution to the contemporary debate. Beginning with some critical reflections on Louis Althusser’s influential writings in the late sixties, Therborn develops a theory of the formation of human subjects. He then goes on to consider the material matrix of ideologies and the problem of ideological change, the ideological constitution of classes and the characteristics of the discursive order that regulates it. Turning to questions of state power and political struggle, Therborn provides a remarkable account of ideological domination that displaces traditional categories, and a fascinating analysis of the process of political mobilization.

Brief yet wide ranging, probing yet succinct, The Ideology of Power and the Power of Ideology is a work of theoretical exploration that establishes new bearings for the current discussion of ideology.

Author Biography

Göran Therborn holds the Chair of Sociology at the University of Cambridge, and is editor and author of Inequalities of the World, Asia and Europe in Globalization, Between Sex and Power and From Marxism to Post Marxism?

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Introduction: Demarcations and Departures	1	(14)
I. The Ideological Formation of Human Subjects	15	(16)
1. The General Dialectic of Ideology	15	(5)
2. Subjectivity and Role: a Brief Digression on Role Theory	20	(2)
3. The Ideological Universe: the Dimensions of Human Subjectivity	22	(5)
4. Ego- and Alter-Ideologies	27	(4)
II. The Historical Materialism of Ideologies	31	(22)
1. The Structure of Ideological Systems	32	(8)
2. The Generation of Ideologies and Material Change	40	(13)
III. The Ideological Constitution of Classes	53	(24)
1. Class Ego-Ideologies	55	(6)
2. Class Alter-Ideologies and the Subjects of Class Struggle and Collaboration	61	(5)
3. Class and Non-Class Ideologies	66	(6)
4. Elaborations and Permutations of Class Ideologies	72	(5)
IV. The Social Order of Ideologies	77	(16)
1. The Social Process of Ideology	77	(4)
2. The Social Organization of Ideological Discourse	81	(3)
3. Ideological Apparatuses	84	(9)
V. Ideology and Political Power	93	(22)
1. Forms of Ideological Domination	93	(7)
2. Legitimacy, Consensus, Class Consciousness: Archaisms and Problems in Political Theory	100	(15)
VI. Social Change and the Power of Ideology	115	(12)
1. Processes of Ideological Mobilization	115	(9)
2. Political Subjects and Ideological Drift	124	(3)
Notes	127