Identity Ideology And Conflict

Ideologies and identities are central to the organisation of political life and political conflict, yet most empirical studies tend to obscure their significance. This failure to take the politics of identity seriously arises from an absence of adequate theory and method. This 1996 study draws on both social theory and psychological (especially psychoanalytic) theory in an attempt to overcome these lacunae. First, it develops a novel theory and method for the analysis of ideology and identity. Second, it develops a detailed analysis of the politics of identity in Northern Ireland through focusing upon Unionist ideology and Unionist identities in crisis. The political conflict within Unionism is analysed through a consideration of the variety of unconscious rules drawn upon by political actors and citizens in the making of Northern Ireland's history of the late 1980s.

Eva Bernauer predicts civil conflicts based upon the political exclusion of identity groups and their transnational links to external governments. The innovation lies in a simultaneous consideration of three identities – ethnicity, religion, and class-based ideology – thus extending previous studies with merely an ethnic focus. Most importantly, such a perspective implies a shift towards a society’s unique three-dimensional identity setup, upon which the excluded population and their transnational links can be determined. The author presents original data on the three-dimensional identity setup for 57 countries and introduces a formal model where rebel leaders strategically use identities to garner the support of the population. Key quantities of interest, such as the largest excluded subgroup or the number of identity links to external governments, are tested in several quantitative analyses as predictors for the onset of civil conflicts. The author shows that there is an added value of extending the mere ethnic perspective to also encompass religion and class-based ideology.

Indian party politics, commonly viewed as chaotic, clientelistic, and corrupt, is nevertheless a model for deepening democracy and accommodating diversity. Historically, though, observers have argued that Indian politics is non-ideological in nature. In contrast, Pradeep Chhibber and Rahul Verma contend that the Western European paradigm of "ideology" is not applicable to many contemporary multiethnic countries. In these more diverse states, the most important ideological debates center on statism-the extent to which the state should dominate and regulate society-and recognition-whether and how the state should accommodate various marginalized groups and protect minority rights from majorities. Using survey data from the Indian National Election Studies and evidence from the Constituent Assembly debates, they show how education, the media, and religious practice transmit the competing ideas that lie at the heart of ideological debates in India.

Despite profound disagreement on whether identities are essential or existential, primordial or constructed, singular or multiple, there is little dispute over whether identities exist or not. In this provocative study, Sinisa Malesevic interrogates the unproblematic use of concepts of identity, and in particular national or ethnic identity.

The psychology behind political partisanship: “The kind of research that will change not just how you think about the world but how you think about yourself.” —Ezra Klein, Vox Political polarization in America has moved beyond disagreements about matters of policy. For the first time in decades, research has shown that members of both parties hold strongly unfavorable views of their opponents. This is polarization rooted in social identity, and it is growing. The campaign and election of Donald Trump laid bare this fact of the American electorate, its successful rhetoric of “us versus them” tapping into a powerful current of anger and resentment. With Uncivil Agreement, Lilliana Mason looks at the growing social gulf across racial, religious, and cultural lines, which have recently come to divide neatly between the two major political parties. She argues that group identifications have changed the way we think and feel about ourselves and our opponents. Even when Democrats and Republicans can agree on policy outcomes, they tend to view one other with distrust and to work for party victory over all else. Although the polarizing effects of social divisions have simplified our electoral choices and increased political engagement, they have not been a force that is, on balance, helpful for American democracy. Bringing together theory from political science and social psychology, Uncivil Agreement clearly describes this increasingly “social” type of polarization, and adds much to our understanding of contemporary politics.

Increasingly, as the production, distribution and audience of films cross national boundaries, film scholars have begun to think in terms of ‘transnational’ rather than national cinema. This book is positioned within the emerging field of transnational cinema, and offers a groundbreaking study of the relationship between transnational cinema and ideology. The book focuses in particular on the complex ways in which religion, identity and cultural myths interact in specific cinematic representations of ideology. Author Milja Radovic approaches the selected films as national, regional products, and then moves on to comparative analysis and discussion of their transnational aspects. This book also addresses the question of whether transnationalism reinforces the nation or not; one of the possible answers to this question may be given through the exploration of the cinema of national states and its transnational aspects. Radovic illustrates the ways in which these issues, represented and framed by films, are transmitted beyond their nation-state borders and local ideologies in which they originated – and questions whether therefore one can have an understanding of transnational cinema as a platform for political dialogue.

Amidst discontent over diversity, racial identity is a lens through which many US white Americans now view the political world.