International ideologies: paradigms of ideological analysis and world politics

Abstract

Recent years have seen significant interest among scholars of International Relations (IR) in ideological analysis. By treating international theories as international ideologies, this trend entails both a radical reconceptualization of IR's disciplinary foundations as well as the emergence of important new lines of inquiry for scholars of ideology. And yet, as a research programme, ideological analysis in IR has failed to establish a significant foothold in the discipline. This article locates the source of this weakness in the fractious nature of IR as a discipline, which has contributed to the emergence of five distinct paradigms of ideological analysis: Analytical, Historical, Philosophical, Critical, and Reflexive. Reviewing these five distinct bodies of scholarship, this article demonstrates that ideological analysis is 'alive and well' in IR, but argues that greater engagement between divergent paradigms will be required in order to fully understand the complexities of international ideologies.

Beyond Power Politics: How Ideology Motivates Threat Perception—and International Relations

“…So, just how does political ideology shape foreign policy preferences? One review (Martill, 2017) rightly notes a dearth of scholarly attention to causal mechanisms. What mediators best account for ideology’s impact?…”

Europeanizing ideologies

“…Scholars typically approach ideology as a phenomenon of national settings, or else leave its sphere undefined (Bell 2002, p.224). Studies that set the likes of liberalism, socialism and conservatism in transnational context are rarer, like those of ideologies linked to transnational institutions (Martill 2017). Where scholars look beyond the state, it is often to the global level.…”