Andrei Ilas - Do ideological systems really exist? A comparative approach to five ideal ideological types

Abstract: This article intends to show that ideology is always organized systemically by undertaking the opposition between conformity and diversity as its fundamental criterion. In order to underpin this hypothesis, the present article examines the inner structure of five classic ideologies, that can be understood as ideal ideological types. The analysis reveals that ideologies do not form a system because at the core of any ideology there is a key-concept not determined nor influenced by the key concepts of other ideologies.

One of the tasks assumed by political science is that of defining, delimiting and analyzing the fundamental features of different parties. In order to reveal such features, different structures and functions are examined.

Taking into consideration that every party is built upon an ideology, one may wonder whether a party system ceteris paribus is sustained by an ideological system. The initial goal of this research was to establish the existence and the particularities of the causal relationship existing between systems of parties and system of ideologies. The conclusion reached was that such ideological systems do not exist. So,

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the question : do political ideologies determine the emergence of ideological systems? Our hypothesis is that the answer to this question is affirmative.

Any non-descriptive approach to ideology encounters numerous difficulties that make both the method and the results obtained questionable.

The first difficulty worth mentioning and, maybe, the most important, might be expressed as follows: there are no ideologies, only ideologists. Therefore, it is easier to offer a scientific analysis of J. St. Mill's liberalism, or of Edmund Burke's conservatism, than one regarding liberal or conservative ideology.

Secondly, due to various reasons, the thought of ideologists is fluctuant. Thus, an ideologist usually passes from theoretical refinement to writings of popularization when immediate political goals demand it. It is hence adequate to take into account the difference between vast, theoretical texts as "German Ideology" or "The Capital" and a synthetic, propagandistic one, such as "Manifesto of the Communist Party".

Thirdly, ideologies are altered by the socio-political contexts in which they are engaged. The struggle for power can determine ideas that are endorsed by liberals in a certain state to become part of a conservative ideology elsewhere.

Another difficulty arises from the fact that some ideologies might be considered "weak ideologies". For example, nationalism can be a dimension of any ideology, when the construction of nation state¹is pursued. Some ideologies seem to be destined to remain peripheral or even to be rejected from the public space. It is difficult to believe that anarchism will ever be able to produce parties with solid structures, capable to engage themselves the fight for power. In addition, it is likely that any ideology militating for gaining power through the use of force, will, in the end, be declared illegal.

As a corollary, we may assert that any ideology is nothing but a "camouflage" for the desire for power. Consequently, the colour of this camouflage will be changed rather in accordance with the context than with the intimate options of the combatants. Such a view, however appealing it may be due to its accuracy, is still a simplistic one, because it does not take into consideration the intelligence and beliefs of the individual political actor.

Therefore, many scholars prefer to see ideology not merely as a means of gaining power but rather as a body of ideas which can help us gain a direction within society. Thus, Paul Ricoeur considers the ideological phenomena as being able to receive a relatively positive appreciation, if the so-called Aristotelian thesis of the multiplicity of levels is to be maintained².

The attempt of "unmasking" the ideological and revealing its substantiality is also present in Anton Carpinschi's concerns to identify certain tendencies and regularities of the dynamics of contemporary doctrines, such as: the expansion of the doctrinarian universe, the convergence of doctrines, the curving of the doctrinarian space, symmetry, action and reaction, the lack of vacuum, or the relativity and the interchangeability of certain doctrinarian features and dimensions³.

Within a multidimensional but also limited political space, these features emphasize the fact that ideologies are interacting with one another, suggesting that they might be considered parts of an ideology system. Moreover, using the hologram principle⁴ within a complexity paradigm, we may conclude that each ideology is, in its own turn, a system.

Consequently, in order to prove whether an ideology system exists or not, we must first build ideology as a system.

Having emerged in the middle of the twentieth century, the systemic paradigm has suffered many adjustment processes. "Classical" systemic theory, which was founded on cybernetics, seemed to become, in the early 70's, during postmodern controversies, inadequate.

Coming from different fields, such as anthropology, ethnology or biology, a number of authors⁵ tried to modify the

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mechanical approach, by emphasizing the importance of the human nature and human societies' development. Later on, other authors⁶ developed the systemic theory towards complexity and self-poetic systems. More recently, research of human organization as self-organized criticality⁷ has been proposed.

As, at present, systemic paradigm does not offer only one theory but a set of theories, specifications concerning the types of theories are required.

Looking for a systemic theory, I first focused on the one proposed by I. P. Culianu in The Dualistic Gnoses of the Occident⁸. Observing that "once in motion, the system has the tendency to exhaust all its potentialities"⁹, Culianu elaborated a method that is not interested in the historical evolution of a system, but which attempts to discover whether all the logical options virtually inherent to the system are reached or not.

These logical options become possible due to a first operation, which "consists in setting two divinities in the place of one"¹⁰, and represents the foundation of any gnosis. This first operation contains two sequences: the question and then the answer sequence. In the case of gnosis, the answer to the question "how many divinities?" is two. This answer differentiates gnosis from other religious trends, and constitutes what I. P. Culianu calls its generating principle.

Analogically, we shall consider that each ideology is based on a first operation, which confers its generating principle. Thus, any ideology starts with a question concerning the founding principle of any society. It also gives an answer to this question, by identifying the fundamental value on which all future construction is based.

In order to understand how to construct an ideological system, starting from this generating principle, I shall invoke Niklas Luhmann's works. Being preoccupied by self-poetic systems, N. Luhmann considers that the accent must not be put anymore on the system's unity, but on the difference between environment and system¹¹.

Thus, every social system is continuously creating itself and self-differentiating from the environment, through a characteristic binary code. "The code is the form through which the system distinguishes itself from the environment and organizes its own operative closure"¹². As examples, N. Luhmann brought: profitable non-profitable in economics, legal illegal in law, action inaction in politics, etc. Taking into account that this code refers to the way in which the system "thinks" and not to the result of its actions, it can be inferred that there are pairs of opposite types of logic: the logic of the profitable and the logic of the non-profitable, the logic of the legal and the logic of the illegal, etc. Obviously, the term logic is here used in its weakest meaning: well organized assertions, constructed on a set of postulates.

Considering that ideologies are systems of ideas that aim to put order in the behavior of society and of individuals, I believe that they are built on the diversity/conformity code. Thus, a society might wish to achieve either a sort of order in multiplicity, an order of disorder, based on the logic of diversity, that is divergence through the acceptance of imperfection and multiplicity, or a order in uniformity, order of orders, based on the logic of conformity, which is convergence in the seeking of perfection. Defined in such manner, the logic of diversity and the one of conformity are mutually exclusive and seem to be capable to cover the whole ideological thinking¹³.

In conclusion, the concept of ideology as a functional system revealed the fact that each ideology has a generating principle and may be rebuilt using a specific ideological code, namely diversity/conformity.

In order to verify this assumption, the following research designs are possible:

·the reconstruction of certain original ideal-types, in order to demonstrate the existence of a primary ideological system;

·the identification of a certain ideology's evolution through time and space, in order to prove that each ideology has a systemic behavior;

·the analysis of relations between ideologies within the same political space, in order to verify the existence of a systemic organization of ideologies.

As for the purpose of this article, only the existence of a primary ideological system shall be debated. The methodologi

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cal importance of identifying the primary ideological system is overwhelming, because the lack of such a system would cast doubt upon any future research.

Following the new phenomenological line opened by W. Ditlhey and Ed. Husserl, in the effort of elaborating a methodology able to make objective knowledge possible, Max Weber used and refined the ideal-type method.

For Max Weber, the ideal-type is not a hypothesis, but something that contributes to the construction of a hypothesis; neither is it a representation of reality, but something that confers means for an adequate representation of reality. The construction of an ideal-type is realized by accentuating one or more features and concatenating more isolated, diffused and discreet phenomena.¹⁴ Consequently, the ideal-type is presenting itself as a "cognition framework; it is not the historical reality, nor the genuine reality itself"¹⁵.

Since Max Weber wrote these lines, a whole series of scholars have brought further specifications concerning the modality in which this method can be used. Yet, the essential characteristics of this method, with its advantages and disadvantages, have been preserved. Thus, the advantage of using the ideal-type originates in the method's rigorously built inner logical structure. From the method's inner structure a disadvantage arises: any ideal-type will end up separating itself from reality¹⁶.

Taking all this into consideration, I propose the construction of five ideal ideological types, the "strong core" of the nineteenth century: liberalism, conservatism, socialism, nationalism and anarchism.

Thus, in order to construct the ideal-types, I choose the moment of their beginnings, of their origins. The selected ideologies were in such a moment of their evolution during the nineteenth century¹⁷. In order to make re-construction possible, I invoke, for each ideology, a famous work: On Liberty (1859), by John Stuart Mill¹⁸; Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), by Edmund Burke¹⁹; Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), by Karl Marx and Friederich Engels²⁰; Qu'est-ce qu'une nation? (1882), by Ernest Renan²¹; Enquiry concerning political justice (1794), by William Godwin²².

These works share a spatial, temporal, historical and cultural unity. From a cultural and historical point of view, they were written in the rationalist spirit of the nineteenth century. Moreover, the authors knew very well both British and French culture.

However, the texts are different in purpose and style. Some are works of popularization, and others aspire to a scientific status, being addressed to a cultivated public. The first ones are characterized by visionary perspectives²³, while in the others a positivistic tendency prevails.

Among scholars, there are divergences regarding the nature of these five ideologies. Thus, some²⁴ consider that nationalism is not an ideology, but only a dimension of other ideologies. Even those authors that consider nationalism to be an ideology are treating it as a loose ideology²⁵, because it is insufficiently developed. Anarchism is also an atypical example, due to the fact that it has never been represented by parties with political power. This is the reason for which anarchist thinking remained peripheral, the attribute of dangerous revolutionaries or sophisticated intellectuals.

Obviously, these divergences are rooted in the criteria used to define an ideology. Because the method of this research is one of ideal-types, ideologies acquire the same nature. However, especially the reconstruction of the nationalist ideal-type or of the anarchist one might be questioned other ideal-types of these ideologies can be built.

All these remarks being made, the question regarding the structural design of an ideology may be raised. As can be easily observed, most studies on ideologies use a scale that includes relevant characteristics to any society's structure: human nature, reason, freedom, equality, property, justice, political regime, state, economy, and so on. The nine mentioned characteristics, aside from being generating principles, become independent variables that determine the inner structure of the five ideological ideal-types.

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Taking into account my following of N. Luhmann's systemic theory, I will attempt to verify if each independent variable, when intersected with the diversity/conformity code, will receive two values.

In order to identify these two values, the nineteenth century classical perspective will be used as well as authors from the twentieth century. This suggests that such an approach can be extended beyond the considered ideal-types.

The generating principle seems not to submit itself to the diversity/conformity code, each ideology developing a principle that is not subject to this code. Therefore, after the collecting of data, I shall try to establish if a systemic algorithm of mutual determination which might determine, for instance, the emergence of the generating principle of liberalism from the one of conservatism, and the one of socialism from the one of liberalism, and so on and so forth exist.

The classical perspectives on human nature oscillate between diversity like, for example, self determination, which becomes possible through the autonomy of will and conformity like complete modeling, which is realized through the individual's insertion inside a social environment. Contemporary debate on this topic, between libertarians and communitarians, emerges around the aspect of individual relationships. Communitarians propose a teleological perspective upon human nature, arguing that individuals must pursue their goals, while libertarians are advocate a non-teleological one, arguing that individuals only have the capacity but not the obligation to attain their goals²⁶ .

Reason is limited by rationalism and reasonability, as revealed by M. Oakeshott's work²⁷. Hence, rationalist politics "is one of perfection and uniformity"²⁸. For a change, reasonability represents that kind of reason capable of adapting itself to different types of activity, namely to diversity²⁹.

In his famous speech, Benjamin Constant³⁰ identifies two types of freedom: a freedom of participating in public life specific to antiquity and one of protecting private life specific to modernity. The classical essay of Isaiah Berlin³¹is also worth mentioning. Negative freedom means that no individual is to interfere in other's activity, while positive freedom de
rives from each individual's hope of being his own master³². Berlin underlines the fact that, at first sight, the two concepts seem not to be far from one another, but, in essence, exercising each type of liberty leads on the one hand to pluralism, an expression of diversity, on the other to authoritarianism, a form of conformity³³.

The idea of equality leads, within the logic of conformity, to equalitarianism³⁴, that is, de iure and de facto, equality. Within the logic of diversity, equality resumes to de iure, which is equality before law, and to the acceptance of inequality in other fields³⁵.

Property is, from an ideological perspective, the distinction between private and public property. Subsequently, J. Schumpeter had revised the distinction, revealing that, due to what he considered the natural evolution towards socialism, great capitalist property was depersonalized³⁶: property control is beyond owners' will, becoming common good. On the contrary, individual property is to be considered personalized and a form of diversity.

An ancient tradition, borrowed by the ideological discourse, distinguishes between commutative justice emerged simply from social relations and distributive one result of the allocation of resources made by a central authority³⁷. R. Nozick considers that commutative justice is based on a non-patterned principle, while distributive justice implies the existence of a patterned principle³⁸. Obviously, the inexistence of a pattern is a form of diversity, while a patterned principle is an expression of conformity.

As regarding the state, I am invoking the well-known difference between the minimal state that allows the most social liberty to individuals and maximal one that constrains individuals to certain behaviors. More recently, the difference is made between subsidiary state and welfare state. Within a subsidiary state, individuals are encouraged to have the initiative, with the state interfering only when its presence is imperative. On the other hand, a welfare state assumes an important social and economic role, organizing the distribution social goods³⁹. Subsidiary state is a form of diversity logic, while welfare state is one of conformity logic.

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The twentieth century had proved that a political regime can oscillate from democracy, an open society, towards totalitarianism, a closed society ⁴⁰. Beyond historical experience, differences between regimes are not given by formal and informal institutions, but by the way in which the political construction of society is being understood. This way, the community of diversity is resumed to mutual respect and protection of all individual values, while the community of conformity presumes that those with common values have the desire of living together in the good spirit of those values.

Market economy and planned economy are the two limits of economy. Fr. Hayek⁴¹ revealed that the concept of planning can be understood in two ways: as projecting business development or as centralized economy. The second meaning presumes that planned economy is based on obedience, as economic agents conform to indications received from the central authorities. On the contrary, market economy is one that requires innovation, competition and, in the end, creates diversity.

In order to formalize the research, I shall use P. L. Dirichlet's formula, which is pointing out the affiliation to an interval:

Further on, the data will be gathered and enrolled into a table, in order to realize the comparison of the five ideal-types and, finally, the appropriate conclusions will be drawn.

Having constructed both theory and method, data collecting is the next step, unraveling for each ideology the way independent variables vary within the diversity/conformity code.

As it is well known, the generating principle of liberalism is represented by the protection and promotion of individual liberties against other community members' actions, especially the ones of people in positions of power⁴².

Conservatism is rooted in the respect for a traditional social model and in the acceptance of slow reform. Therefore, Burke considers prudence to be the first of all virtues⁴³.

Socialism has, as a starting point, the historical class struggle⁴⁴. It proposes, as its main objective, the accomplishment of a total status equality of all the members of society.

Nationalism is built on the idea of independence, and emerges from the nations' right to self-determination⁴⁵, while for anarchism, the generating principle is represented by the unlimited trust in private judgment⁴⁶.

Therefore, it is obvious that the generating principle is not subject to the diversity/conformity code, simply because liberty, prudence, class struggle, nation and private judgment are primary values.

Within liberalism, the individual is regarded as an important value⁴⁷. He owes nothing to society; his wishes are sovereign. By definition, the individual is the best judge of his own interests. Therefore, taking into account the increased importance of the individual against society, institutions are not to be permitted to interfere with the individual's activity.

Conservatives reveal the imperfection of human nature. Since the individual is incapable of understanding contingency, he will never be able to act as he should. Hence, tradition and customs, which are created within society⁴⁸, are very important. Consequently, the conservative ideal-type is very far from the liberal individualist vision through its emphasis on the importance of society's norms.

Opposed to conservatism, socialism proposes an optimistic vision of human development. Characteristic to socialism is the thesis of perfectibility, which states that individuals are able to improve their moral status. Socialism identifies the forming sources of human nature within society. The conditions under which individuals evolve are the ones which explain their character and nature. Both the material and the moral dimensions of man are to be understood within a social

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context⁴⁹. Individuals are regarded as being capable of reasoning and developing only within their society.

Nationalism regards individuals as social beings, because they find their meaning, values and ideas inside a nation. Although nationalism supports the self-determination thesis, both on an individual and on a community level, it considers that good political and moral action cannot be determined through abstract and universal thinking, but by the specific history or the national features of a community. Nation is the one that forms the foundation of practical action and political thinking, while an individual always has to appeal to his community or nation⁵⁰.

Anarchism considers the individual to be gifted with reason and capable to understand and conduct his actions, according to his own interest, as well as to the others', not needing any intervention from any authority⁵¹.

Each liberal considers all persons to be born with the faculty of reasoning⁵². On this basis, he is capable to be a part of the "social contract", to relate with others or to follow his goals.

Built around the idea of liberty, liberalism is promoting the idea of individual freedom as a lack of any external control⁵³. Consequently, social inequality is accepted, because this is nothing but the natural result of each individual's activity inside society. Inequality is the one that determines the social activism of those who are willing to reach a higher position and all forms of equalitarianism are refused⁵⁴. On the other hand, liberalism is fervently promoting equality before law. The protection of private property⁵⁵, as the aforementioned principles suggest, is both a condition and a dimension of liberty.

For liberals, justice can only be commutative. It naturally emerges, within reasonable limits, from individual action corroborated with the reaction of the others to this action⁵⁶.

For conservatives, reason also plays an important part. Yet, its understanding is fundamentally different from that of liberals. In Reflections, Burke distinguishes between abstractions and principles. He does not believe in abstractions, such as natural rights⁵⁷, but in great, principles of governing that have survived the test of time. Here is where the importance of prejudice resides. It does not represent a blind, irrational behavior, but a prior judgment, a distillation of experience along generations. To act on prejudice means to act the same way those that preceded you acted. Therefore, in conservative thinking, freedom is seen as positive freedom⁵⁸. Obedience to prejudices and traditions can only lead to controlled freedom, which manifests itself within already defined frames. As partisans of the status quo, conservatives promote an elitist vision on society, in which social inequality is accepted⁵⁹. That's how the position of this ideology on property is born. Though it is not considered a topic as important as in liberalism, private property represents a modality of accepting and promoting the existing social system⁶⁰.

Ed. Burke does not develop his ideas on the problem of justice, yet this appears to be, as a result of social mechanisms, of a commutative type⁶¹. Consequently, within the reconstruction of the conservative ideal-type, justice is a commutative one.

In its turn, socialism considers individuals to posses reason, to be capable of understanding history, as well as the present, and the advantages of a future organization of society⁶². Socialists also claim that individual fulfillment becomes possible through continuous social interaction.

Completely opposed to liberalism and conservatism in this respect, socialism considers social equality as its supreme goal⁶³.Although it admits the fact that individuals have different qualities, socialism is considers the granting equal opportunities to lead to an equalization of social status. Therefore, it is no accident that socialists, along with liberals, promote the equality of rights.

Property is an important issue for socialism. Class struggle is justified precisely by the differences within the capitalist society between the ones who work and the ones who own the production means. Socialism proposes public property as the only accepted form of property⁶⁴, the only one capable to ensure social equality effectively.

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Taking into account the equalitarian goals, it can be asserted that socialism is promoting a logic of conformity in what regards justice, which means that there is a tendency towards distributive justice.

Like conservatism, nationalism gives credit to reason, each nation being identified by a unique way of thinking or feeling that is exercised both by the community and by the individuals within it⁶⁵.

National cohesion is to be assured only by collective action, which implies a narrowed positive freedom⁶⁶. Nationalism accepts social inequality as a natural consequence of each nation's instituted order even nations being ranked this way⁶⁷. Taking into consideration the outlook of inequality, this implies that nationalism is rather attached to private property, as a modality of delimitating between different social levels.

The acceptance of inequality and the protection of private property reveal that the ideal-type of nationalist ideology places justice under the logic of diversity.

In anarchist thinking, reason is the one that confers people the possibility to act and think freely, in accordance with their moral principles⁶⁸. Rejecting any form of authority, anarchism, like liberalism, promotes negative freedom, the one of repelling any form of interference⁶⁹. Equality resumes to equality de iure, the only one allowed where nothing else counts but individual qualities⁷⁰. Consequently, anarchism pronounces itself in favor of private property⁷¹, which has to be defended by a form of justice that functions on distributive grounds⁷².

Many analysts of liberalism believe that the relation between liberalism and democracy is not as tight as it might appear, and that classic liberalism is not a fervent upholder of liberal democracy. Moreover, sometimes democracy does not produce those effects desired by liberals. Beyond this, it is possible to affirm that liberalism, being constructed on contractual grounds, maintains a conflicting environment⁷³ that inevitably leads to diversity.

Conservatism's vision on political regime is directly influenced by its organic conception of society⁷⁴. According to this conception, society is a whole where everybody performs his or her natural functions, on the basis of a well established hierarchy⁷⁵. So, political functions constitute the prerogative of the few, namely the traditional or natural aristocracy that thinks and acts on behalf of the entire community.

For K. Marx and Fr. Engels, any operational political regime might represent the object of a future revolution⁷⁶. Within the new society, proletarian supremacy emerges from the intrinsic unity of its members, who conform to strictly-determined rules and to common ideals⁷⁷.

Nationalist ideology supports a political regime focused on the idea of a nation-state. Theoretically, nationalism seems open to various political regimes, from liberal democracy to totalitarianism. Yet, taking into account that nationalist discourse does not favor immigrants and foreign workers, we may conclude that nationalism is proposes a political regime of conformity⁷⁸.

Anarchism sustains a political organization consisting in small communities, emerged as the result of a convergence criterion: each individual joins a certain community that promotes his own values⁷⁹.

Liberalism's position on the matter is well known. It militates for state as "night watchman": the state is called to interfere only when the natural social order has been broken⁸⁰.

On the contrary, conservatism is claims the need for a powerful state, capable of maintaining inner order, well balanced and limited by law. Taking into account the fact that the need for a powerful state derives also from the necessity of conserving traditions⁸¹, one may assert that, in a conservative view, the state affiliates to the logic of conformity.

For socialism, the state is not a product of thinking or of human will. Its emergence is justified by the existence of classes and by their struggle. Socialism wishes to transform the state from an instrument of bourgeois domination into a means of achieving the new order, by actively implicating it

In nationalist political thinking, the state is a nation-state, justified by each nation's right of living inside its own state. Although nationalism does not openly declare itself in favor of a certain type of state, it implicitly proposes a maximal state, capable to secure the nation's unity and to contribute to the promotion of its specific spirituality⁸³.

Anarchism is even more radical then liberalism. Because the state has no use, it must be reduced to a minimum of functions concerning the physical protection of its members⁸⁴.

The liberal doctrine points out the advantages of a free market economy, any constraint being considered unnecessary and dangerous⁸⁵.

The laissez-faire was never only a liberal idea. The conservatives adopted it rapidly and supported it from their own perspective. It is also true that certain conservatives were worried by industrialization, which they consider to be a threat to tradition, due to the fact that the accumulation of capital and concurrence imply an increase of individualism⁸⁶. Edmund Burke's position on economy is unclear⁸⁷. Yet, taking into account that he was a Whig and he criticized the financial politics as well as the taxes imposed by French revolutionaries, I believe that Burke was rather in favor of a free economy.

Contrary to liberalism, socialism denies the virtues of the free market, which contributes to the emergence of inequalities between individuals, inequalities that lead to the appearance of classes and class struggle⁸⁸. That is why this ideology is favorable to a massive intervention of the state in economy, the state being the only one capable to organize and plan the exchanges so as to avoid all inequalities.

Because nation always means togetherness⁸⁹ and never separation, nationalism is predisposed to forms of economic dirigisme meant to conserve nation cohesion.

Economy finds the greatest liberty within anarchism an ideology fully trusting in individuals' capacity of making fair trade and of securing necessary goods⁹⁰.

Finally, it is possible to provide a table that reflects the structure of the five ideal ideological types.

Inside the table, the lines illustrate the inner structure of the five ideal ideological types. Thus, taking into account the diversity/conformity code, the specific aspects of each ideology can be analyzed, and a comparative approach of ideologies can be realized.

It is imperative to emphasize that, from the perspective of their generating principle, ideologies cannot be compared. As it has been observed, the generating principles are not submitted to the binary code and their comparison is not possible. Moreover, within each ideology, the problem of multicollinearity is emerging due to the fact that the generating principle determines each of the independent variables. For example, liberal equality is not of the same nature with anarchist equality; the first is equality-through-liberty, while the second is equality-through-private-judgment.

Still, the independent variables, excepting the generating principle, remain comparable if we take into consideration not their meanings that are evidently different, but the goals they are pursuing, which lead either to diversity or to conformity.

Considering the observations above, it is still possible to draw useful conclusions. Thus, liberalism and socialism should be considered border-ideologies, because they both use only a certain type of logic. Liberalism can be called the diversity ideology and socialism the conformity ideology.

The other three ideologies are placed between these two limits. Anarchism is different from liberalism through its generating principle and also through the political regime it supports. Conservatism and nationalism occupy intermediate positions: they are partly alike, with the exception of their generating principle and of the economic variable. The similarity between conservatism and nationalism is not unexpected,

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because they both propose an organic perspective on society, and also appraise everlasting, inherited values.

The columns give the possibility of making interesting observations. The most important of all is that generating principles are not submitted to the diversity/ conformity code, and there is no systemic relationship that could justify the existence of a system encompassing all ideologies. Thus, liberty does not, in any way, imply class struggle, as well as prudence and reasoning do not emerge from the same register of thinking. In other words, ideologies are born independently and, we might add, considering the experience of the twentieth century, they independently evolve and disappear.

Another interesting observation is that political regime is placed under the logic of diversity only within liberalism. Therefore, it seems appropriate to define any democratic regime that accepts conflicting values as liberal democracy.

Looking comparatively to a series of columns, the same configuration is emphasized. Thus, the columns of human nature, reason, freedom and state are identical, which suggests a possible relation of determination, in which human nature influences the other three variables. The columns of equality, property and justice are also identical, which indicates a relation of dependence, where equality requires a certain type of property and justice.

The small number of ideologies and independent variables studied in this article does not allow broader conclusions. In order to better understand the ideal ideological types, extended research is needed.

However, it is clear that the data gathered in this research shows that there is no system that could include all ideologies. The data only permits some hypotheses regarding the appearance and the inner structure of ideologies.

The table indicates the way in which an ideology is formed: starting from a generating principle, variables of social thinking are articulated⁹¹ on the diversity/conformity binary code.

The fact that these generating principles are not related suggests that their emergence is an expression of non-rationality, of the individual and collective imaginary.

Although parties are built on ideologies, there are probably other factors which play an important role in the forming of a party system. Hence, the historical moment, the characteristics of social, economic, cultural, politic or legal environment, have major influence on both the structure and the functions of a party system.

This article offers a comparative perspective on five ideal ideology types, but diversity/conformity code seems to be able to create for each ideology its "mirror image". As John Gray revealed, there are two faces of liberalism, a conformity one, and a diversity one:

"Liberalism contains two philosophies. In one, Tolerance is justified as a means to reaching truth. In this view, tolerance is an instrument of rational consensus, and a diversity of ways of life is borne in hoping that it is destined to disappear. In the other, tolerance is valued as an essential condition and divergent ways of living are welcomed as signs of a diversity within good living. The first conception supports an ideal of ultimate convergence of values, the latter an ideal of modus vivendi"⁹².

Relating our research to J. Gray's conclusion, a question to future studies emerges: is it possible to prove that any ideology has two faces? An eventual affirmative answer would give us the possibility to consider the balance diversity/conformity as a constancy for social thought and, why not, for the human mind.

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9. Goodwin, Barbara, Using political ideas, Fourth Edition, John Wiley & Sons, 1998.

11. Hayek, Friedrich, Road to Serfdom (Drumul cãtre servitude), Humanitas, Bucureti, 1997.

12. Heywood, Andrew, Political ideologies. An introduction, MacMillan Press Ltd., London, 1998

13. Karl, Marx, Friedrich Engels, „Manifesto of the Communist Party", printed according to the 1888 English Edition in Karl Marx and Frederick (sic!) Engels, Selected Works, in three volumes, volume one, Progress Publishers, Moscow, Fourth Printing, 1977, 98-137.

14. Lapierre, Jean William, Living without state? Essay on Political Power and Social Innovation (Viatã fãrã stat? Eseu asupra puterii politice i inovatiei sociale), Institutul European, Iasi, 1997.

15. Luhmann, Niklas, Politique et complexité. Les contributions de la théorie générale des systèmes, Les éditions du Cerf, Paris, 1999.

16. Luhmann, Niklas, Risk : A Sociological Theory, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 1993.

17. Luhmann, Niklas, Social systems, Standford University Press, California, 1996.

19. Mill, John Stuart, On Liberty, in On Liberty and Utilitarianism¸ with an Introduction by Isaiah Berlin, Oxford University Press, 1969, Republished by David Campbell Publishers Ltd., 1992.

20. Millon-Delsol, Chantal, Political ideas of the XXth century (Ideile politice ale secolului al XX-lea), Polirom, Iasi, 2002.

21. Oakeshott, Michael, Rationalism in Politics (Rationalismul în politicã), All, Bucureti, 1995.

22. Renan, Ernest, Qu'est-ce que une nation ?, Conférence faite en Sorbonne, Le 11 Mars 1882, Deuxième édition, Calmann Lévy, éditeur, Ancienne Maison Michel Lévy Frères , Paris, 1882

23. Ricoeur, Paul, "Science and Ideology" (ªtiintã i ideologie), in From Text to Action - essays of hermeneutics, (De la text la actiune - eseuri de hermeneuticã), Vol. II, Echinox, Cluj, 1999.

24. Salem-Wiseman, Jonathan, "Heidegger's Dasein and the liberal conception of the self", Political Theory, Vol. 31, August 2003, 533-557.

26. Vincent, Andrew, Modern political ideologies, second edition, Blackwell, Oxford, 1995.

27. Weber, Max, Theory and Method in Cultural Sciences (Teorie i metodã în tiintele culturii), Polirom, Iai, 2001.

* I would like to thank Professor Anton Carpinschi for his extremely helpful comments and suggestions.

¹ This is the reason why some authors argue that nationalism is not an ideology. See Barbara Goodwin, Using political ideas, Fourth Edition, John Wiley & Sons, 1998.

² Paul Ricoeur, "Science and Ideology" (ªtiintã i ideologie), in From Text to Action - Hermeneutical Essays, (De la text la actiune - eseuri de hermeneuticã), Vol. II, Echinox, Cluj, 1999, 285-286.

³ Anton Carpinschi, Contemporary Political Doctrines. A Typological Synthesis, "Al. I. Cuza" University Press, Iai, 1991, 122 125.

⁴ The hologram principle affirms that each part bears the same characteristics as the whole.

⁵ We shall mention only Pierre Clastres, Society against the State: Essays in Political Anthropology (Societatea înpotriva statului. Eseuri de antropologie politicã), Ararat, 1995, and Jean William Lapierre, Living without state? Essay on Political Power and Social Innovation (Viatã fãrã stat? Eseu asupra puterii politice i inovatiei sociale), Institutul European, Iai, 1997.

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⁶ See Niklas Luhmann, Social systems, Standford University Press, California, 1996, or Edgar Morin, Introduction à la pensée complexe, ESF, Paris, 1990.

⁷ Gregory G. Brunk, Why do Societies collapse? A Theory based on Self- Organized Criticality, Journal of Theoretical Politics, 14(2), 2002, 195 230.

⁸ Ioan Petru Culianu, The Dualistic Gnoses of the Occident (Gnozele dualiste ale Occidentului), Nemira, Bucureti, 1995. The analogy that I establish between gnosis and ideologies is not an accidental one. In my opinion, ideologies, as a modern phenomenon, replaced the pre-modern instruments for offering explanations of society's structure.

¹¹ Niklas Luhmann, Politique et complexite. Les contributions de la theorie generale des systemes, Les editions du Cerf, Paris, 1995, 51.

¹² Niklas Luhmann, Risk: A Sociological Theory, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 1993, 78.

¹³ Within this research, conformity is equal to non-diversity. I opted for the term "conformity", because it is a common term in ideological texts.

¹⁴ Max Weber, Theory and Method in Cultural Sciences (Teorie i metodã în tiintele culturii), Polirom, Iai, 2001, 47.

¹⁷Obviously, choosing other ideologies and other relevant texts could lead to different structural design and, subsequently, to different conclusions.

¹⁸ John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, in On Liberty and Utilitarianism, with an introduction by Isaiah Berlin, Oxford University Press, 1969, republished by David Campbell Publishers Ltd., 1992.

¹⁹ Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France and on the proceedings in certain societies in London relative to that event in a letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Paris, with an introduction by A. J. Grive, London, 1912.

²⁰ Karl Marx, Friederich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, in Selected Works in three volumes, Volume one, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977, 108-137. This edition is taking over the english one from 1888, edited by Friederich Engels.

²¹ Ernest Renan, Qu'est-ce que une nation? Conference faite en Sorbone, le 11 Mars 1882, Deuxieme edition, Paris, 1882.

²² William Godwin, Enquiry concerning political justice and its influence on Morals and Happiness, the second edition, corrected, in two volumes, volume II, London, printed for G.G. and J. Robinson, Paternoster Row, 1796. Is to be mentioned that, in fact, the final edition is the one from 1798, as George Crowder had specified.

²³ Amazingly, in 1882, E. Renan wrote: "les nations ne sont pas quelques chose d'éternel. Elles ont commencé, elles finiront. La confédération
européenne, probablement, les remplacera", E. Renan, Qu'est-ce que une nation?, 28.

²⁵ See Andrew Vincent, Modern political ideologies, Second edition, Blackwell, Oxford, 1995, 238-277.

²⁶ Jonathan Salem-Wiseman, "Heidegger's Dasein and the liberal conception of the self", Political Theory, Vol. 31, August 2003, 533-557.

²⁷ Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics (Rationalismul în politicã), All, Bucureti, 1995.

³⁰ Benjamin Constant, On Liberty. To antics and moderns, Institutul European, Iai, 1996.

³¹ Isaiah Berlin, "Two concepts of liberty" (Douã concepte de libertate), in Four essays on liberty (Patru eseuri despre libertate), Humanitas, Bucureti, 1996.

³⁴ The extreme situation equalitarianism is leading to is that of an absolute equality, because "where everything about a person is controllable, equality of opportunity and absolute equality seem to coincide" as Bernard Williams put it in "The Idea of Equality", Contemporary Political Philosophy. An Anthology, edited by Robert E. Goodin and Philip Petit, Blackwell, Oxford, 1997, 474.

³⁵ Norberto Bobbio, Liberalism and democracy (Liberalism i democratie), Nemira, Bucureti, 1998, 59-60.

³⁶ Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, New York, 1976, 219. Schumpeter uses the term depersonalized in the following sentence: "Industrial property and management have become depersonalized".

³⁷ Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (Constitutia libertãtii), Institutul European, Iai, 1998, 248.

³⁹ Chantal Millon-Delsol, Political ideas of the XXth century (Ideile politice ale secolului al XX-lea), Polirom, Iai, 2002, 155-189.

⁴⁰ Raymond Aron, Democracy and Totalitarianism (Democratie i totalitarism), ALL, Bucureti, 2001, p. 62.

⁴¹ Friedrich Hayek, Road to Serfdom (Drumul cãtre servitude), Humanitas, Bucureti, 1997.

⁴² "The subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of Will, so unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical Necessity; but Civil or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual" in J. St. Mill, On Liberty, 5.

⁴⁴ "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles" in K. Marx, Fr. Engels, Manifesto, 108.

⁴⁵ "Elle (la nation) supose un passé ; elle se résume pourtant dans le présent par un fait tangible: le consentement, le désir clairement exprimé de continuer la vie commune" in Ernest Renan, Qu'est-ce que une nation?, 27.

⁴⁶ „[...] it is nevertheless essential that we should at all times be free to cultivate the individuality, and follow the dictates, of our own judgment", W. Godwin, Enquiry, 491.

⁴⁷ "It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual in themselves, but by cultivating it, and calling it forth, within the limits imposed by the rights and interest of others, that human beings become a noble and beautiful object of contemplation". John St.Mill, On Liberty, 61.

⁴⁸ "To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections", Ed. Burke, Reflections, 44.

⁴⁹ Life conditions of the former society are already destroyed by the existence of proletariat.

⁵⁰ "Une nation est donc une grande solidarité, constituée par le sentiment des sacrifices qu'on a faits et de ceux qu'on est disposé à faire encore", Ernest Renan, Qu'est-ce que une nation?, 27.

⁵¹ " If we contemplate the human powers whether of body or mind, we shall find them much better suited to the superintendence of our private concerns and to the administering occasional assistance of others, than to the accepting the formal trust of superintending the affairs and watching for happiness of millions", W. Godwin, Enquiry, 6-7.

⁵² "Truth gains more even by errors of one who with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think". J. St. Mill, On Liberty, 34.

⁵³ "There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism". J. St. Mill, On Liberty, 8.

⁵⁴ "A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another". John St. Mill, On Liberty, 101.

⁵⁵ "What the state can usefully do is to make itself a central depositary, and active circulator and diffuser, of the experience resulting from many trials. Its business is to enable each experimentalist to benefit by the experiments of others; instead of tolerating no experiments but its own". John St. Mill, On Liberty, 105.

⁵⁶ "In the one case, he is an offender at our bar, and we are called on not only to sit in judgment on him, but, in one shape or another, to execute our own sentence; in the other case, it is not our part to inflict any suffering on him, except what may incidentally follow from our using the same liberty in the regulation of our own affairs, which we allow to him in his", J. St. Mill, On Liberty, 76.

⁵⁷ "They despise experience as the wisdom of unlettered men; and as for the rest, they have wrought under ground a mine that will blow up, at one grand explosion, all examples of antiquity, all precedents, charters, and act of parliament. They have "the rights of men". Against these there can be no prescription; against these no agreement is binding: these admit no temperament and no compromise: anything withheld from their full demand is so much of fraud and injustice", Ed. Burke, Reflections, 55.

⁵⁸ "One of the first motives to civil society, and which becomes one of its fundamental rules, is, that no man should be judge in his own case (…) That he may secure some liberty, he makes a surrender in trust of the whole of it". Ed. Burke, Reflections, 57.

⁵⁹ "... in which consist the true moral equality of mankind, and not in that monstrous fiction, which, by inspiring false ideas and vain expectations into men destined to travel in the obscure walk of laborious life, serves only to aggravate and embitter that real inequality, which it never can remove; and which the order of civil life establishes as much for the benefit of those whom it must leave in a humble state, as those whom it is able to exalt to a condition more splendid, but not more happy". Ed. Burke, Reflections, 35.

⁶⁰ "The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself". Ed. Burke, Reflections, 49.

⁶¹ "Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself". Ed. Burke, Reflections, 56.

⁶² "In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all" in K. Marx, Fr. Engels, Manifesto, 127.

⁶³ "He [the bourgeois] has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do a way with the status of woman as mere instruments of production" in K. Marx, Fr. Engels, Manifesto, 124.

⁶⁴ "In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property" in K. Marx, Fr. Engels, Manifesto, 120.

⁶⁵ "L'homme n'est esclave ni de sa race, ni de sa langue, ni de sa religion, ni de cours des fleuves ; ni de la direction des chaînes de montagnes. Une grande agrégation d'hommes, saine d'esprit et chuade de cœur, crée une

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conscience morale qui s'appelle une nation. Tandis que cette conscience morale prouve sa force par les sacrifices qu'exige l'abdication de l'individu au profit d'une communauté , elle est légitime, elle a le droit d'exister", Ernest Renan, Qu'est-ce que une nation?, 29.

⁶⁶ "Le Français n'est ni un Gaulois, ni un Franc, ni un Burgonde. Il est ce qui sorte de la grande chaudière où, sous la présidence du roi de France, ont fermenté ensemble les éléments les plus divers", Ernest Renan, Qu'est-ce que une nation?, 17.

⁶⁷ "Les plus nobles pays, l'Angletere, la France, l'Italie, sont ceux où le sang est plus mêlé", in Ernest Renan, Qu'est-ce que une nation?, 15.

⁶⁸"[…] all our voluntary actions are judgments of the understanding, and that actions of the most judicious and useful nature must infaillibly flow from a real and genuine conviction of truth" in W. Godwin, Enquiry, 8.

⁶⁹ " It has already appeared that one of the most essential of the rights of man, is his right to the forbearance of others; not merely that they shall refrain from every thing that may, by direct consequence, affect my life or the possession of my powers, but that they shall refrain from usurping upon my understanding, and shall leave me a certain equal sphere for exercise of my private judgment" in W. Godwin, Enquiry, 425.

⁷⁰ „[…] one man is not superior to another except so far as he is wiser or better" in W. Godwin, Enquiry, 49.

⁷¹ „The first ideea of property [nota mea property as benefit or pleasure p. 425] then is a deduction from right of private judgment; the first object of government is the preservation of this right [...] This is a privilege in the highest degree sacred; for its maintenance no exertions and sacrifices can be to great. Thus deep is the foundation of the doctrine of property" in W. Godwin, Enquiry, 443.

⁷² „All men love justice. All men are consciuos that man is a being of one common nature and feel the propriety of the treatment they receive from another being mesured by a common standard", W. Godwin, Enquiry, 455.

⁷³ "In politics, again, it is almost a common place, that a party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life (...)". J. St. Mill, On Liberty, 46.

⁷⁴ "(... ) our representation has been found perfectly adequate to all the purposes for which a representation of the people can be desired or devised ". Ed. Burke, op. cit., p. 54.

⁷⁵ "We know that the British House of Commons, without shutting its doors to any merit in any class, is, by the sure operation of adequate causes, filled with everything illustrious in rank, in descent, in hereditary and in acquired opulence, in cultivated talents, in military, civil, naval, and political distinction, that the country can afford". Ed. Burke, Reflections, 42.

⁷⁶ "In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things". K. Marx, Fr. Engels, Manifesto, 137.

⁷⁷ "We have seen above, the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy. The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise alll instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible". K. Marx, Fr. Engels, Manifesto, 126.

⁷⁸ "C'est la fusion des population qui les composent", Ernest Renan, Qu'est-ce que une nation?, 5.

⁷⁹ „The habits which are thus salutary to the individual, will be equally salutary in the transactions of communities", W. Godwinn, Enquiry, 403.

⁸⁰ "But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst ". John St. Mill, On Liberty, 18.

⁸¹ "Ill would our ancestors at the Revolution have deserved their fame for wisdom, if they had found no security for their freedom, but in rendering their government feeble in its operations and precarious in its tenure". Ed. Burke, Reflections, 28.

⁸² „Nevertheless in the most advanced countries, the following [measures nota mea] will be pretty generally applicable. 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive and graduated income tax [...]5. Centralisation of the credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exlusive monopoly. 6.Centralisation of the means of communication and transports in the hands of the State. 7.Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State. [...]10. Free education of all children in public schools.", K.Marx, Fr. Engels, Manifesto, 126-127.

⁸³ "Une nation est un principe spirituel, résultant des complications profondes de l'histoire, une famille spirituelle, non un groupe déterminé par la configuration du sol", Ernest Renan, Qu'est-ce que une nation?, 25.

⁸⁴ „Government can have no more than two legitimate purposes, the repression of injustice against individuals within the community, and the common defence against external invasion"- W. Godwin, Enquiry, 190.

⁸⁵ "Restrictions on trade, or on production for purposes of trade, are indeed restraints; and all restraint, quâ restraint, is an evil (…) ". J. St. Mill On Liberty, 91.

⁸⁶ Due to the critics concerning financial politics and taxes, seems that Burke does sustain free economy. Ed. Burke, Reflections, 223-239.

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⁸⁹ „ Je disais tout a l'heure : «avoir souffert ensemble»; oui, la souffrance en commun unit plus que la joie. En fait de souvenirs nationaux, les deuils valent mieux que les triomphes ; car ils imposent des devoirs ; ils commandent l'effort en commun ", Ernest Renan, Qu'est-ce que une nation?, 27.

⁹⁰ „It is now well known that commerce never flourishes so much, as when it is delivered from the guardianship of legislators and ministers, and is built upon the principle, not of forcing other people to by our commodities dear when they might purchase them elsewhere cheaper and better, but of ourselves feeling the necessity of recommending them by either intrinsic advantages", W.Godwin, Enquiry, 217-218.

⁹¹ Aside all variables used within the present research, other ones might be taken into consideration: tolerance, environment, external politics, etc.