CHAPTER 7 Politics, Society and Identity
‘ Society is inside man and man is inside society.’
AR T H U R MI L L E R , The Shadow of the Gods (1958)
P R E V I E W To suggest, as textbooks tend to do, that politics takes place in a social context fails
to convey just how intimately politics and social life are related. Politics, by its very
nature, is a social activity, and it is viewed by some as nothing more than the
process through which the conﬂicts of society are articulated and, perhaps,
resolved. In this sense, society is no mere ‘context’, but the very stuff and substance
of politics itself. Although later chapters examine the interaction between society
and politics in relation to particular channels of communication, such as the media,
elections, political parties, interest groups and so on, this chapter focuses on the
broader political implications of how society is structured and how it has changed
and continues to change. For example, the transition from agrarian societies to
industrial societies and then to so-called post-industrial society has profoundly
altered levels of social connectedness and given rise to new political battle lines.
Not only has post-industrialism been associated with the declining signiﬁcance of
social class, but technological change, particularly in the ﬁelds of information and
communication, has altered the breadth and depth of connections between people,
as well as the nature of these connections. These and related factors have been
linked to the strengthening of individualism, with major political consequences.
Modern thinking about the relationship between politics and society is, nevertheless,
increasingly focused on the question of identity, many claim, giving rise to a
new politics of group self-assertion, or identity politics. This trend has helped,
amongst other things, to highlight the political signiﬁcance of race and ethnicity,
gender, religion and culture.
K E Y I S S U E S What have been the political implications of the emergence of postindustrial
societies?
Is the ‘information society’ a myth or a reality?
How has the growth of individualism affected community and social
cohesion?
Why has the politics of identity become so prominent in recent years?
How have race and ethnicity, gender, religion and culture provided the
basis for identity politics?
Is identity politics a liberating force or a political dead-end?
POLITICS AND SOCIETY
What do we mean by ‘society’? In its most general sense, a society is a collection
of people who occupy the same territorial area. However, not every group of
people constitutes a society. Societies are characterized by regular patterns of
social interaction. This suggests the existence of some kind of social structure;
that is, a usually stable set of interrelationships amongst a number of elements.
Moreover, ‘social’ relationships involve a sense of connectedness, in the form of
mutual awareness and, at least, a measure of cooperation. For instance, strictly
speaking, warring tribes do not constitute a ‘society’, even though they may live
in close proximity to one another and interact regularly. Societies are also usually
characterized by social divisions, in which groups and individuals occupy very
different positions, reﬂecting an unequal distribution of status, wealth and/or
power within the society. The nature of these divisions or cleavages, and the
political signiﬁcance of particular divisions (class, race, gender, age, religion and
so on), of course, differ from society to society.
In all cases, though, society can be seen to shape politics in a number of
important ways:
The distribution of wealth and other resources in society conditions the
nature of state power (as discussed in Chapter 3).
Social divisions and conﬂicts help to bring about political change in the
form of legitimation crises (as discussed in Chapter 4).
Society inﬂuences public opinion and the political culture (as discussed in
Chapter 8).
The social structure shapes political behaviour; that is, who votes, how they
vote, who joins parties and so on (as discussed in Chapters 9–11).
The nature of society, however, is one of the most contentious areas of political
and ideological debate, being no less controversial, in fact, than the attempt to
deﬁne the content of human nature. For example, whereas Marxists and others
hold that society is characterized by irreconcilable conﬂict, liberals tend to
emphasize that harmony exists amongst competing interests and groups.
Similarly, while liberals are inclined to view society as an artefact fashioned by
individuals to satisfy their various needs, conservatives have traditionally
portrayed it as organic, ultimately shaped by the forces of natural necessity.
Nevertheless, the nature of society, and therefore of social connectedness, have
changed signiﬁcantly over time. Modern society appears to be characterized by
a ‘hollowing out’ of social connectedness, a transition from the ‘thick’ connectedness
of close social bonds and ﬁxed allegiances to the ‘thin’ connectedness of
more ﬂuid, individualized social arrangements. These changes have been linked
to developments such as the advent of ‘post-industrialism’ and the fading signiﬁcance
of social class (see p. 153), the emergence of so-called ‘information societies’,
and the growth of individualism (see p. 158).
From industrialism to post-industrialism
Industrialization has been the most powerful factor shaping the structure and
character of modern societies. It has, for instance, contributed to a dramatic
152 P O L I T I C S
CONCEPT
Status
Status is a person’s
position within a
hierarchical order. It is
characterized by the
person’s role, rights and
duties in relation to the
other members of that
order. As status is a
compound of factors
such as honour, prestige,
standing and power, it is
more difficult to
determine than an
essentially economic
category such as class.
Also, because it is a
measure of whether
someone is ‘higher’ or
‘lower’ on a social scale,
it is more subjective.
Although status
hierarchies have faded in
significance in modern
societies, they continue
to operate in relation to
factors such as family
background, gender, and
race and ethnicity.
increase in geographical mobility through the process of urbanization (by the
early 2000s, most of the world’s then 6.3 billion people had come to live in towns
and cities, rather than in rural areas). In the process, the nature of social connectedness
underwent signiﬁcant changes. One of the most inﬂuential attempts to
convey this transition was undertaken by the German sociologist Ferdinand
Tönnies (1855–1936). Tönnies distinguished between Gemeinschaft and
Gesellschaft. The advance of industrialization also changed the structure of
society, with economically-based class divisions displacing the ﬁxed social hierarchies
of more traditional societies, which were usually based on status and
linked to land ownership. Social class thus emerged as the central organizing
principle of society.
However, any analysis of the relationship between class and politics is bedevilled
by problems, not least about how social class should be deﬁned and the role
that social classes play. The leading protagonists of class politics have come from
the Marxist tradition. Marxists regard class as the most fundamental, and politically
the most signiﬁcant, social division. As Marx (see p. 41) put it at the beginning
of the Communist Manifesto ([1848] 1967), ‘the history of all hitherto
existing societies is the history of class struggle’. From the Marxist perspective,
capitalist societies are dominated by a ‘ruling class’ of property owners (the bourgeoisie)
who oppress and exploit a class of wage slaves (the proletariat). This gives
rise to a two-class model of industrial capitalism that emphasizes irreconcilable
conﬂict and progressive polarization, with social classes being the key actors on
the political stage. Marx predicted that, as capitalist development would be characterized
by deepening crises, the proletariat would eventually achieve class
consciousness and fulﬁl its destiny as the ‘gravedigger’ of capitalism. The proletariat
would thus be transformed from a ‘class in-itself’ (an economically deﬁned
category) and become a ‘class for-itself’ (a revolutionary force).
Decline of class politics
The Marxist two-class model has, however, been discredited by the failure of
Marx’s predictions to materialize, and by declining evidence of class struggle, at
least in advanced capitalist societies. Even by the end of the nineteenth century, it
was clear that the class structure of industrial societies was becoming increasingly
complex, and that it varies from system to system, as well as over time. Max Weber
(see p. 82) was one of the ﬁrst to take stock of this shift, developing a theory of
stratiﬁcation that acknowledged economic or class differences, but also took
account of the importance of political parties and social status. In drawing attention
to status as a ‘social estimation of honour’ expressed in the lifestyle of a
group, Weber helped to prepare the ground for the modern notion of occupational
class, widely used by social and political scientists. For some, however, the
late twentieth century was characterized by the ﬁnal eclipse of class politics. By the
1960s, neo-Marxists such as Herbert Marcuse (see p. 42) were lamenting the
deradicalization of the urban proletariat, and looked instead to the revolutionary
potential of students, women, ethnic minorities and the developing world. The
traditional link between socialism and the working class was formally abandoned
in works such as André Gorz’s Farewell to the Working Class (1982).
Most commentators agree that, behind the declining political significance
of class, lies the emergence of so-called ‘post-industrial societies’. One of the
P O L I T I C S , S O C I E T Y A N D I D E N T I T Y 153
CONCEPT
Social class
A class is, broadly, a group
of people who share a
similar social and
economic position. For
Marxists, class is linked to
economic power, which is
defined by the
individual’s relationship
to the means of
production. From this
perspective, the key class
division is between the
owners of productive
wealth (the bourgeoisie)
and those who live off
the sale of their labour
power (the proletariat).
Non-Marxist definitions
of class are usually based
on income and status
differences between
occupational groups.
Distinctions are thus
made between ‘middle’
class (or non-manual)
workers and ‘working’
class (or manual) workers.
Gemeinschaft: (German)
Community; social ties typically
found in traditional societies
and characterized by natural
affection and mutual respect.
Gesellschaft: (German)
Association; the loose, artiﬁcial
and contractual bonds typically
found in urban and industrial
societies.
Class consciousness: A
Marxist term denoting a
subjective awareness of a
class’s objective situation and
interests; the opposite of ‘false
consciousness’.
Post-industrial society: A
society based on service
industries, rather than on
manufacturing industries, and
accompanied by a significant
growth in the white-collar
workforce.
key features of such societies has been the process of de-industrialization,
reflected in the decline of labour-intensive ‘heavy’ industries such as coal, steel
and shipbuilding. These tended to be characterized by a solidaristic culture
rooted in clear political loyalties and, usually, strong union organization. In
contrast, the expanding service sectors of economies foster more individualistic
and instrumentalist attitudes. Post-industrial societies are therefore
distinguished by growing atomism and the weakening of social connectedness.
The term ‘post-industrialism’ was popularized by Daniel Bell in The
Coming of Post-industrial Society (1973). For Bell, post-industrial societies
were characterized, amongst other things, by the transition from a labour
theory of value to a knowledge theory of value, as implied by the idea of an
‘information society’ (see p. 156), discussed below. Piore and Sabel (1984)
interpreted the transition as part of a shift from a Fordist to a post-Fordist era.
In this light, the eclipse of the system of mass production and mass consumption,
the chief features of Fordism, has produced more pluralized and fluid
class formations.
The shrinkage of the traditional working class has led to the development of
so-called ‘two-thirds, one-third’ societies, in which the two-thirds are relatively
prosperous, a product of a marked tendency towards social levelling associated
with mass education, rising afﬂuence and consumerism (Hutton, 1995). One of
the most inﬂuential attempts to discuss the political implications of this development
is found in J. K. Galbraith’s The Culture of Contentment (1992).
Galbraith (see p. 155) pointed to the emergence in modern societies, at least
amongst the politically active, of a ‘contented majority’ whose material afﬂuence
and economic security encourages them to be politically conservative. This
contented majority, for instance, has provided an electoral base for the antiwelfarist
and tax-cutting policies that have become fashionable since the 1970s.
Debate about the plight of the one-third and about the nature of social inequality
in modern societies has increasingly focused not so much on social class, but
more on what has been called the ‘underclass’. The underclass suffers less from
poverty as it has been traditionally understood (deprivation of material necessities)
and more from social exclusion, reﬂected in cultural, educational and
social impediments to meaningful participation in the economy and society.
However, attitudes towards social differentiation and debates about the appropriate
response to the growth of an underclass are rooted in deeper disagreements
about the causes and political implications of social inequality (see p.
156).
New technology and the ‘information society’
One of the features most commonly associated with post-industrialism is the
increased importance that is placed on knowledge and information generally, on
intellectual capital (ideas), rather than material capital (things). This is often
seen as a consequence of what has been called the ‘third’ modern information
revolution, which has witnessed the advent of so-called ‘new’ media; notably,
mobile phones, cable and satellite television, cheaper and more powerful
computers, and, most importantly, the internet. (The ﬁrst revolution involved
the development of the telegraph, telephone and radio, while the second centred
on television, early-generation computers and satellites). The third information
154 P O L I T I C S
CONCEPT
Fordism,
post-Fordism
Fordism refers to the
large-scale massproduction
methods
pioneered by Henry Ford
in Detroit in the USA.
These used mechanization
and highly-regimented
production-line labour
processes to produce
standardized, relatively
cheap products. Fordist
societies were structured
largely by solidaristic class
loyalties. Post-Fordism
emerged as the result of
the introduction of more
flexible microelectronicsbased
machinery that
gave individual workers
greater autonomy and
made possible innovations
such as subcontracting
and batch production.
Post-Fordism has been
linked to decentralization
in the workplace and a
greater emphasis on
choice and individuality.
Atomism: The tendency for
society to be made up of a
collection of self-interested and
largely self-sufficient
individuals, operating as
separate atoms.
Underclass: A poorly
defined and politically
controversial term that refers,
broadly, to people who suffer
from multiple deprivation
(unemployment or low pay,
poor housing, inadequate
education and so on)
Internet: A global ‘network
of networks’ that connects
computers around the world;
‘virtual’ space in which users
can access and disseminate
online information.
revolution has concerned the technologies of connectivity, and have been
particularly signiﬁcant. The extraordinary explosion that has occurred in the
quantity of information and communication exchanges, made possible by
digital technologies, has marked, some argue, the birth of the ‘information age’
(in place of the industrial age). Society has been transformed into an ‘information
society’ and the economy has become a ‘knowledge economy’, even a
‘weightless’ economy.
The emergence of new media has helped to alter both the scope and the
nature of social connectedness. As far as the scope of social connectedness is
concerned, new media have given huge impetus to the process of globalization.
Indeed, so-called ‘hyperglobalist’ theorists subscribe to a kind of technological
determinism in arguing that accelerated globalization became inevitable once
new information and communication technologies (ICT) became widely available
(Ohmae, 1989). While the industrial age (and the ﬁrst two communications
revolutions) created new mechanisms for communicating at a national, rather
than a local level (via national newspapers, telephone systems, radio and television
services, and so on), the technologies of the information age are, by their
nature, transnational: mobile phones, satellite television and the internet
(usually) operate regardless of borders. This, in turn, has facilitated the growth
of transborder groups, bodies and institutions, ranging from non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) (see p. 248), protest movements and transnational corporations
(TNCs) (see p. 149) to international criminal organizations and global
terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda. Not only do states struggle to control and
constrain groups and organizations that have transborder structures, but they
also have a greatly reduced capacity to control what their citizens see, hear and
know. For instance, although states such as China, Burma and Iran have, at
various times, tried to restrict transborder communications via mobile phones
and the internet, the pace of technological change is very likely to weaken such
controls in the longer term. The former US Presisent Bill Clinton likened China’s
attempts to control the internet to trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.
Not only do information societies connect more people to more other
people – and, increasingly, to people who live in other societies – but the nature
P O L I T I C S , S O C I E T Y A N D I D E N T I T Y 155
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006)
Canadian economist and social theorist. Following wartime service as the Director of
the US Strategic Bombing Survey, Galbraith became a professor of economics at
Harvard University and served as the US Ambassador to India, 1961–63. Galbraith
was closely identified with the Democratic Party, and was perhaps the leading
modern exponent of Keynesian economics (and certainly its most innovative advocate).
He became one of the USA’s most eminent social commentators. In The
Affluent Society (1958), Galbraith highlighted the contrast between private affluence
and public squalor, arguing that economic resources are often used in the wasteful
gratification of trivial wants. The New Industrial State (1967) advanced a critique of
corporate power in the USA. His other major works include The Culture of
Contentment (1992).
Connectivity: A computer
buzzword that refers to the
links between one device
(usually a computer) and
others, affecting the speed, ease
and extent of information
exchanges.
Knowledge economy: An
economy in which knowledge is
the key source of
competitiveness and
productivity, especially through
the application of information
and communications
technology.
156 P O L I T I C S
The issue of social equality lies at the heart of ideological debate and argument. While left-wingers tend to support equality,
seeing it as the key to social justice, right-wingers typically accepted inequality as inevitable if not desirable. How does
material inequality, particularly income inequality, affect politics and society? Do governments have a moral obligation to
promote social equality, and, if so, on what grounds?
YES NO
Debating . . .
Does social equality matter?
Inequality and social dysfunction. Socialists have long
argued that social inequality breeds resentment, hostility
and strife, even, in the case of Marxists, associating class
inequality with inevitable social revolution. Such
concerns have also been borne out by empirical studies
that link inequality to a range of negative personal and
social outcomes. Comparative studies of ‘high’ inequality
countries, such as the USA, the UK and Portugal, and
‘low’ inequality countries, such as Japan and the
Scandinavian states, suggests that inequality leads to
shorter, unhealthier and unhappier lives, reflected in
increased rates of, for instance, teenage pregnancies,
violence, obesity, imprisonment and addiction
(Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010).
Justice as equality. The moral case in favour of equality
includes that poverty and social disadvantage impair
people’s opportunities and life chances. As social differentiation
more often results from unequal treatment by
society than from unequal natural endowment, justice
dictates that social rewards should generally be distributed
more equally, and that this should be done through
policies of welfare and redistribution. According to John
Rawls (see p. 45), if people were unaware of their
personal attributes and qualities, most would favour
equality over inequality, as their fear of being destitute
would outweigh their desire for great wealth.
Social citizenship. Social equality (or, more accurately,
reduced social inequality) is a necessary condition for
healthy democracy and meaningful citizenship. Citizens
have to enjoy freedom from poverty, ignorance and
despair if they are to participate fully in the affairs of
their community, an idea embodied in the concept of
social citizenship. Groups such as women, ethnic minorities,
the poor and the unemployed, commonly regard
themselves as ‘second class citizens’ if social disadvantage
prevents their full civic and political participation (see p.
444). Social inequality thus correlates with low voter
turnout and fuels dissent and civil unrest.
Inequality and economic growth. Liberal political economists
link social equality to economic stagnation. This
occurs because social ‘levelling’ serves to cap aspirations
and remove the incentive for enterprise and hard work.
The sterility and inertia of communist states was thus in
large part a consequence of high levels of job security
and low income differentials. In contrast, the USA, the
world’s leading economy, demonstrates how inequality
promotes economic vigour, as the rich can always get
richer and the poor can always become more poor.
Indeed, by strengthening incentives, inequality may actually
beneﬁt the poor, whose living standards may be
higher in relatively unequal societies than they are in
relatively equal societies.
Justice as inequality. Inequality is justiﬁable quite simply
because people are different: they have different aspirations,
talents, dispositions and so forth. To treat them as
equals must therefore result in injustice. As Aristotle (see
p. 6) put it, injustice arises not only when equals are
treated unequally, but also when unequals are treated
equally. Justice may require equality of opportunity,
giving each person the same starting point in life, but
certainly not equality of outcome. In line with the principle
of meritocracy, the talented and hardworking should
rise, while the lazy and feckless should fall. Pursuing
equality thus involves penalizing talent.
Politics of envy. The socialist principle of equality is
based on social envy, the desire to have what others
possess. Instead of encouraging the less well-off to focus
on improving their own living standards, it encourages
them to resent the wealthy, seeing them, somehow, as the
architects of their misfortune. As the politics of envy
grows, individual freedom is diminished, both through
the emergence of an extensive system of manipulation
and ‘social engineering’, and by the fact that redistribution,
in effect, legalizes theft (as government transfers
wealth from one group of people to another without
their consent).
P O L I T I C S , S O C I E T Y A N D I D E N T I T Y 157
CONCEPT
Information
society
An information society is
a society in which the
creation, distribution and
manipulation of
information are core
economic and cultural
activities, underpinned, in
particular, by the wider
use of computerized
processes and the
internet. Information and
knowledge are thus seen
to have replaced physical
capital as the principal
source of wealth. In an
‘information age’, or
‘cyber age’, the principal
responsibility of
government is to improve
education and training,
both to strengthen
international
competitiveness and to
widen opportunities for
the individual.
Network: A means of coordinating
social life through
loose and informal relationships
between people or
organizations, usually for the
purpose of knowledge
dissemination or exchange.
of those connections has also changed. One of the most inﬂuential attempts to
explain this was advanced in Manuel Castells’ (1996) notion of the ‘network
society’. Whereas the dominant mode of social organization in industrial societies
had been hierarchies, more complex and pluralized information societies
operate either on the basis of markets (reﬂecting the wider role of market
economics, as well as the impact of economic globalization, as discussed in
Chapter 6), or on the basis of looser and more diffuse networks. According to
Castells, businesses increasingly function as ‘network corporations’. Many
TNCs, for instance, are organized as networks of franchises and subsidiaries.
Similar trends can be witnessed in social and political life. For example, hierarchical
bodies such as trade unions and pressure groups have increasingly lost
inﬂuence through the emergence of network-based social movements (see
p. 260), such as the anti-globalization movement and the environmental move-
ment.
Nevertheless, opinions are divided over the implications of the wider use of
new communications technologies for politics and society. Dating back to Ivan
Illich’s pioneering Tools for Conviviality (1973), the potential for computerbased
technologies to give individual citizens independent access to specialized
knowledge, allowing them to escape from dependency on technocratic elites,
has been lauded. In this light, new media are a source of citizen empowerment
and (potentially) a signiﬁcant constraint on government power. Critics, in
contrast, point out that the internet does not discriminate between good ideas
and bad ones. It provides a platform for the dissemination not only of sociallyworthwhile
and politically-neutral views, but also of political extremism, racial
and religious bigotry, and pornography of various kinds. A further danger has
been the growth of a ‘cult of information’, whereby the accumulation of data
and information becomes an end in itself, impairing the ability of people to
distinguish between information, on the one hand, and knowledge, experience
and wisdom, on the other (Roszak, 1994). Such a criticism is linked to allegations
that ‘surﬁng’ the internet actually impairs people’s ability to think and
learn by encouraging them to skim and jump from one piece of information to
the next, ruining their ability to concentrate. New media may therefore be
making people stupid, rather than better-informed (Carr, 2008, 2010). The
impact of new media on democracy and governance is examined in greater
detail in Chapter 8.
No such thing as society?
Although the advent of post-industrialism and the spread of IT-based, network
relationships have encouraged the‘thinning’ of social connectedness, at the heart
of this trend lies a deeper process: the rise of individualism. In many parts of the
world, the notion of ‘the individual’ is now so familiar that its political and social
signiﬁcance, as well as its relatively recent origins, are often overlooked. In traditional
societies, there was typically little idea of individuals having their own
interests, or possessing personal and unique identities. Rather, people were seen
as members of the social groups to which they belonged: their family, village,
tribe, local community and so on. Their lives and identities were largely determined
by the character of these groups in a process that had changed little from
one generation to the next. The rise of individualism is widely seen as a conse-
quence of the establishment of industrial capitalism as the dominant mode of
social organization, ﬁrst in western societies and, thanks to globalization,
beyond. Industrial capitalism meant that people were confronted by a broader
range of choices and social possibilities. They were encouraged, perhaps for the
ﬁrst time, to think for themselves, and to think of themselves in personal terms.
A peasant, for example, whose family may always have lived and worked on the
same piece of land, became a ‘free man’ and acquired some ability to choose who
to work for, or maybe the opportunity to leave the land altogether and look for
work in the growing towns or cities. As individuals, people were more likely to
be self-seeking, acting in accordance with their own (usually material) interests,
and they were encouraged to be self-sufﬁcient, in the sense of taking responsibility
for their economic and social circumstances. This gave rise to the doctrine of
economic individualism.
A child of industrial capitalism, individualism has been further strengthened
by the growth, especially since the 1960s, of the consumer society and, later, by
the general shift in favour of neoliberal economics, as examined in Chapter 6,
Whereas earlier versions of industrial capitalism had linked people’s status in
society to their productive roles (most clearly demonstrated by the importance
traditionally placed on social class, a consumer society, or consumer capitalism),
encouraged people to deﬁne themselves increasingly in terms of what they own
and how much they own.While an emphasis on production tends to foster social
solidarity, in that it highlights what people have in common with other people,
consumerism encourages people to think and act more in individual terms,
focusing on personal gratiﬁcation, even seeing consumption as a form of selfexpression.
Daniel Bell (1976) interpreted this as evidence of a cultural contradiction
that lies at the heart of the capitalist system, arguing that the ethic of
acquisitiveness and immediate gratiﬁcation (which encourages consumers to
consume) was winning out over the ethic of asceticism and delayed gratiﬁcation
(which encourages workers to work). The growing prominence of neoliberalism
(see p. 144) from the 1980s onwards, especially in countries that had embraced
free-market thinking with the greatest enthusiasm, such as the USA and the UK,
further strengthened individualism. This occurred both through the tendency to
extol the virtues of entrepreneurialism and individual self-striving, creating,
critics argued, a philosophy of ‘greed is good’, and through the rolling back of
welfare, based on the desire for people to ‘stand on their own two feet’. Margaret
Thatcher’s famous assertion, that ‘There is no such thing as society . . . only individual
men and women and their families’, is often seen to encapsulate the thrust
of neoliberal individualism.
However, there is deep disagreement over the implications of the spread of
individualism. For many, the spread of individualism has profoundly weakened
community and our sense of social belonging. For instance, academic sociology
largely arose in the nineteenth century as an attempt to explore the (usually
negative) social implications of the spread of industrialization and urbanization,
both of which had encouraged increasing individualism and competition. The
French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) thus emphasized the degree to
which the weakening of social codes and norms had resulted in the spread of
‘anomie’. For Durkheim (1897), this had led to an increase in the number of
suicides in industrial societies. Similar misgivings about the rise of individualism
have been expressed by modern communitarian thinkers, who have linked the
158 P O L I T I C S
CONCEPT
Individualism
Individualism is the belief
in the supreme
importance of the
individual over any social
group or collective body.
As such, individualism
has two key implications.
First, each individual has
a separate, indeed
unique, identity,
reflecting his or her
‘inner’ or personal
qualities. This is evident
in the idea of
individuality, and is linked
to the notion of people
as self-interested, and
largely self-reliant,
creatures. Second, all
individuals share the
same moral status as
‘persons’, irrespective of
factors such as race,
religion, nationality, sex
and social position. This is
reflected in the idea of
rights, and especially in
the doctrine of human
rights (see p. 342).
Economic individualism:
The belief that individuals are
entitled to autonomy in
matters of economic decisionmaking;
economic individualism
is lo0sely linked to property
rights.
Community: A principle or
sentiment based on the
collective identity of a social
group; bonds of comradeship,
loyalty and duty.
Anomie: A weakening of
values and normative rules,
associated with feelings of
isolation, loneliness and
meaninglessness.
growth of egoism and atomism to a weakening of social duty and moral responsibility.
Communitarian theorists, such as Michael Sandel (1982) and Alisdair
MacIntyre (1981), have thus argued that, in conceiving the individual as logically
prior to and ‘outside’ the community, liberal individualism has legitimized selfishness
and greed, and downgraded the importance of the public good. Robert
Putnam (2000) and others have associated such trends with a decline of social
capital (see p. 175) across many modern societies, as discussed at greater length
in Chapter 8.
On the other hand, liberal theorists, in particular, have viewed rising individualism
as a mark of social progress. In this view, the forward march of individualism
has been associated with the spread of progressive, even
‘enlightened’, social values; notably, toleration and equality of opportunity. If
human beings are thought of, first and foremost, as individuals, they must be
entitled to the same rights and the same respect, meaning that all forms of
disadvantage or discrimination, based on factors such as gender (see p. 163),
race (see p. 112), colour, creed, religion or social background, are viewed as
morally questionable, if not indefensible. All modern societies have, to a
greater or lesser extent, been affected by the spread of such ideas, not least
through the changing gender roles and family structures that have resulted
from the spread of feminism. The link between individualism and the expansion
of choice and opportunity has also been highlighted by the spread in
modern societies of social reflexivity (Giddens, 1994). This has occurred for
a variety of reasons, including the development of mass education; much
wider access to information through radio, television, the internet and so on;
and intensified cultural flows within and between societies. However, social
reflexivity brings both benefits and dangers. On the one hand, it has greatly
widened the sphere of personal freedom, the ability of people to define who
they are and how they wish to live, a tendency reflected in the increasing domination
of politics by so-called ‘lifestyle’ issues. On the other hand, its growth
has coincided with a strengthening of consumerism and materialist ethics.
Nevertheless, it is important not to overstate the advance of individualism or,
for that matter, the erosion of community. Individualism has been embraced
most eagerly in the English-speaking world, where it has been most culturally
palatable, given the impact of Protestant religious ideas about personal salvation
and the moral beneﬁts of individual self-striving. In contrast, Catholic societies
in Europe and elsewhere have been more successful in resisting individualism
and in maintaining the ethics of social responsibility, reﬂected in a stronger
desire to uphold welfare provision as both an expression of social responsibility
and a means of upholding social cohesion. However, the best examples of
successful anti-individualist societies can be found in Asia, especially in Japan,
China and Asian ‘tiger’ states such as Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore. This
has led to a debate about the viability of a set of so-called‘Asian values’, and especially
those associated with Confucianism (see p. 278), as an alternative to the
individualism of western, liberal societies. In addition, the image of modern
societies being increasingly dominated by ‘thin’ forms of social connectedness is
undermined by evidence of the resurgence of ‘thick’ social connectedness in
many societies; notably, through the rise of identity politics and the growing
importance of ethnicity, gender (see p. 160), culture and religion in many parts
of the world.
P O L I T I C S , S O C I E T Y A N D I D E N T I T Y 159
CONCEPT
Consumerism
Consumerism is a psychic
and social phenomenon
whereby personal
happiness is equated
with the acquisition and
consumption of material
possessions. Its growth
has been shaped by the
development of new
advertising and
marketing techniques
that took advantage of
the emergence of the
mass media and the
spread of mass affluence.
Rising consumerism has
important socioeconomic
and cultural
implications. Whereas
‘productionist’ societies
emphasize the values of
discipline, duty and hard
work (the Protestant
work ethic, for example),
consumer societies
emphasize materialism,
hedonism and
immediate, rather than
delayed, gratification.
Social reflexivity: The
tendency of individuals and
other social actors to reflect,
more or less continuously, on
the conditions of their own
actions, implying higher levels
of self-awareness, selfknowledge
and contemplation.
IDENTITY POLITICS
Rise of identity politics
One of the prominent features of modern politics has been a growing recognition
of the signiﬁcance of cultural differences within society, often portrayed as ‘identity
politics’, or the ‘politics of difference’. Identity politics is an orientation
towards social or political theorizing, rather than a coherent body of ideas with a
settled political character. It seeks to challenge and overthrow oppression by
reshaping a group's identity through what amounts to a process of politicocultural
self-assertion. This reflects two core beliefs. The first is that group
marginalization operates through stereotypes and values developed by dominant
groups that structure how marginalized groups see themselves and are seen by
others. These typically inculcate a sense of inferiority, even shame. The second
belief is that subordination can be challenged by reshaping identity to give the
group concerned a sense of pride and self-respect (for instance,‘black is beautiful’
or ‘gay pride’). In seeking to reclaim a ‘pure’ or ‘authentic’ sense of identity, identity
politics expresses deﬁance against marginalization and disadvantage, and
serves as a source of liberation. This is what gives identity politics its typically
combative character and imbues it with psycho-emotional force.
The foundations for identity politics were laid by the postcolonial theories
that emerged from the collapse of the European empires in the early post-1945
period. The signiﬁcance of postcolonialism (see p. 52) was that it sought to challenge
and overturn the cultural dimension of imperial rule by establishing the
legitimacy of non-western – and sometimes anti-western – political ideas and
traditions. For example, Franz Fanon (1926–61) developed a theory of imperialism
(see p. 427) that gave particular emphasis to the psychological dimension of
colonial subjugation. For Fanon (1968), decolonization was not merely a political
process, but one through which a new ‘species’ of man is created. He argued
that only the cathartic experience of violence is powerful enough to bring about
this psycho-political regeneration. Edward Said (see p. 161) developed a critique
of Eurocentrism through his notion of ‘orientalism’ (Said, 1978). Orientalism
highlights the extent to which western cultural and political hegemony over the
rest of the world, but over the Orient in particular, had been maintained through
elaborate stereotypical ﬁctions that belittled and demeaned non-western people
and culture. Examples of this would include notions such as the ‘mysterious
East’, ‘inscrutable Chinese’ and ‘lustful Turks’. However, manifestations of identity
politics are varied and diverse. This is because identity can be shaped around
many principles. The most important of these are:
race and ethnicity
gender
religion
culture.
Race and ethnicity
Racial and ethnic divisions are a signiﬁcant feature of many modern societies.
There is nothing new, however, in the link between race and politics. The ﬁrst
160 P O L I T I C S
Identity politics: A style of
politics that seeks to counter
group marginalization by
embracing a positive and
assertive sense of collective
identity.
Eurocentrism: A culturally
biased approach to
understanding that treats
European, and generally
western, ideas, values and
assumptions as ‘natural’.
Race: A group of people who
share a common ancestry and
‘one blood’: ‘racial’ differences
linked to skin and hair colour
and facial features have no
scientific basis (see p. 112).
CONCEPT
Ethnicity
Ethnicity is the sentiment
of loyalty towards a
distinctive population,
cultural group or
territorial area. The term
is complex because it has
both racial and cultural
overtones. The members
of ethnic groups are
often seen, correctly or
incorrectly, to have
descended from common
ancestors, and the groups
are thus thought of as
extended kinship groups,
united by blood. More
commonly, ethnicity is
understood as a form of
cultural identity, albeit
one that operates at a
deep and emotional level.
An ‘ethnic’ culture
encompasses values,
traditions and practices
but, crucially, it also gives
a people a common
identity and sense of
distinctiveness, usually by
focusing on their origins.
explicitly racialist (see p. 120) political theories were developed in the nineteenth
century against the background of European imperialism. Works such as
Gobineau’s Essay on the Inequality of Human Races (Gobineau, [1855] 1970)
and H. S. Chamberlain’s The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century ([1899]
1913) attempted to provide a pseudoscientiﬁc justiﬁcation for the dominance
of the ‘white’ races of Europe and North America over the ‘black’, ‘brown’ and
‘yellow’ peoples of Africa and Asia. Anti-Semitic (see p. 121) political parties and
movements emerged in countries such as Germany, Austria and Russia in the
late nineteenth century. The most grotesque twentieth-century manifestation of
such racialism was found in German Nazism, which, through the so-called
‘Final Solution’, attempted to carry out the extermination of European Jewry.
Apartheid (Afrikaans for ‘apartness’) in South Africa consisted of the strict
segregation of whites and non-whites between the election of the Nationalist
Party in 1948 and the establishment of a non-racial democracy under the leadership
of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1994. Elsewhere, racialism
has been kept alive through campaigns against immigration, organized, for
example, by the British National Party (BNP) and Le Pen’s Front National (FN)
in France.
Very different forms of racial or ethnic politics have, nevertheless, developed
out of the struggle against colonialism (see p. 122) in particular, and as a result
of racial discrimination and disadvantage in general. Indeed, in seeking to challenge
economic and social marginalization, black nationalism in the USA and
elsewhere constituted the prototype for identity politics, especially through its
emphasis on ‘consciousness raising’. The origins of the black consciousness
movement date back to the early twentieth century and the emergence of a ‘back
to Africa’ movement, inspired by activists such as Marcus Garvey (see p. 162).
Black politics, however, gained greater prominence in the 1960s with an upsurge
in both the reformist and revolutionary wings of the movement. In its reformist
guise, the movement took the form of a struggle for civil rights that reached
national prominence in the USA under the leadership of Martin Luther King
(1929–68) and the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured
People (NAACP). The strategy of protest and non-violent civil disobedience was,
nevertheless, rejected by the emerging Black Power movement, which supported
black separatism and, under the leadership of the Black Panther Party, founded
P O L I T I C S , S O C I E T Y A N D I D E N T I T Y 161
Consciousness raising:
Strategies to remodel social
identity and challenge cultural
inferiority by an emphasis on
pride, self-worth and self-
assertion.
Edward Said (1935–2003)
A Jerusalem-born US academic and literary critic, Said was a leading literary critic, a
prominent advocate of the Palestinian cause and a founding ﬁgure of postcolonial
theory. From the 1970s onwards, he developed a humanist critique of the western
Enlightenment that uncovered its links to colonialism and highlighted ‘narratives of
oppression’, cultural and ideological biases that disempowered colonized peoples by
representing them as the non-western ‘other’. He is best known for the notion of
‘orientalism’, which operated through a ‘subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice
against Arabo-Islamic peoples and culture’. His key texts include Orientalism (1978)
and Culture and Imperialism (1993).
162 P O L I T I C S
in 1966, promoted the use of physical force and armed confrontation. Of more
enduring significance in US politics, however, have been the Black Muslims, who
advocate a separate creed based on the idea that black Americans are descended
from an ancient Muslim tribe. Founded in 1930, the Black Muslims were led for
over 40 years by Elijah Muhammad (1897–1975), and they counted amongst
their most prominent activists in the 1960s the militant black leader Malcolm X
(1925–65). Renamed the Nation of Islam, the movement continues to exert
influence in the USA under the leadership of Louis Farrakhan. Other manifestations
of ethnic consciousness include the secessionist nationalist movements
that sprang up in many parts of western Europe and North America in the 1960s
and early 1970s. This was most evident in Quebec in Canada, Scotland and Wales
in the UK, Catalonia and the Basque area in Spain, Corsica in France, and
Flanders in Belgium.
The rise of ethnic consciousness has by no means occurred only in the West.
Although ethnic rivalry (often portrayed as ‘tribalism’) is sometimes seen as an
endemic feature of African and Asian politics, it is better understood as a
phenomenon linked to colonialism (see p. 122). However, the divide-and-rule
policies of the colonial period often bequeathed to many newly-independent
‘nations’ a legacy of bitterness and resentment. In many cases, this was subsequently
exacerbated by the attempt of majority ethnic groups to consolidate
their dominance under the guise of ‘nation-building’. Such tensions, for instance,
resulted in the Biafran war in Nigeria in the 1960s, a long-running civil war in
Southern Sudan, and a resort to terrorism by the predominantly Christian
Tamils in Sri Lanka. The worst recent example of ethnic bloodshed, however,
occurred in Rwanda in 1994, where an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate
Hutus were slaughtered in an uprising by militant Hutus. The spectre of ethnic
rivalry and regional conflict has also been created by the collapse of communism
in Eastern Europe. In the former USSR, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, for
example, this led to state collapse and the creation of a series of new states.
Nevertheless, these newly-created states have themselves been subject to deep
ethnic rivalries and tensions. This has been demonstrated by the rebellion of the
Chechens in Russia, and the fragmentation of the former Yugoslav republic of
Bosnia into ‘ethnically pure’ Muslim, Serb and Croat areas.
Marcus Garvey (1887–1940)
Jamaican political thinker and activist, and an early advocate of black nationalism.
Garvey was the founder in 1914 of the Universal Negro Improvement Association
(UNIA). He left Jamaica for New York in 1916, where his message of black pride and
economic self-sufficiency gained him a growing following, particularly in ghettos
such as Harlem.Although his black business enterprises failed, and his call for a return
to Africa was largely ignored, Garvey’s emphasis on establishing black pride and his
vision of Africa as a ‘homeland’ provided the basis for the later Black Power movement.
Rastafarianism is also based largely on his ideas. Garvey was imprisoned for
mail fraud in 1923, and was later deported, eventually dying in obscurity in London.
Gender politics
An awareness of the political significance of gender dates back to the emergence
of so-called‘first-wave feminism’, which emerged in the nineteenth century and
was shaped, above all, by the campaign for female suffrage: the right to vote. Its
core belief was that women should enjoy the same legal and political rights as
men, with a particular emphasis being placed on female suffrage on the grounds
that if women could vote, all other forms of other sexual discrimination or prejudice
would quickly disappear. This essentially liberal form of feminism was
nevertheless ‘difference-blind’, in that its goal was the achievement of genderless
‘personhood’, allowing women and men to transcend ‘difference’. However, the
emergence of second-wave feminism in the 1960s and 1970s served to recast
feminism as a form of identity politics. Radical feminists, such as Kate Millett
(1970) and Mary Daly (1978), argued that gender divisions are the deepest and
most politically significant of all social cleavages. All contemporary and historical
societies are therefore seen to be characterized by patriarchy (see p. 65); that
is, the dominance of men and the subordination of women, usually rooted in the
rule of the husband-father within the family. From this perspective, nothing
short of a ‘sexual revolution’ that would fundamentally transform cultural and
personal relationships, as well as economic and political structures, could bring
an end to gender inequality.
The emphasis within feminism on identity and difference increased with the
emergence of strains within radical feminism that emphasized the fundamental
and unalterable differences between women and men. An example of this was the
‘pro-woman’ position, which has been particularly strong in France and the USA.
This position extols the positive virtues of fertility and motherhood, and rejects
the idea that women should try to be ‘more like men’. Instead, they should recognize
and embrace their sisterhood, the bonds that link them to all other women.
The pro-woman position therefore accepts that women’s attitudes and values are
different from men’s, but implies that, in certain respects, women are superior,
possessing qualities of creativity, sensitivity and caring which men can never fully
appreciate or develop. The acknowledgement of deep, and possibly ineradicable,
differences between women and men also led some feminists to argue that the
roots of patriarchy lie within the male sex itself. In this view, ‘all men’ are physically
and psychologically disposed to oppress ‘all women’; in other words, ‘men
are the enemy’. In Against Our Will (1975), Susan Brownmiller therefore argued
that men dominate women through a process of physical and sexual abuse. Men
have created an ‘ideology of rape’, which amounts to a ‘conscious process of
intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear’. Such a line of
argument leads in the direction of feminist separatism, whereby women retreat
from corrupt and corrupting male society. For some radical feminists, this had
important implications for women’s personal and sexual conduct. Only women
who remain celibate or choose lesbianism can regard themselves as‘woman-identified
women’. In the slogan attributed to Ti-Grace Atkinson: ‘feminism is the
theory; lesbianism is the practice’ (Charvet, 1982).
Since the 1990s, a younger generation of feminist theorists have sought to
articulate a feminist ‘third wave’, distinct from the campaigns and demands of
the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s. This has usually involved a more
radical engagement with the politics of difference, especially going beyond those
P O L I T I C S , S O C I E T Y A N D I D E N T I T Y 163
First-wave feminism: The
early form of feminism, dating
from the mid-nineteenth
century to the 1960s, which
sought to achieve gender
equality in the areas of legal
and political rights, particularly
suffrage rights.
Second-wave feminism:
The form of feminism that
emerged in the 1960s and
1970s, and was characterized
by a more radical concern with
‘women’s liberation’, including,
and perhaps especially, in the
private sphere.
CONCEPT
Gender
Gender refers to social
and cultural distinctions
between males and
females, (as opposed to
‘sex’ which highlights
biological, and therefore
ineradicable, differences
between men and
women). Gender is
therefore a social
construct, usually based
on stereotypes of
‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’
behaviour. Feminists
typically emphasize the
distinction in order to
demonstrate that
physical or biological
differences (sexual
differences) need not
mean that women and
men must have different
social roles and positions
(gender differences). In
short, gender equality is
based on the belief that
sexual differences have
no social or political
significance.
strands within radical feminism that had emphasized that women are different
from men, to a concern with differences between women. In so doing, thirdwave
feminists have tried to rectify an over-emphasis within earlier forms of
feminism on the aspirations and experiences of middle-class, white women in
developed societies, meaning that the contemporary women’s movement is characterized
by diversity, hybridity, and even contradiction. This has allowed the
voices of, amongst others, low-income women, women in the developing world
and ‘women of colour’ to be heard more effectively. Black feminism has been
particularly effective in this respect, challenging the tendency within conventional
forms of feminism to ignore racial differences and suggesting that women
endure a common oppression by virtue of their sex. Especially strong in the
USA, black feminism portrays sexism and racism as linked systems of oppression,
and highlights the particular and complex range of gender, racial and
economic disadvantages that confront women of colour.
Religion and politics
The impact of religion on political life had been progressively restricted by the
spread of liberal culture and ideas, a process that has been particularly prominent
in the industrialized West. Nevertheless, liberal secularism is by no means
an anti-religious tendency. Rather, it is concerned to establish a ‘proper’ sphere
and role for religion. Emphasizing the importance of the public/private divide,
it has sought to confine religion to a private arena, leaving public life to be organized
on a strictly secular basis. However, the emergence of new, and often more
assertive, forms of religiosity, the increasing impact of religious movements and,
most importantly, a closer relationship between religion and politics, especially
since the 1970s, has confounded the so-called ‘secularization thesis’. This was
dramatically demonstrated by the 1979 ‘Islamic Revolution’ in Iran, which
brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power as the leader of the world’s first
Islamic state. Nevertheless, it soon became clear that this was not an exclusively
Islamic development, as ‘fundamentalist’ movements emerged within
Christianity, particularly in the form of the so-called ‘new Christian Right’ in the
USA, and within Hinduism and Sikhism in India. Other manifestations of this
164 P O L I T I C S
Hybridity: A condition of
social and cultural mixing; the
term derives from crossbreeding
between genetically
dissimilar plants or animals.
Secularism: The belief that
religion should not intrude into
secular (worldly) affairs, usually
reflected in the desire to
separate church from state.
Secularization thesis: The
theory that modernization is
invariably accompanied by the
victory of reason over religion
and the displacement of
spiritual values by secular ones.
Ayatollah Khomeini (1900–89)
Iranian cleric and political leader. Khomeini was one of the foremost scholars in the
major theological centre of Qom until he was expelled from Iran in 1964. His return
from exile in 1979 sparked the‘Islamic Revolution’, leaving theAyatollah (literally,‘gift
of Allah’) as the supreme leader of the world’s first Islamic state until his death.
Breaking decisively with the Shi’a tradition that the clergy remain outside politics,
Khomeini’s world-view was rooted in a clear division between the oppressed (understood
largely as the poor and excluded of the developing world) and the oppressors
(seen as the twin Satans: the USA and the USSR, capitalism and communism). Islam
thus became a theo-political project aimed at regenerating the Islamic world by
ridding it of occupation and corruption from outside.
include the spread of US-style Pentecostalism in Latin America, Africa and East
Asia; the growth in China of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that has been
taken by the authorities to express anti-communism and is reportedly supported
by 70 million people; the regeneration of Orthodox Christianity in postcommunist
Russia; the emergence of the Aum Shinrikyo Doomsday cult in
Japan; and growing interest across western societies in myriad forms of Eastern
mysticism, and spiritual and therapeutic systems (yoga, meditation, Pilates,
Shiatsu and so forth).
Although religious revivalism can be seen as a consequence of the larger
upsurge in identity politics, religion has proved to be a particularly potent means
of regenerating personal and social identity in modern circumstances. As
modern societies are increasingly atomistic, diffuse and pluralized, there is,
arguably, a greater thirst for the sense of meaning, purpose and certainty that
religious consciousness appears to offer. This applies because religion provides
believers with a world-view and moral vision that has higher, or indeed supreme,
authority, as it stems from a supposedly divine source. Religion thus defines the
very grounds of people’s being; it gives them an ultimate frame of reference, as
well as a moral orientation in a world increasingly marked by moral relativism.
In addition, religion generates a powerful sense of social solidarity, connecting
people to one another at a ‘thick’ or deep level, as opposed to the ‘thin’ connectedness
that is conventional in modern societies.
The link between religion and politics has been clearest in relation to Islam,
where it has been reflected in an upsurge in Islamic fundamentalism, often
termed ‘Islamism’. Fundamentalism in Islam does not imply a belief in the literal
truth of the Koran, for this is accepted by all Muslims and, in that sense, all
Muslims are fundamentalists. Instead, it means an intense and militant faith in
Islamic beliefs as the overriding principles of social life and politics, as well as of
personal morality. Islamic fundamentalists wish to establish the primacy of religion
over politics. In practice, this means the founding of an ‘Islamic state’, a
theocracy, ruled by spiritual rather than temporal authority, and applying the
Shari’a. The Shari’a lays down a code for legal and religious behaviour, including
a system of punishment for most crimes, as well as rules of personal conduct for
both men and women. However, Islam should be distinguished from Islamism.
Islamism refers either to a political creed based on Islamic ideas and principles,
or to the political movement that has been inspired by that creed. It has had three
core aims. First, it promotes pan-Islamic unity, distinguishing Islamism from
traditional political nationalism. Second, it seeks the purification of the Islamic
world through the overthrow of ‘apostate’ leaders of Muslim states (secularized
or pro-western leaders). Third, it calls for the removal of western, and especially
US, influence from the Muslim world, and possibly a wider politico-cultural
struggle against the West itself. The rise of Islamism has sometimes been interpreted
as evidence of an emerging ‘clash of civilizations’ between Islam and the
West, a notion that has profound implications for both global politics and for
western societies which have significant Muslim communities (see p. 168).
Cultural diversity
One of the most powerful factors underpinning the global significance of identity
politics has been the growth of international migration, particularly since
P O L I T I C S , S O C I E T Y A N D I D E N T I T Y 165
Moral relativism: A
condition in which there is
deep and widespread
disagreement over moral issues
(see p. 453).
Theocracy: Literally, rule by
God; the principle that religious
authority should prevail over
political authority, usually
through the domination of
church over state.
Shari’a (Arabic): Literally, the
‘way’ or ‘path’; divine Islamic
law, based on principles
expressed in the Koran.
Clash of civilizations
thesis:The idea that twentyfirst
century conflict will be
primarily cultural in character,
rather than ideological, political
or economic (Huntington, 1996).
CONCEPT
Islamism
Islamism (also called
‘political Islam’ or ‘radical
Islam’) is a politicoreligious
ideology, as
opposed to a simple
belief in Islam. Although
Islamist ideology has no
single creed or political
manifestation, certain
common beliefs can be
identified, as follows.
(1) Society should be
reconstructed in line with
the ideals of Islam.
(2) The modern secular
state should be replaced
by an ‘Islamic state’.
(3) The West and western
values are viewed as
corrupt and corrupting,
justifying, for some, the
notion of a jihad against
them. However, distinct
Sunni and Shi’a versions
of Islamism have been
developed, the former
linked to Wahhabism, the
latter to Iran’s ‘Islamic
Revolution’.
166 P O L I T I C S
the 1950s. This has given an increasing number of societies a distinctively multicultural
character, with examples of still highly homogenous countries, such as
Japan, becoming rarer. Ethnic minority communities developed in many
European countries as a result of the end of empire and of deliberate attempts
by governments to recruit workers from abroad to help in the process of postwar
reconstruction. Since the 1980s, however, there has been a significant intensification
of cross-border migration across the globe, creating what some have seen
as a ‘hyper-mobile planet’. This has happened for two main reasons. First, there
have been a growing number of refugees (reaching a peak of about 18 million in
1993), which resulted from war, ethnic conflict and political upheaval in areas
ranging from Algeria, Rwanda and Uganda to Iraq and Afghanistan. Second,
economic globalization (see p. 142) has intensified pressures for international
migration, both because people have been ‘pushed’ to migrate through the
disruption that has been caused to many developing economies by the pressures
generated by global markets and because they have been ‘pulled’ to migrate by
the growth of a stratum of low-paid, low-skilled and low-state jobs in developed
societies that indigenous populations are increasingly unwilling to fill. This has
led to a position in which, for instance, roughly one-third of the total population
of the Gulf states, and two-thirds of their working populations, are (predominantly
female) non-nationals, largely from South and Southeast Asia. Such
trends have significantly strained national identity in many countries and
contributed to the development of so-called ‘transnational communities’, sometimes
call diasporic communities.
As a growing number of countries have come to accept as an irreversible fact
that their populations have a multi-ethnic, multireligious or multicultural character,
various attempts have been made to reconcile cultural diversity and
identity-related difference with civic and political cohesion. However, how is
political stability to be maintained in societies in which the monocultural bonds
of political nationalism have been fatally undermined? Some, indeed, view this
as the central political challenge of the twenty-ﬁrst century. Attempts to balance
diversity against cohesion are usually dubbed ‘multiculturalism’ (see p. 167).
Multiculturalism is a broad and often ill-deﬁned term, which may simply stress
cultural differentiation that is based on race, ethnicity or language. However,
multiculturalism not only recognizes the fact of cultural diversity; it also holds
that such differences should be respected and publicly afﬁrmed.
Although the USA, as an immigrant society, has long been a multicultural
society, the cause of multiculturalism in this sense was not taken up until the rise
of the black consciousness movement and the advent of ‘affirmative action’.
Australia has been ofﬁcially committed to multiculturalism since the early 1970s,
in recognition of its increasing ‘Asianization’ through an acceptance of the rights
of its aboriginal peoples. In New Zealand, multiculturalism is linked to a recognition
of the role of Maori culture in forging a distinctive national identity. In
Canada, the country that has demonstrated the greatest ofﬁcial commitment to
multiculturalism, it is associated with attempts to achieve reconciliation between
French-speaking Quebec and the English-speaking majority population (see p.
114), and an acknowledgement of the rights of the indigenous Inuit peoples. In
the UK, multiculturalism recognizes the existence of signiﬁcant black and Asian
communities, and abandons the demand that they assimilate into white society.
In Germany, this applies to Turkish groups.
CONCEPT
Transnational
community
A transnational
community is a
community whose
cultural identity, political
allegiances and
psychological
orientations cut across or
transcend national
borders. Transnational
communities can
therefore be thought of
as ‘deterritorialized
nations’ or ‘global tribes’.
The strength of
transnational allegiances
depends on factors such
as the circumstances of
migration and the length
of stay in the new
country. Nevertheless,
transnational
communities typically
have multiple
attachments, as
allegiances to a country
of origin do not preclude
the formation of
attachments to a country
of settlement.
Diaspora: Literally,
dispersion (from the Hebrew);
implies displacement or
dispersal by force, but is also
used to refer to the
communities that have arisen
as a result of such dispersal.
Affirmative action: Reverse
or ‘positive’ discrimination
which accords preferential
treatment to groups on the
basis of their past disadvantage.
Assimilation: The process
through which immigrant
communities lose their cultural
distinctiveness by adjusting to
the values, allegiances and
lifestyles of the ‘host’ society.
The central theme within all forms of multiculturalism is that individual
identity is culturally embedded, in the sense that people largely derive their
understanding of the world and their framework of moral beliefs from the
culture in which they live and develop. Distinctive cultures therefore deserve to
be protected or strengthened, particularly when they belong to minority or
vulnerable groups. This leads to the idea of minority or multicultural rights,
sometimes seen as ‘special’ rights. Will Kymlicka (1995) identiﬁed three kinds of
minority rights: self-government rights, polyethnic rights and representation
rights. Self-government rights belong, Kymlicka argued, to what he called
‘national minorities’, peoples who are territorially concentrated, possess a shared
language and are characterized by a ‘meaningful way of life across the full range
of human activities’. Examples would include the Native Americans, the Inuits in
Canada, the Maoris in New Zealand and the Aborigines in Australia. In these
cases, he argued, the right to self-government should involve the devolution of
political power, usually through federalism (see p. 382), although it may extend
to the right of secession and, therefore, to sovereign independence. Polyethnic
rights are rights that help ethnic groups and religious minorities, that have developed
through immigration to express and maintain their cultural distinctiveness.
They would, for instance, provide the basis for legal exemptions, such as the
exemption of Jews and Muslims from animal slaughtering laws, the exemption
of Sikh men from wearing motorcycle helmets, and the exemption of Muslim
girls from school dress codes. Special representation rights attempt to redress the
under-representation of minority or disadvantaged groups in education, and in
senior positions in political and public life. Such rights, which in the USA take
the form of afﬁrmative action, imply the practice of reverse or ‘positive’ discrimination,
which attempts to compensate for past discrimination or continuing
cultural subordination. Their justiﬁcation is not only that they ensure full and
equal participation, but also that they are the only means of guaranteeing that
public policy reﬂects the interests of all groups and peoples, and not merely
those of traditionally dominant groups.
However, there is neither a settled view of how multicultural societies should
operate, nor of how far multiculturalism should go in positively endorsing
communal diversity. There are three main models of multiculturalism:
Liberal multiculturalism
Pluralist multiculturalism
Cosmopolitan multiculturalism.
Liberal multiculturalism is rooted in a commitment to freedom and toleration:
the ability to choose one’s own moral beliefs, cultural practices and way of
life, regardless of whether these are disapproved of by others. However, the liberal
model of multiculturalism only provides a qualiﬁed endorsement of communal
diversity, highlighting the dangers that may also be implicit in identity politics. In
particular, liberals are only prepared to tolerate views, values and social practices
that are themselves tolerant; that is, to those that are compatible with personal
freedom and autonomy. Liberal multiculturalists may therefore be unwilling to
endorse practices such as female circumcision, forced (and possibly arranged)
marriages and female dress codes, however much the groups concerned may
believe that these are crucial to the maintenance of their cultural identity.
P O L I T I C S , S O C I E T Y A N D I D E N T I T Y 167
CONCEPT
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is used
as both a descriptive and
a normative term. As a
descriptive term, it refers
to cultural diversity
arising from the
existence within a society
of two or more groups
whose beliefs and
practices generate a
distinctive sense of
collective identity. As a
normative term,
multiculturalism implies
a positive endorsement
of communal diversity,
based on either the right
of cultural groups to
respect and recognition,
or the alleged beneﬁts to
the larger society of
moral and cultural
diversity.
Multiculturalism, in this
sense, acknowledges the
importance of beliefs,
values and ways of life in
establishing a sense of
self-worth for individuals
and groups alike.
168 P O L I T I C S
Events: In 2011, estimates of the number of
Muslims living in the European Union ranged from
15 to 20 million. In the early post-1945 period,
immigration mainly came from former colonies. The
majority of France’s Muslim population (about 6
million – the largest in Europe) thus have a heritage
in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, while most of the
UK’s Muslims (almost 2 million) came originally
from Pakistan. Later Muslim immigration has often
been linked to war and civil strife in countries such
as Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.
Nevertheless, in recent years several incidents have
raised issues about the relationship between western
European states in particular and, at least, elements
in their Muslim populations, including the following:
the 1989 ‘Rushdie affair’, in which Muslim protesters in
several countries denounced Salman Rushdie’s The
Satanic Verses as blasphemous and Ayatollah Khomeini
issued a fatwa condemning the author to death
the 2004 murder of Theo van Gogh, a Dutch film director
who had collaborated on a film criticizing the treatment
of women in Muslim countries
the 2004 Madrid train bombings, carried out by an ‘alQaeda-inspired’
group
the 2005 ‘Danish cartoons affair’, in which the publication
of 12 cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad by the
newspaper Jyllands-Posten provoked protests across the
Muslim world
the 2005 London bombings, carried out by so-called
‘home-grown’ Islamist terrorists.
Significance: The existence of significant Muslim populations
in the West has been seen by some as a threat to
social cohesion and possibly national security (Caldwell,
2009). Such a view is in line with Huntington’s (1996)
‘clash of civilizations’ thesis, which suggests that Islamic
values and beliefs are fundamentally incompatible with
those of the liberal-democratic West. Clashes over issues
such as whether protecting ‘sacred’ beliefs justifies the
curtailment of free speech and press freedom thus highlight
a more profound divide over whether the public
realm should be strictly secular, or shaped by Islamic ideas
and values. As, in this view, Islam is anti-liberal and antipluralist,
the politics of cultural recognition threatens to
entrench Muslim separatism and sow the seeds of civic
conflict. The most appropriate response to Muslim
communities in the West is therefore to reject multiculturalism
and insist on a strategy of integration. Such a
stance has been adopted most clearly in France, where, in
2004, a law was passed forbidding the wearing of any
‘ostentatious’ religious articles, including Islamic headscarves,
in state-funded schools, with a ban on the
wearing of face-covering headgear, including niqads and
other veils, in public places coming into force in 2011.
Others, however, view multiculturalism as the most appropriate
response to what has been called the ‘Muslim question’
(Modood, 2007; Parekh, 2008). From this perspective,
the image of Muslims in the West as an ‘enemy within’ is
based on a serious misrepresentation of Islam and of the
views of Muslim populations. Surveys, for instance, consistently
show that Muslims in the Europe are predominantly
satisfied with the secular nature of western society and
hold political views little different from other cultural
groups. Moreover, when Muslim identity politics has
become entangled with extremism, even violence, this is
better explained by social or political factors than by
cultural incompatibility. Muslim communities in Europe,
for example, tend to be socially marginalized, facing higher
unemployment and poverty rates, and having lower
educational achievement than the general population.
Moreover, international developments since 9/11 have
seen a range of western states participating in wars
against and occupations of Muslim countries. In this light,
the politics of cultural recognition is likely to weaken the
trend towards extremism and violence, by giving Muslim
populations a clearer stake in society, while a strategy of
‘enforced’ integration threatens to be counter-productive,
being perceived as evidence of ‘Islamophobia’ and helping
to deepen alienation and resentment.
POLITICS IN ACTION . . .
Muslims in the West: an internal clash of civilizations?
Pluralist multiculturalism provides ﬁrmer foundations for a theory of
cultural diversity because it is based on the idea of value pluralism. Developed
in particular in the writings of Isaiah Berlin, this holds that people are bound to
disagree about the ultimate ends of life. As values conﬂict, the human predicament
is inevitably characterized by moral conﬂict. In this view, liberal or western
beliefs, such as support for personal freedom, democracy and secularization,
have no greater moral authority than rival beliefs. This form of multiculturalism
also focuses more explicitly on unequal power relations in society, particularly
the extent to which the dominant culture in western societies reﬂects the values
and interests of the majority group and so subordinates minority communities.
Cultural recognition therefore counters oppression and serves to expose the
corrupt and corrupting nature of western culture, values and lifestyles, believed
to be tainted by the inheritance of colonialism and racialism, or by materialism
and ‘godless’ permissiveness. Such thinking has been especially controversial in
relation to Muslim minorities in western societies (see p. 168).
Cosmopolitan multiculturalism endorses cultural diversity and identity politics,
but, in contrast to both liberal and pluralist views, sees them more as transitional
states in a larger reconstruction of political sensibilities and priorities. This
form of multiculturalism celebrates diversity on the grounds of what each
culture can learn from other cultures, and because of the prospects for personal
self-development offered by a world of wider cultural opportunities and lifestyle
choices. Its acceptance of multiple identities and hybridity lead to a kind of pickand-mix
multiculturalism, which portrays society as a ‘melting pot’, as opposed
to a ‘cultural mosaic’ of separate ethnic or religious groups.
P O L I T I C S , S O C I E T Y A N D I D E N T I T Y 169
Value pluralism: The theory
that there is no single,
overriding conception of the
‘good life’ but, rather, a number
of competing and equally
legitimate conceptions.
Isaiah Berlin (1909–97)
UK historian of ideas and philosopher. Berlin was born in Riga, Latvia, and came to
Britain in 1921. He developed a form of liberal pluralism that was grounded in a lifelong
commitment to empiricism and influenced by the ideas of counterEnlightenment
thinkers, including Vico (1668–1744), Herder (see p. 110) and
Alexander Herzen (1812–70). Basic to Berlin’s philosophical stance was a belief in
moral pluralism, the idea that conflicts of values are intrinsic to human life. His bestknown
political writing is Four Essays on Liberty (1958), in which he extolled the
virtues of ‘negative’ freedom over ‘positive’ freedom. Berlin’s writings constitute a
defence of western liberalism against totalitarianism.
Questions for discussion
Why has social connectedness become ‘thinner’?
Has class conflict in modern society been resolved
or merely suppressed?
Has the network society substituted ‘virtual’
communities for real communities, and with what
consequences?
Is individualism the enemy of social solidarity and
cohesion?
Does consumerism liberate people or enslave
them?
What are the main factors explaining the growth
of identity politics?
Is identity politics a liberating or oppressive force?
To what extent has the recognition of ethnic and
gender divisions produced meaningful political
change?
Do modern societies need to be protected from
cultural diversity?
SUMMARY
Societies are characterized by regular patterns of social interaction. However, the ‘thick’ social connectedness
of close bonds and fixed allegiances is giving way to the ‘thin’ connectedness of more fluid, individualized
social arrangements. This reflects, in large part, the transition from industrial to so-called post-industrial
society, and, particularly, the declining importance of social class.
Post-industrialism is characterized, amongst other things, by an increasing emphasis on knowledge and information
generally, with the advent of the internet and the wider use of computer-based technologies having
given rise to the ‘information society’. Not only do information societies connect more people to more other
people, but the nature of those connections has also changed, especially through the development of looser
and more diffuse networks.
At the heart of the trend towards the ‘thinning’ of social connectedness is the rise of individualism.
Individualism was a child of industrial capitalism, but it has been boosted by a growing ethic of materialism
and consumerism, given greater prominence, from the 1980s onwards, by the wider influence of neoliberal or
free-market thinking. However, the spread of individualism may weaken community and people’s sense of
social belonging, a trend that may be particularly evident in the English-speaking world.
The rise of identity politics has been evident in the growing recognition of cultural and other forms of difference,
especially providing a vehicle through which groups can challenge marginalization by adopting a more
positive and assertive sense of identity. Nevertheless, identity politics does not have a settled political character
and it has been shaped around many principles, the most important of which are race and ethnicity,
gender, religion and culture.
Attempts to regenerate personal and social identity have given rise to new, and sometimes more radical,
forms of politics. These include forms of ethnic assertiveness, often associated with black nationalism;
second-wave feminism and a stronger emphasis on issues of gender equality and gender difference; religious
revivalism, commonly expressed through fundamentalist movements, especially in Islam; and multiculturalism
and the ‘celebration’ of cultural diversity.
170 P O L I T I C S
Further reading
Bauman, Z. Liquid Modernity (2000). An examination
of the changing nature of human connectedness in
the light of the emergence of ‘liquid’ or ‘light’
modernity.
Beck, U. and E. Beck-Gernsheim, Individualization:
Institutionalized Individualism and its Social and
Political Consequences (2001). A critical examination
of the process of individualization that examines
both its causes and its wide-ranging
consequences.
Kumar, K. From Post-Industrial to Post-Modern Society:
New Theories of the Contemporary World (2004). A
lucid and insightful study of the idea of the information
society and theories of post-Fordism and
post-modernity.
Parekh, B. A New Politics of Identity: Political Principles
of an Interdependent World (2008). A wide-ranging
analysis of the impact of global interconnectedness
on ethnic, religious, national and other identities.