{"id":30,"date":"2025-08-07T19:59:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T19:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/routledgelearning.com\/politicsuk\/?p=30"},"modified":"2025-10-10T10:44:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T10:44:47","slug":"chapter-4","status":"publish","type":"content","link":"https:\/\/routledgelearning.com\/politicsuk\/part-2-defining-the-political-world\/chapter-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 4"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tHome\n<\/span><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Chapter 4<\/h1>\n\n\n

Ideology and the liberal tradition<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Chapter Summary<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We perceive the political world via a complex set of prisms or concepts; they enable us to more clearly understand political ideas. Ideology is a kind of applied philosophy. It can be classified on the right\u2013left continuum, a flawed but still much-used form, and there are alternatives to it. The liberal tradition, based on rights, freedom and representation, developed from the seventeenth century and set the ground rules for political activity during the nineteenth and twentieth. Classical liberalism elevated the market economy, but the New Liberalism, which was concerned to protect society from its excesses, still provides the rationale for the welfare state and the mixed economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 John Rawls produced a philosophical defence of liberal political structures, and Fukuyama adduced the theory that liberalism had finally triumphed. However, the faltering of West-ern economies over the past half century has posed new questions to both of these philosophical positions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Learning Objectives<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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  • To explain the key concepts relevant to the study of political ideas in the UK.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • To clarify the concept of ideology and the way it is classified.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • To trace the transition of liberal ideas from their \u2018revolutionary\u2019 inception to accepted orthodoxy.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • To show how classical liberalism developed into new liberalism, the creed that set the social agenda for the next century and embedded the \u2018enabling\u2019 or \u2018procedural\u2019 values of a democratic society.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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    Quizzes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Test your knowledge with the Chapter 4 quizzes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    Quiz<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n