Ideologies in Action

Ideologies in Action: Morphological Adaptation and Political Ideas explores how political ideas move across geographical, social and chronological boundaries. Focusing on North American and European case studies ranging from populist tax revolts through parenting advice manuals to online learning environments, the contributors propose new methods for understanding how political entrepreneurs, intellectuals and ordinary citizens deploy and redefine ideologies. All of these groups are consumers of ideology, drawing on pre-existing, transnational ideological concepts and narratives in order to make sense of the world. They are also all producers of ideology, adapting and reconfiguring ideological material to support their own political aims, desires and policy objectives. In doing so, they combine common conceptual elements – interpretations of freedom, order, national identity, democracy, community or equality – with sentiments and imaginations deeply embedded in cultural and social practice. To render these ideological practices intelligible, the contributors to this volume blend conceptual morphology, which emphasizes how meaning emerges in and through connections between political ideas, with close readings of the vernacular and experiential dimensions of ideologies in action. This book offers new insights into how ideologies in varied social and political settings can be decoded, and challenges hierarchical distinctions between ideological ‘producers’ and ‘consumers’. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Political Ideologies.