Local vs general ideologies

A normal ingredient of modern political life

Bibliographic Data

ID6293333
AuthorsRaymond Boudon (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, corresponding author)
Year1999
Volume4
Issue2
Pages141-161
Publication date1999-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Political Ideologies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1356-9317 • E-ISSN: 1469-9613
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13569319908420793
OpenAlexW2038682568
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited9

Although we no longer live in an era of strong ideologies, we currently observe a host of local ideologies: on all kinds of subjects people believe in false, fragile and sometimes socially and politically dangerous ideas. Should they, however, be considered as a normal ingredient of political life? How are they to be explained? False beliefs have always been an important topic in the human sciences. Three main types of classical theories can be identified on this subject. Herbert Simon is known for having created a ‘satisficing’ theory of decision, where he proposed to substitute ‘satisficing’ or, as we would rather say, satisfying, for optimizing. It is argued here that the local ideologies that permeate political life as well as the false and fragile beliefs that permeate ordinary life should be analyzed along the same lines. The theory explains the ‘biases’ discovered by cognitive psychologists, it solves the difficult problem of explaining magical beliefs; it explains the many strange collective beliefs that we currently observe in our societies; it explains ideological beliefs

Economics · Epistemology · Ideology · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Rationality · Satisficing · Sociology · Subject (documents · Computer Science · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Social Representations and Identity

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