Political Ideologies

This book aids the reader in identifying and evaluating the assumptions underlying a wide range of public matters. It will help enhance the readers' understanding of major public issues, so that they can ask more incisive and better-informed questions.

The book explains, gives examples of, and evaluates twelve major political ideologies, thereby identifying the main theories and assumptions underlying a wide range of public matters and policies. It will enable readers to develop their existing capacity to understand major public issues. It shows how the major political ideologies give rise to, or in some cases specify, a particular view of human beings, with significant consequences for the ways we organise our political systems and our forms of political participation. In each chapter, the author provides a brief historical introduction and then outlines the key points of the ideology concerned. The chapters follow a broad conceptual sequence, beginning with a historical backdrop, and adopt a chronological sequence where required.

The book will be useful to students, researchers and teachers of political science, political theory, public administration, philosophy, public policy, law, governance, journalism, and management among others. It will be equally indispensable to general readers, social activists, advocacy groups, journalists, civil society institutions, and public service training institutions.

Arvind Sivaramakrishnan is a former Visiting Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. He has taught in higher education in the United Kingdom, India, and Germany, and in further education in England. He holds a degree and doctorate, among other qualifications, from the University of Southampton. This is his seventh book, and he has published refereed papers and book chapters, generally around philosophic issues in politics and public services, in some of which he has worked; he has also published a number of book reviews in academic and other serious journals.