AFFINITIES AND CONTRADICTIONS IN THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGICAL SPECTRUM

IDEOLOGICAL AFFINITIES ACROSS ISSUE AREAS

It is certainly possible for any individual to take a "left" position on one set of issues and a "right" position on another set of issues. The tendency of survey respondents to do just that, or to have very little ideological structure of any kind in their political thinking, has confounded empirical research into personal political ideology for a long time. While the attitudes of political elites and activists show more ideological structure than those of ordinary citizens, it is still possible for them also to be "left" on some issues and "right" on others. But despite such possibilities, there are also strong tendencies for political parties to attract groups from one ideological pole on most different issue sets and for administrations to pursue either left-center or right-center policies on most issues. A key factor in this is an implicit shared vision of political order that underlies left, right, and centrist tendencies in American politics. Figure 3.1 summarizes these dynamics.

Ideological Affinities across Issue Areas
 

	Policy Ideologies
Economic Policy	Social Democracy	Social Insurance State	Limited Interest State	Laissez-faire
Social Policy	New Identities	Cultural Pluralism	Cultural Monism	Christian Right
Foreign Policy	A New Global Agenda	Inclusive Hegemony	Exclusive  Hegemony	America First Unilateralism
	Attitudes toward the Political Order
	A New Order	The Existing Order		Restored Order
Political Economy	Newly Activist State	Interest Group State Brokered Political Economy		Restore Prior  Market System
Identity	New Identities	Static Group Identities		Restore Prior Identities
The U.S. in the World	A New Global Agenda	Hegemonic Roles and Strategies		Restore American Independence in World System

Centrist Tendencies and the Existing Order

What is common to centrist tendencies in American politics is their belief in, preference for, and commitment to the existing order. The political center is characterized by acceptance of current political institutions and a cautious, even cynical attitude toward political change. Centrist forces not only take as a given constant the basic capitalist structure of the political economy, they also tend to see the interest group system as a relatively static set of voting blocs. The task of centrist politics is to practice distributive politics—to cater to large interest groups and voting blocs and to broker their demands through the interest group state.

Questions of political identity are unproblematic in centrist politics. Interest groups that have real political resources are assumed to represent the people they claim to represent. In the same way, the U.S. role in the world is taken as a given. The United States is, and should be, the legitimate leader of the "free" world; the only question is what strategies best serve this hegemonic identity.

Centrist politics tries to avoid social and economic issues that cleave large social blocs into opposing camps. Centrist politicians find it more congenial to deal in issues that can be resolved through brokered compromise and distribution of government benefits to well-organized interests, without upsetting the established political order. Centrist political tendencies can be further broken down into those which look at the existing order as expansive and those which see the existing order as restrictive. "Left-center" political forces see the existing political order as naturally responsive to a plurality of cultural groups and legitimately providing state benefits for a wide range of interest groups. "Right-center" political forces tend to be more restrictive in their view as to which cultural groups are a legitimate part of the existing order and which interest groups have claim to state benefits.

The Left and a New Political Order

Left political forces, however, have considerable grievances with the existing order. What ties together as political and ideological allies such obviously diverse groups as organized racial minorities, women, homosexuals, environmentalists, militant unionists, and peace activists is their shared desire for and interest in a new political order.

Organized minorities, women, and homosexuals all seek a new political order that will allow them new dignity in their nontraditional personal identities and that will erase existing obstacles to their personal development because they do not meet some abstract ideal. Environmentalists and militant unionists seek a new economic order that will protect the ecology or their jobs in a way the current one cannot, though they often conflict on what that new economic order would be. Peace activists seek a new global identity for the United States that will protect the peace in a way the current one cannot. While there is certainly tension between many of these goals, or in any political party or movement that tries to appeal to all of these forces at the same time, the underlying unity that makes the label "left" appropriate is dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs and the desire for a new political order.

The Right and a Restored Political Order

The one thing that the political left and the political right have in common is a dissatisfaction with the current political order and a strong desire to change it. While from the point of view of conventional political labels it may seem paradoxical, as one moves to the right end of the political spectrum, one moves away from a desire to conserve the existing political order and toward a position based on restoring a real or imagined past political order. The political alliances of right groups, like those of left groups, are rooted in a shared dissatisfaction with the current political order and a shared vision of how it must be changed.

The ideological theme that holds together the political right is the vision of a restored political order in which some superior real or imagined past is recaptured. At the level of social issues and personal identity, the vision is of a return to the nuclear family, a common religious community, and received traditional values as the foundations of social life. On the economic level the vision is of the removal of complex bureaucracies, the return to the individual work ethic, and a revival of individual social mobility. On the international level, the vision is of a restoration of American domination of world politics in which the United States regains the role of the "new Israel," the world leader chosen by God.
 

CONTRADICTIONS OF AMERICAN POLICY IDEOLOGIES

Conservatism, Liberalism, and the Limited State

While there are clear affinities across issue areas on both the left and right ends of the political spectrum, there are also ideological inconsistencies and contradictions.  For example, there are huge inconsistencies in conservative thought between the value of individual freedom and the use of activist government.  American conservatism is philosophically committed to maximizing individual freedom. The limited state is at the heart of conservatives' ideal political system. One of Ronald Reagan's favorite slogans crystallizes this attitude: "Government is not the solution, government is the problem." Certainly conservative Republicans act in many ways that can be thought to be consistent with this philosophy of limited government. Republican presidents Reagan and George W. Bush implemented tax cuts, cuts in social programs, deregulation of business, and other measures that could be justified by this principle of limited government. But the economic policies of conservative Republicans are not always consistent with the principles of true laissez-faire philosophy. So, for example, the Reagan administration also increased the military budget, farm programs, trade protection, and other forms of economic assistance to interest groups.

But the contradictions of conservatism run even deeper than the unwillingness of Republican presidents to implement pure free-market economic policies. At the philosophical level conservatism does not apply the principle of maximizing individual freedom and minimizing government interference in private lives in all spheres of public policy.

Instead, in the area of social policy it is conservatives who favor the activist use of government power to coerce individuals, and liberals who oppose such use of government. In social policy conservative Republicans have more often favored the use of government power to assert their cultural values over the claim of individual freedom of action. Critics of these contradictions have claimed that conservatives want to get the government out of the board room and into the bedroom. So conservative Republicans want to outlaw abortion while liberal Democrats favor individual choice. At the level of state government, conservatives have backed laws making homosexual activity and even certain heterosexual sexual practices illegal while liberals have argued for individual freedom. In the name of fighting crime conservative Republicans have supported stronger government powers for police to enter people's homes, use electronic eavesdropping devices, and generally engage in surveillance of citizens believed to have committed crimes or to be involved in subversive activities. A similar inconsistency can be seen in conservatives' support for U.S. military and political intervention in a wide range of foreign crises around the globe. While conservatives have little faith in the ability of government to effect positive change in domestic economic affairs, they often seem to have almost unlimited faith in the power of the military to effect positive results in a wide variety of international situations.

Ideological Debates That Obscure Real Policy Issues

In its discussion of the relationship between presidential ideologies and public policy, Chapter 1 emphasized the dual nature of ideology. Ideology at the same time both illuminates many of the motives for public policy and obscures many of the real forces shaping policy behind misleading official pronouncements. The typologies introduced in this chapter and Chapter 2 have illustrated what presidents and candidates have said motivated their policy prescriptions. But it is also worth reviewing how debate over contemporary presidential ideologies obscures the true nature of policy.

When the fourfold classification of domestic policy typologies was introduced, Theodore Lowi's analysis of the misleading nature of much of the domestic policy debate was alluded to. Lowi points out that ideological conflict is typically between those who advocate an activist state whose purpose is to help the less fortunate and those who advocate a limited state. He correctly points out that most government programs help not the poor, but rather powerful, well-established political interests. It is also evident that true laissez-faire policies which restrict government to a few minimal functions have not been pursued since before the days of Franklin Roosevelt. Even in the pre-New Deal period, government engaged in many activities that could not be justified under the doctrine of laissez-faire. But in the post-New Deal period, it is truly anachronistic to talk of a government that performs only minimal functions in society.

The debate over whether government should take an activist role to help the powerless or be strictly limited to a few functions can be heard in virtually every political campaign and certainly has been central to most presidential campaigns. Yet simply said, it is a false debate. How can this shadow contest weigh so heavily in American political rhetoric? A large part of the answer lies in the fact that this kind of ideological debate obscures the true nature of most domestic public policies. It is the dirty little secret of American public policy that most government programs serve the interests of the wealthy and powerful, not ordinary citizens or the poor. But it would not be politic for public policy to be debated in these terms. It would not further the interest of incumbent presidents or members of Congress to openly proclaim that their purpose was to serve a limited number of powerful interests. They would prefer not to have policy debates that focus clearly on the true driving force of domestic policy, which is calculation of which interests are powerful enough to effectively demand government benefits. It is safer to debate public policy in the shadow world of egalitarian activism vs. minimal interventionism.

A similar kind of false debate can be seen in the conflict between realists and idealists in foreign policy. Realists believe U.S. foreign policy is, and should be, driven by concerns of national power and rational calculation of national interest and little else. Idealists argue that foreign policy can, and should be, shaped by the moral vision of the American people. There are various strains of idealism in the ideologies of the peace movement, hegemonic flexibility, and the holy war ideologies. But reflection indicates that most realists are not very realistic and most moralists are not very moral.

C. Wright Mills summed up the flaws in the realist school of U.S. foreign policy when he coined the term "crackpot realism." Mills pointed out that "realist" military strategies have turned the world into two armed camps and populated the world with many thousands of nuclear weapons. He asked what realistic aims of national interest were served by policies that left Americans the target of thousands of nuclear missiles which could destroy not only U.S. power, but the nation itself. He questioned whether national interests were realistically served by maintaining a military presence in every corner of the globe and using U.S. power to contest virtually every insurgent movement against the established order—wherever the conflict and whatever the issues. These policies struck Mills more as an idealistic crusade against communism than as a realistic pursuit of U.S. power.

Opponents of the realist school often criticize its exclusive concern with national power and national interest. Idealists argue that moral values should also play an important role in foreign policy-making. But the professed moralism of the dominant strain of American idealism, that associated with the strategy of hegemonic engagement and inclusiveness, is as suspect as the hardheadedness of the so-called realists. U.S. foreign policy-makers have often held double standards of morality, hypocritically criticizing adversaries for the same kind of behavior that they justify as moral when they engage in it. The father of American internationalism, Woodrow Wilson, set the tone. While he self-righteously called for liberation of the subject peoples of the defeated empires of Austria-Hungary and Turkey, he participated in the carving up of many of Turkey's territories into new colonies for his allies, the British and the French. Further, Wilson never applied the standard of self-determination to the U.S. colony of the Philippines or the U.S. protectorates of Cuba and Nicaragua. The same hypocrisy characterized the cold war competition with communism. Brutal military dictatorships that were socialist or showed socialist inclinations were chastised for violations of fundamental human rights. But brutal military dictatorships that were U.S. allies against communism were characterized as part of the free world. In the earlier years of the cold war, the United States denounced Soviet domination of eastern Europe as an offense against the self-determination of peoples even as it was providing massive military assistance to the French in their efforts to retain their colonial possessions in Indochina, Algeria, and elsewhere.

Even as the idea of a new post-cold war world order emerges, the same double standards can be seen in the application of morality to U.S. foreign policy. When Islamic suicide bombers kill American or Israeli civilians, they are "terrorists."  When American troops bomb Afghan civilians or Israeli forces kill Palestinian civilians, they are "retaliating against terrorism."  When the Iraqis or Turks brutally suppress Kurdish independence movements, Washington is silent. But then Iraq becomes a military foe and the Kurdish problem suddenly explodes onto the front pages, although with little mention of the how the key U.S. ally Turkey treats either the refugees or its native Kurds.

Ideology as the Representation of Special Interests as General Interests

Ideology helps illuminate policy action in two very different ways.  At the surface level, ideology gives reasons for policy action.  It explains the thinking behind policy behavior.  But at a deeper level analysis of ideology shows the inconsistencies and contradictions in the thinking of policymakers.  Critical analysis of ideology can show how the motives for action are not what they appear.  Critical students of ideology from many different schools share one basic insight--ideology is often the representations of very narrow, special interests as broad, general, or even universal interests.

For example, the United States often claims to be acting in the interests of the "world community," from the attack on Afghanistan to pressuring nations to open their markets to badgering nations on their human rights records.  But more often than not the U.S. is representing its national interest as the interests of the entire world, of the "world community."  The U.S. began its campaign against Afghanistan after U.S. soil was violated.  You did not see the U.S. bombing Ireland after the IRA bombed targets in London.  You did not see the U.S. bombing the Basque country after the ETA bombed Spanish cities.  You did not see the U.S. bombing Chenya when Chechen rebels bombed Moscow apartments.  You did not see the U.S. bombing Columbian jungles after the FARC bombed civilians in Bogata.  You did not see the U.S. bombing Pakistan after pro-Pakistani Kashmiris attacked the Indian parliament.  You did not see the U.S. bombing Maoist strongholds after Nepalese guerillas bombed target in Nepal and attacked the royal family.  etc., etc., etc.

The above examples show that terrorism is in fact an international problem.  But the U.S. did not consider it enough of a problem to act militarily until U.S. territory was hit.  Then the U.S. demanded that the UN, NATO, and other international institutions, as well as all its allies and friends, support a global campaign by the U.S. military against terrorism.  Yet at the same time the U.S. discouraged direct UN participation, much less control, over the setting of counterterrorism policy.  While the U.S. insisted terrorism was a problem for the entire "world community," the U.S. unilaterally decided to attack the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, refusing to give any public evidence of the link between the Taliban and the bombings in the U.S.  The U.S. continues to reserve to itself alone the decision whether to attack Iraq, Iran, or any other "axis of evil" nations without consulting the "world community" its claims to be defending.

National interest can also be seen at the root of U.S. campaigns against violations of what it asserts are universal human rights.  During most of the Cold War U.S. human rights campaigns were a blatant propaganda tool, targeted only at Soviet, Chinese, and other communist or pro-Soviet regimes.  That is what made Jimmy Carter's human rights stance so remarkable.  He was the first American president to criticize the human rights records of nations friendly to the U.S., although he too was careful to exclude key U.S. allies like the military government in South Korea and the Shah of Iran.

In the post-Cold War world American concern about human rights still follows American interest, this time reflecting commerical as well as strategic interests.  During the Cold War Malaysia and Singapore, as pro-American capitalist nations, were exempt from American human rights criticism.  Then after the Cold War these nations became targets of American human rights criticism because their leaders were critical of American economic hegemony in East Asia and suggested an East Asian regional order to counter American power.  However, once the terrorism war became the primary U.S. strategic objective, the very Malaysian and Singaporean internal security programs the U.S. had been so critical of were now praised as anti-terrorism measures.  A similar flip-flop can be seen in U.S. policy toward the Musharaf government in Pakistan.  When Musharaf seized power in a military coup he was criticized as a military dictator.  But when he became a crucial ally in the U.S. attack on Afghanistan, all human rights criticism stilled and the U.S. supported his crackdown of anti-U.S. groups and public demonstrations against the American bombing by what once might have been called "dissidents" but which now were simply labeled "Islamic extremists."

The same representation of narrow interests as general interests can be seen in U.S. trade policy.  U.S. pressure on less developed countries to open their markets to transnational corporations is often seen as transparent attempts to benefit the U.S. and the West.  But are the interests of transnationals in global reach for their operations really the interests of American workers, Americans who value the global environment, or even American economic growth?  Clearly millions of American workers have lost their jobs as American manufacturing has been "hollowed out" by globalization.  Many Americans have also gotten new jobs in international trade, but it is no accident that most of the new jobs created in the service sector are not unionized whereas most of the jobs lost to globalization were union jobs.  It is also no secret that many American manufacturers build new plant overseas to avoid tighter environmental restrictions in the U.S., allowing them to push more pollution into the global environment.  Transnational corporations have no national boundaries; unlike multinationals of a previous era, they carry no national flag.  U.S. politicans from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush who unstintingly praise current forms of globalization are falsely representing the interests of transnational corporations as the interests of all Americans, and even the entire world.
 

CONCLUSION

The ideologies that animate presidential action show both consistencies and inconsistencies in policy philosophies across issue areas. There are similar attitudes that characterize left, right, and centrist ideological positions on different dimensions of public policy. Centrists tend to be satisfied with the established order, leftists tend to want to create new policies, and rightists tend to want to restore some idealized past. Yet there are also inconsistencies across policy issues in popular philosophies. For example, conservatives generally are skeptical of the effectiveness of government action in issues of political economy and call for limited government when it comes to such issues. Yet conservatives show great faith in the ability of government to achieve positive results through activist, interventionist foreign and military policies.

Presidential ideologies have a dual nature. They often illuminate the purposes of presidential action, but they also can obscure the true meaning of public policies. Prevailing ideological debate does not necessarily fully reveal the real motives of policy. Ideology represents narrow, particular interests as broad, general or universal interests.  When the U.S. claims to be acting for the "world community," it is often pursuing its narrow national interests or the interests of only the western alliance.  Instead ideologies must be critically analyzed if the true nature of policy is to be fully understood.
 

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