IDEOLOGY SEEMS to be one of the most persistent and suggestive concepts in modern
social thought. Political scientists, historians, sociologists, philosophers, and other
commentators on political life find the term attractive and useful; the literature of politics
abounds in studies using ideology as a central focus of inquiry or speculation. Two factors
probably account for the popularity of ideology in the work of social science. One of these is
the history of the concept; suffice it to say, for the moment, that ideology, like various other …