Radical Ideologies and the Sociology of Knowledge: A Model for Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Social movements inspired by radical or transformative ideologies have pro-liferated in western industrial societies, but have usually been effectively contained without violent repression. This paper takes up the debate about the mechanisms of containment with reference to a neglected aspect—the process of ideology production itself. It is suggested that the symbolic structure of radical ideologies may be understood as the outcome of three conceptual processes: (1) de-legitimation; (2) dis-alienation; (3) `commutation' or communication/interaction. The ideological product may also be evaluated, in sociological terms, as a theoretical and empirical response to determinate social problems. Two recent examples are used to illustrate the main lines of such an analysis: the International Marxist Group in Britain, and Students for a Democratic Society in the USA. They indicate that the internal, conceptual requirements of a radical ideology, and especially the need to publicly present and validate ideological knowledge, may distort the social analysis in ways which render it less effective as a force for political mobilization, and therefore magnify the effects of more familiar structural constraints on radical movements.