This presentation begins by puzzling over various longstanding dilemmas in the study of ideology, attempting to briefly clarify why mainstream political science has mostly failed to offer an acceptable definition of ideology. In the second part, I draw on the work of those like Clifford Geertz, Charles Taylor, and others to briefly sketch what I believe to be a hermeneutic or cultural conception of ideology—one that respects the experience that ordinary people have of their own ideological convictions. This phenomenological approach highlights the way that ordinary people are attracted to ideology's sense-making and ethically magnetic features. Finally, this does not mean a cultural approach to ideology is uncritical or accepts whatever people say about their own ideologies. But it does take ordinary people and their experience of ideology seriously.

Jason Blakely (PhD, UC Berkeley) is Associate Professor of Political Science at Pepperdine University and Senior Fellow at the Nova Forum at the University of Southern California. His most recent book, We Built Reality received accolades from Charles Taylor and others. He is also the co-author of Interpretive Social Science (with Mark Bevir) and at work on a forthcoming book on a hermeneutic approach to ideology.

This seminar is available on Youtube: https://youtu.be/EzluioV9mbA

You can join this talk via zoom by following this link: https://anu.zoom.us/j/3364169330?pwd=ZStOdm4vTWpwS1RMbmFYUisxWVB2UT09

To get on the IMC mailing list go to: https://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/imcnetwork
For more information on the talks or the IMC, write to the convenors: April Biccum and Nick Cheesman