Comment: Role of Ideology in International Relations. (1995, 20 Marks)
An ideology is a structured set of beliefs about how the world works and how it ought to work. In international relations the debate is whether ideology drives state behaviour or merely dresses it, supplying respectable language for interests already chosen. The record supports a middle position: ideology shapes long-run direction and the identification of enemies, and gives way to interest in moments of crisis.
What ideology does
- Supplies goals that security alone cannot generate: revolutionary France’s export of republicanism, Bolshevik world revolution, Woodrow Wilson’s call to make the world “safe for democracy” (1917), and Cold War democracy promotion.
- Divides friend from enemy. The Cold War was a contest of power and also of rival models of society, liberal capitalism against communism.
- Legitimises action at home and abroad, and then constrains it: a state that has justified itself in one idiom becomes partly its captive.
- India. Jawaharlal Nehru’s non-alignment was an ideology of autonomy and anti-colonial solidarity. The 2023 G20 theme, “One Earth, One Family, One Future” (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam), projects a civilisational idiom of inclusive multilateralism.
The realist view: ideology as disguise
- Hans J. Morgenthau (Politics Among Nations) treated ideologies of the status quo, of imperialism and of ambiguous kinds as disguises for the struggle for power, and warned that crusading ideology makes interests non-negotiable.
- E. H. Carr (The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1939) exposed the liberal “harmony of interests” as the ideology of satisfied powers.
- Evidence. The Nazi–Soviet Pact (1939), the Sino-Soviet split, Nixon’s opening to Mao’s China (1972) and US support for friendly autocrats show interest overriding doctrine.
The counter-view: ideology constitutes interest
- Constructivists argue that ideas define what counts as a threat. Alexander Wendt (1992; 1995) noted that 500 British warheads worry the US less than five North Korean ones: shared ideas, not numbers, decide.
- Liberals point to the democratic peace: shared liberal norms create a zone in which war is unthinkable.
- Gramscian scholars (Robert W. Cox, 1981) see ideology as the means by which a hegemon makes its interests appear universal, so liberal internationalism is hegemony by consent.
After the Cold War: transformed, not ended
- Francis Fukuyama (1989) predicted liberalism’s final victory; Samuel P. Huntington (1993) expected civilisational identity to replace ideology. Neither proved right: ideology changed its subject.
- The present contest is over models of political order. V-Dem’s 2026 report counts 44 countries autocratising. China advances a “community with a shared future”, and Russia’s 2023 Foreign Policy Concept calls it a distinctive “state-civilisation”. Amitav Acharya (The End of American World Order, 2014) describes a multiplex world in which no single ideology can claim universality.
- “America First” is itself ideological: a US memorandum of 7 January 2026 announced withdrawal from 66 international bodies, including the UNFCCC and the IPCC.
- The BRICS New Delhi Declaration (September 2026) criticised unilateral tariffs and sanctions and demanded reform of the IMF, World Bank and WTO: a Southern ideology of reformed multilateralism.
Assessment
Realists are right that ideology yields in crises and when survival is at stake. Constructivists are right that it defines adversaries, ranks threats and sets long-term goals. Its weight also varies with regime type: strongest in revolutionary and personalist states, weaker in pluralist ones where interests compete openly.
Conclusion
Ideology is neither the master key nor mere decoration in international relations. It works as a lens and a compass: it frames which interests a state perceives and how it justifies pursuing them, while capability and circumstance decide what it can do. Daniel Bell’s “end of ideology” (1960) and Fukuyama’s “end of history” were themselves ideological claims, as the 2026 contests over tariffs, multilateralism and political models confirm.