PYQ Vault · Paper 1 · Political Ideologies
“Political ideology is primarily concerned with the allocation and utilization of power.’ Comment.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes
Ideology as a system of ideas -. centrally about who rules, by what authority, in whose interest → power is its organizing question Freeden: ideologies as "maps of the political landscape" → every map must first locate power — allocation + utilization are the map's two axes
Body flow
Four ideological positions each as a power-project → Liberalism (allocates power to individual + limited state) — Socialism (shifts power from private capital to society) — Marxism (exposes class domination as the real site of power) — Feminism (extends power to the private sphere, patriarchy as a power- structure) → Gramsci: coercion alone insufficient, hegemony makes power “common sense" → Foucault: power dispersed through discourse and surveillance, not reducible to the state
Counter-view
Ideology is not only about power — it also addresses moral values, rights, justice, and human dignity; Arendt: power is the human ability "to act in concert,” not merely domination; ideologies are also moral vocabularies, not just power-manuals
Conclusion routes
| R1 Statement is substantially true but partial — ideologies diagnose, morally judge, and propose redistribution of power; the moral dimension completes the power-question, not replaces it Ideologies are power-projects anchored in values — they cannot be reduced to power alone, but every enduring ideology must settle the power question first
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
