ABSTRACT
Ideology remains a central feature of the contemporary world. Political ideologies map the terrain of the political, locate politics in a wider web of meaning and impart normative direction to conduct by highlighting what is of significance and what should be done. The ubiquity of ideology in the contemporary world is occluded by a number of developments. Aspects of the contemporary world are flagged as being novel. This novelty is taken to signal an allegedly post-ideological condition. Central to the sense of the world’s novelty is the notion of globalization. Adherents of the doctrine of globalization assume many standpoints but converge upon the assumption that old rules no longer apply and that preceding ideological commitments are outmoded. Politicians declaim about globalization and the novelty of the current situation in justifying wars, in reaffirming economic orthodoxies and in proclaiming that traditional socialist ideological commitments must be sacrificed 88due to the pragmatic requirements of economic globalization. Likewise the theory of globalization is advertised as being distinct from preceding theories, and yet its complexity, its incorporation of a range of normative standpoints and its links with preceding theories are often unacknowledged.
