The Role of Ideology

In this chapter, I will highlight the role of ideology in ethnicity formation and persistence, and also how ideology becomes institutionalised via institutional norms. It is argued here that ideology influences the thinking of social actors especially national elites in a critical manner consequently, as argued by Hintzen, the solutions the national elites put forward to national problems are invariably influenced by the ideology to which they subscribe. These solutions in turn impact ethnic/race relations in a country. In this sense, ideology has an independent influence on social structures. Beyond the point made by Hintzen, however, it is further argued here that in a society with competing ideologies, all ideologies do not have equal weight or influence on individual actions. In fact, the various ideologies exist at various levels and compete for influence on the action of social actors. For example, political ideologies such as Marxism, neoliberalism and civic nationalism exist primarily at the level of the political leadership, while ideologies such as racism, creolism, cultural nationalism and racial and ethnic ideologies exist at various levels of the social strata.