Ideology is a system of thought based on related assumptions, beliefs, and explanations of social movements or policies. Ideologies show "the way things are" and "the way things ought to be." Some ideologies, such as communism and socialism, refer to economic and political systems. Most "isms" are ideologies.
Any Ideology will contain contradictions, will repress aspects of experience, will "disappear" that which tends to contradict it or expose its repressions. Ideologies do not rely equally on factual information in supporting their beliefs. People who accept an entire thought system usually reject all other systems concerned with the same content. To such people, only conclusions based on their ideology seem logical and correct. Thus, people strongly committed to an ideology have difficulty understanding and communicating with supporters of a conflicting ideology.
Some conceptions of ideology undermine the power aspect and see ideology as the structure of assumptions, which form the imaginative world of groups. Ideology, writes Althusser, is "a representation of the imaginary relation of individuals to the real condition of existence." Further, Althusser writes, ideology creates us as persons: it "hails" us, calls us into being. .
Political Ideologies are a coherent and consistent set of political beliefs about who ought to rule, the principles rulers ought to obey, and what policies rulers ought to pursue.
Political ideology in American Society can get a little confusing. This is due partially to the fact that the most commonly used model to explain political ideology is too simple. The linear model, as it is sometimes called, puts the ideological spectrum on a straight line. This model often leaves researcher's wondering about ideologies because it ties groups together that may have absolutely different ideas.
One useful way of categorizing ideologies from a political point of view focuses on differences in the ideologies' prescriptions for how much the government ought to be involved in directing or regulating economic, social and cultural affairs and how much individuals or voluntary organizations ought to be left alone to make their own decisions in these spheres of life.