Edexcel Political Ideologies Unit 4 Route B - 27th January 2009!

Sorry...Alright...Well...

Hi

Hope there isn't already a thread for this, but I was hoping that people could share their notes, tips and worries on this thread, and everyone can help where they can.

A week to go!

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Reply 1

MichaelG

its straightforward enough, far more interesting that politics a/s

Reply 2

pinkpenguin

Sorry...Alright...Well...

Hi

Hope there isn't already a thread for this, but I was hoping that people could share their notes, tips and worries on this thread, and everyone can help where they can.

A week to go!

I. CANT. REMEMBER. IT. ALL!!

Reply 3

blademaster

im dreading this exam...all these ideologies are confusing :mad:

Reply 4

pinkpenguin

What question do we want to come up?

"To what extent have 20th century Marxists retreated from the ideas of Classical Marxism?"

Please. Please. Please.

That or the failure of Gradualism/difference between modern and classical liberals.

Reply 5

Sorry...Alright...Well...

Has anyone got any concise notes of everything we need to know on each of the ideologies? If so...please please post them up! I want to post up some things later on in the day; hopefully they will be of some help to you all!

Reply 6

adelante

Sorry...Alright...Well...

From current Edexcel Specification:

Liberalism
human nature
individualism
freedom
justice
equality
democracy
rights
toleration

a knowledge of liberal views on human nature, the state,
society and the economy. An ability to discuss differing
views and tensions within liberal ideology, notably
between classical liberalism and modern liberalism.

The following is from the latest Specification (starting next year) but it will also help current students:

•Individualism — individualism versus collectivism; methodological individualism and ethical
individualism; egoistical individualism versus developmental individualism; implications for
equality (foundational equality; formal equality; equality of opportunity); implications for the
state (state threat to individual/individual responsibility/freedom, hence minimal state, but
individualism can justify the state — social contract theory).
•Freedom — link between individualism and freedom; link between reason and freedom;
freedom ‘under the law’ rather than absolute freedom; ‘negative’ freedom (absence of external
constraints) versus ‘positive’ freedom (personal growth/fulfi lment); implications of ‘negative’
and ‘positive’ freedom for the state.
•Classical liberalism — egoistical/atomistic individualism (natural rights theory, utilitarianism,
pursuit of self-interest/pleasure etc); ‘negative’ freedom (freedom of choice, privacy, harm
principle); minimal/‘nightwatchman’ state (necessary evil, maintenance of domestic order etc);
economic liberalism (laissez-faire, self-regulating market etc); individual responsibility/selfhelp
(moral and economic case for anti-welfarism).
•Modern liberalism — developmental individualism (human fl ourishing, heightening of
sensibilities, ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ pleasures, etc); ‘positive’ freedom (realisation of individual
potential); enabling state (enlarges freedom, does not merely diminish it); social reform
and welfare (equality of opportunity, freedom from social evils etc); economic management
(state rectifi es imbalances of capitalism, Keynesianism etc); tensions within modern liberalism
(qualifi ed endorsement of rolled-forward state – intervention can be ‘excessive&#8217 :wink:

.
• Limited government — corrupting nature of power (individualism plus power equals
corruption); external/legal checks on government (constitutions, especially ‘written’ ones),
bills of rights, rule of law etc); internal/institutional checks on government — fragmentation/
dispersal of power creating checks and balances (separation of powers, parliamentary
government, cabinet government, bicameralism, territorial divisions etc).
•Liberalism and democracy — liberal arguments in favour of democracy (individualism
implies political equality, franchise as protection against tyranny, political participation as
means of personal development, constrains pressures of pluralist society); liberal arguments
against democracy (democracy as collectivism, tyranny of the majority, political wisdom not
equally distributed, democracy results in over-government and economic stultifi cation).

[edit] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism for any of these concepts.

Reply 7

adelante

Sorry...Alright...Well...

Same format as above post...

Conservatism
tradition
organic society
hierarchy
authority
libertarianism

a knowledge of conservative attitudes towards human
nature, the state, society and the economy. A knowledge of
differing views and tensions within conservative ideology,
particularly related to divisions between traditional
conservatism and the New Right.

Candidates should note that, in addition to tensions between
traditional conservatism and the New Right, there are
tensions within the New Right, specifically between neoliberalism
and neo-conservatism.

• Tradition — conservative arguments in favour of tradition (natural law, accumulated wisdom
of the past, stability and rootedness); New Right departures from traditionalism (neo-liberal
radicalism based on reasoned analysis, reactionary tendencies); neo-conservatism and
traditional values.
•Human imperfection — psychological imperfection (limited, dependent and security-seeking
creatures, implications for tradition, authority etc); moral imperfection (base and non-rational
urges and instincts, implications for law and order and sentencing policy); intellectually
imperfect (world largely beyond human understanding, implications for reason, tradition).
•Property — property supported because: it provides security in an insecure/unstable world;
it is the exteriorisation of individual personality; it breeds positive social values (eg respect for
law); property traditionally viewed as a duty (to preserve for the benefi t of future generations)
but New Right advanced a liberal, rights-based justifi cation.
•Organic society — the whole is more than a collection of its individual parts (clash between
organicism (organic communitarianism) and individualism); duty and obligation as social
cement; hierarchy (rejection of social equality as undesirable and impossible); importance of
shared values and a common culture (fear of diversity and pluralism).
• One nation conservatism — Tory origins (neo-feudalism, tradition, hierarchy, organicism
etc); reform is preferable to revolution (pragmatism, enlightened self-interest, qualifi ed case
for welfare); paternalism — duty as the price of privilege (noblesse oblige, the ‘deserving’
poor); ‘middle way’ stance (pragmatic rejection of free market and state control, cautious
social democracy).
• Liberal New Right — classical liberal roots; free market economics (natural dynamism of
market, anti-statism, monetarism, rejection of Keynesianism, privatisation, deregulation
and tax cuts, supply-side economics, ‘trickle-down’; atomistic individualism as basis for
libertarianism (individual/property rights, individual responsibility/self-help, anti-welfarism
— dependency culture, impact on taxation, welfare as legalised theft).
• Conservative New Right — roots in pre-Disraelian conservatism; restoration of order and
authority (social and state authoritarianism — ‘punishment works’ etc); moral revivalism (antipermissiveness,
‘new’ Puritanism, traditional/family/Christian values); resurgent nationalism
(national patriotism as a source of security and stability, insularity and xenophobia).

[edit] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism for explanation of these concepts.

Reply 8

adelante

Sorry...Alright...Well...

Again, same format as above...

Socialism
co-operation
fraternity
collectivism
social equality
social justice

a knowledge of socialist views on human nature, the state,
society and the economy. A knowledge of the distinctive
values, theories and political strategies of the Marxist or
communist tradition and the democratic socialist or social
democratic tradition.

The term socialism is taken to include all socialist traditions,
that is, Marxism/communism as well as social
democracy/democratic socialism (in other words, socialism
does not stand in contrast to communism). Similarly,
democratic socialism will be used synonymously with
evolutionary socialism or parliamentary socialism. Social
democrats are (or may be) democratic socialists (although it
may be helpful for candidates to be aware that some draw a
distinction between these two terms).

The emphasis within Marxism will be on the classical ideas
of Marx and Engels, on twentieth-century attempts to
translate these ideas into practice (especially in the forms of
Leninism and Stalinism), and on contrasts between the two.

•Collectivism — social basis of human nature (common humanity); ‘nurture’ emphasised over
‘nature’ (implications for person/social development, utopianism etc); co-operation (moral
and economic benefi ts); collectivism in practice (statism, common ownership, economic
management, welfarism).
•Equality — socialist view of equality (equality of outcome/reward, social equality); divisions
over desirable extent of equality (absolute versus relative social equality, common ownership
versus redistribution); arguments in favour of social equality (social stability and cohesion,
social justice, happiness and personal development — needs-based distribution).
• Revolution versus evolution — revolutionary socialism (theory of class state, rejection
of bourgeois parliamentarianism); revolution as a modernisation project (pre-democratic
origins, links to under-development, modernisation ‘from above&#8217 :wink:

; implications of revolutionary
‘road’ (violence/force as a political means etc); evolutionary socialism (state neutrality,
interventionism as means of social change/reform); socialism and democracy (the inevitability
of gradualism); implications of ‘ballot-box’ socialism (electoralism, ‘catch-all’ socialist parties,
corruption of power/bourgeois state etc).
•Marxism/communism —historical materialism (‘base/superstructure’ analysis, scientifi c
theory of history/society); dialectical change (change results from internal contradictions in
society, ‘laws’ of history, historical inevitability); class analysis (class based on economic power,
confl ict as motor of history, surplus value, class consciousness); stages of history; collapse
of capitalism (proletarian revolution); transition from capitalism to communism (dictatorship
of proletariat, ‘withering away’ of state); fundamentalist socialism and politics of ownership
(capitalism irredeemably corrupt — should be abolished and replaced, socialism qualitatively
different from capitalism).
•Social democracy — revisionist Marxism (failure of Marx’s predictions, resilience of
capitalism); ethical socialism (absence of theoretical ‘baggage&#8217 :wink:

; socialist revisionism
(socialism equals reformed/‘humanised’capitalism); equality displaces common ownership
(politics of social justice); pillars of social democracy (mixed economy, Keynesian economic
management, welfare state).
• Neo-revisionist social democracy — retreat from social democracy (globalisation and the
end of national Keynesianism, changing class structure and electoral appeal of Thatcherism,
collapse of communism etc); Third Way — rejection of ‘top-down’ socialism/social democracy
and market individualism, liberal communitarianism; Third Way value framework (opportunity,
responsibility, community); Third Way world view (connectedness, consensus model of society,
knowledge economy, ‘asset-based egalitarianism’/meritocracy, ‘workfare state’, governing
through culture); Third Way and socialism (modernised social democracy or post-socialism?).

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism for explanation of concepts.

Reply 9

BioSam

I'm dreading this exam, not because of the content, but because 1 hour and 15 minutes isn't long enough to write as much as I'd like to, and stop to actually think about what I'm writing.

Reply 10

adelante

BioSam

I'm dreading this exam, not because of the content, but because 1 hour and 15 minutes isn't long enough to write as much as I'd like to, and stop to actually think about what I'm writing.

Timing and exam technique you need to practise.

1 hour 15 minutes = 75 minutes.

Two 20 mark questions and one 60 mark question. (Is that right?)

You need to give yourself time to think, plan and check.

Lets err on the safe side 12 minutes to write each 20 mark question and 36 minutes to write the 60 mark question. 12 + 12+ 36 = 60 minutes.

First four minutes of the exam spend thinking about the first two questions, spend one minute checking them; spend 5 minutes thinking and planning the 60 mark question, leave 5 mins at the end of the exam to check over the 60 mark question. 4 +1 + 5 + 5 = 15 minutes

Practice planning 20 mark questions in 2 minutes and practice planning 60 mark questions in 5 minutes.

So practise writing 20 mark questions in 12 minutes and 60 mark questions in 36 minutes.

You don't have to do the questions in order, but you do have to keep to the time limits for planning and writing.

Pick your questions and then write down the time slots to do them.

Think, plan, write and check.

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Reply 11

Sorry...Alright...Well...

http://www.slideshare.net/sarahbutterworth/slideshows - Here are some good slideshows on the Political Ideologies. Hope they help.

Reply 12

BioSam

adelante

Yeah, it is exam technique of course. I just think it's unfair that we should have to worry about tight time limits when the emphasis should be on testing our knowledge.

Really, would giving us 90 minutes be such a terrible thing?!

Reply 13

missrosiex

Hi

Does anyone have any idea where i can get past papers for this unit (edexcel unit4 route B)..cant seem to find them anywhere-and the edexcel site is rubbish and you have to pay for them when its not even clear which paper is which/relevent! :frown: