first posted 29 October 2010; last revised 3 January 2011

50 Political Organizations Reflecting 50 Political Ideologies

by Mark Satin

[author, Radical Middle, Basic Books, 2004]

Our page 50 Contemporary Political Ideologies, one of the most popular such pages on the Web, lists 50 ideologies from around the world.  It also links three brief readings under each ideology (typically by advocates of the ideology at issue, and typically from the last 10 years).

But no information is given there about organizations (groups, periodicals, websites) that reflect those ideologies.  So this page remedies that.  All 50 ideologies are listed below – and after each, an organization reflecting that ideology (in this grizzled activist-author’s estimation) is linked in blue.

Of course, in real life each ideology is reflected by a multitude of groups.  We listed only one per ideology because we wanted this page to be maximally useful to people who are just beginning to wrap their arms around the vast scope of contemporary political thinking and imagining (that would be virtually all of us).  People who might benefit from getting a quick lay of the land (ditto).

In other words, this page is unabashedly meant to provoke you to expand your thinking . . . in up to 49 new directions at once!

I exercised five preferences in choosing these organizations:

• representative over quirky;
• thoughtful over bombastic;
• national or global over local;
• U.S. over non-U.S. (but, n.b., all five major continents are represented); and
• groups over periodicals or individual authors (except where the periodicals or authors were more compelling than any group I knew).

So, enjoy.  And SYNTHESIZE!

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I. ANARCHISM

1. Left Anarchism – Institute for Anarchist Studies

2. Anarcho-Primitivism – John Zerzan website

II. CAPITALISM

-. Minimally Regulated Capitalism – see “X. LIBERTARIANISM” below

-. Moderately Regulated Capitalism – see “III. CONSERVATISM” below

-. Highly Regulated Capitalism – see “IX. LIBERALISM” below

3. State Capitalism – People’s Daily (China)

4. Creative Capitalism – World Economic Forum (Switzerland)

III. CONSERVATISM

5. Free-Market Conservatism – American Enterprise Institute [Washington DC insiders], Manhattan Institute [retains insurgent tone]

6. Traditionalist Conservatism – National Review

7. Neoconservatism – Weekly Standard

8. Progressive Conservatism – Republican Main Street Partnership (USA), ResPublica (Britain)

9. Guided Democracy – People's Action Party (Singapore)

IV. DECENTRALISM

10. Creative Federalism – European Centre for Minority Issues (Germany)

11. Localism – Business Alliance for Local Living Economies

12 – Deep Decentralism – New Economics Institute [formerly E. F. Schumacher Society]

V. ECOLOGISM

13. Bright-Green Ecologism – Breakthrough Institute

14. Deep-Green Ecologism – Friends of the Earth [the vision], Green Party of the United States [the political practice?]

VI. (NEO)FASCISM AND IDEOLOGIES OF COPING & EMBATTLEMENT

15a. Racialism / White Nationalism – AmericanRenaissance.com [suave], Stormfront.org [not so suave]

15b. Racialism / Black Nationalism – New Black Panther Party

16. Neopatrimonialism – Power and Politics in Africa Programme (Britain)

17. Survivalism – excerpts from Elijah Anderson, The Code of the Street, 1999

18. Conspiracism – 9/11 Truth Movement

VII. FEMINISM

19. Liberal Feminism – National Organization for Women

20. Socialist Feminism – Barbara Ehrenreich website

21a. Radical Feminism / Visionary – Starhawk’s Tangled Web

21b. Radical Feminism / Ecofeminist – Charlene Spretnak website

22. Third-Wave Feminism – Rebecca Walker website

VIII. GLOBALISM

23. Market Globalism – National Foreign Trade Council

24. Cosmopolitan Globalism – Center for Global Development

25. Justice Globalism – Global Exchange

IX. LIBERALISM

26a. Progressivism / Social Democracy – Center for American Progress [public policy shoppe], American Prospect [journalism]

26b. Progressivism / Republican Democracy – Demos (Britain)

27. Third Way-ism – Third Way

28. Communitarianism – Communitarian Network

29. Deliberationism – National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation

X. LIBERTARIANISM

30a. Libertarianism / Pragmatic – Cato Institute

30b. Libertarianism / Radical – Libertarian Party

XI. MULTICULTURALISM

31a. Liberationism / Black – NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]

31b. Liberationism / Hispanic – National Council of La Raza

31c. Liberationism / Native American – Native American Rights Fund

31d. Liberationism / Gay – National Gay & Lesbian Task Force

31e. Liberationism / Universalist – Human Rights Watch

XII. NATIONALISM

32. Right Nationalism – VDARE.com

33. Left Nationalism – AFL-CIO [here], Electronic Intifada [there]

XIII. POPULISM

34. Right Populism – FreedomWorks

35. Left Populism – Progressive Populist [here], venezuelanalysis.com [there]

XIV. RELIGIO-POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES

36a. Christian Conservatism – Christian Coalition

36b. Christian Progressivism – Sojourners

37a. Hindu Nationalism – Bharatiya Janata Party (India)

37b. Hindu Liberalism – Gurcharan Das website (India)

38a. Islamic Reformism – American Islamic Forum for Democracy (USA), Muslim Institute (Britain)

38b. Islamic Radicalism –NEFA Foundation [monitors developments in & uploads primary documents from violent movements] (USA), Muslim Brotherhood [electoral movement] (Egypt)

39a. Neo-Zionism – Kumah (Israel)

39b. Post-Zionism – Americans for Peace Now (USA) and Peace Now (Israel)

40a. Spiritual Politics / Engaged Buddhism – Buddhist Peace Fellowship

40b. Spiritual Politics / Transformationalism – Yes! magazine

XV. SOCIALISM

41. Democratic Socialism – Democratic Socialists of America (USA), Compass group (Britain)

42. Developmental Socialism – Joseph Stiglitz website

43. State Socialism – Granma International (Cuba) [actual], Revolutionary Communist Party, USA [aspirational]

44. Neo-Marxism – ZNet [raw], The Nation [cooked]

45. Neo-Georgism – On the Commons

46. Neo-Confucianism – excerpts from Daniel A. Bell, China’s New Confucianism, 2010 edition

XVI. INTEGRATIVE IDEOLOGIES

47. Radical Centrism – New America Foundation [policy proposals], Search for Common Ground [activism]

48. African Renaissance – AfricAvenir International (Cameroon)

49. Personalism – Citizen Ethics Network (Britain)

50. Evolutionism – World Values Survey network [social science], Center for Human Emergence (USA & Denmark) [activism]

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APPENDIX

A. Ideologies in General: Centre for Political Ideologies (Britain)

B. Dialogue Across Cultures & Ideologies: World Public Forum: Dialogue of Civilizations (Greece)