Modular ideology: the implications of Green theory for a reconceptualization of 'ideology'

This article has two aims. The first is to challenge the conventional perception according to which Green ideology is essentially a unitary conceptual framework concerning the environment. In contrast, a double-layered modular ideology is proposed with which to analyse the much wider ideological phenomena of New Politics. Environmental issues, and the ecology movement, comprise but one realm of a cluster of green Politics domains which require mutual analysis. The second aim is to use the modular ideology as an exemplification of the need to develop a different approach to the study of ideologies. The close relationship among the historical situatedness, the collective political actor and the analytical framework, I shall argue, is not confined to the ideology of the Greens. It is a constitutive feature of the study of ideologies, which may be demonstrated historically. The theory of ideologies therefore should not seek to define the ultimate 'true' concept of ideology but to delimit, investigate and critically analyse the field of ideological research itself.