Ideology Freeden's research interests include political theory, emotions, ideology, liberalism, methods, rights and justice. Different ideologies may give different meanings to the same term (a concept such as
equality will have a
material definition in
Marxism while in
liberalism it will rather have a
legal and political importance). In this sense, concepts are defined by their relation to other concepts. According to Freeden, it is precisely these conceptual relations that should attract our attention as they will be likely to evolve in the long term. By studying the conceptual evolution of ideologies, Freeden observes that the relative "political success" of an ideology depends on its ability to impose the belief that its own conceptual definitions are the "correct ones". This gives rise to a form of "conceptual competition", in which each ideology performs a continuous "decontestation" of its concepts; that is, it tries to eliminate all possible contestation of its own conceptual definitions, thereby rejecting competing definitions (Marxism will thus reject
private property as a product of the
exploitative nature of
capitalism, just as liberalism may view
state intervention as an infringement of
individual freedoms). ==Works==