Political consciousness

It is possible that amongst the people related either by tribal or clan or later by territorial connections, wartime compulsions for security and protection might have given birth to a feeling for a central leader or authority. The common purpose behind this feeling might have been protection and security of life, personal resources and may be power that one enjoyed. This common or collective feeling amongst a group of people to realize certain ends or purposes through an organized authority could be termed as political consciousness. A consciousness amongst the people to obey and be loyal to the chief, or the ruler, or the king primarily because they perceive the political authority as necessary and useful could have been the basis of their continuing support.

As Gilchrist holds, initially, political consciousness in the form of need for the security of person and property, the necessity of defence from external attacks and the need for improvement might have been reasons for acceptance of and loyalty to rulership. For the same reason, it might have rendered legitimacy to rules and regulations formulated by a ruler or organized political authority. In contemporary times, in addition to the elements of security, order and defence, principles of democracy, equality, justice, liberty, rights, welfare have also shaped and unshaped people’s approach towards state power. In most of the cases, influence of these principles on political consciousness has been reasons in imparting legitimacy, order and stability to state power; while in some cases, it has been a cause for revolutions. The French and the English revolutions are examples of the latter, while acceptance of liberal democracy and capitalist freedom as somewhat desired values of the former. Feeling amongst the people of utility of a centralized political organization like the kingship or the state, to realize common ends and purposes imparts legitimacy to the State and its rules. As such, political consciousness might have been an important factor behind evolution and development of the state.

However, for the Marxian perspective, political consciousness of the people is ideology-driven. In a class-divided society, political consciousness is based on ideology of the dominant class. Consent and loyalty of the people is ‘manufactured’ or ‘engineered’ by the State itself to make it appear that the State and its power are legitimate and have acceptance of everyone, though it serves only the interests of the economically dominant class. As such, taking a Marxian position, one can argue that instead of political consciousness being a factor in evolution and development of the state, it is the latter that shaped political consciousness of the people to serve the dominant classes.