International records / OpenAlex research

PROCESSES

One important clue to the ways in which people identify themselves politically is to consider the names of political parties. Many of the names refer to the ‘ideologies’ which we have already considered – liberal, socialist, communist, conservative. What is striking, however, is the number of names which refer specifically to sectional groups within a state’s population: national – Scottish National Party, Inkatha (‘Spear of the [Zulu] Nation’); ethnic/racial – Malaysian Chinese Association; religious – Christian Democrat, Jan Sangh (Hindu); or class/occupation – Labour, Peasant. Indeed, if we …