Essay Question: What are ideologies and how do they impact upon policy making?

Ideologies refer to a set of ideas and values that provides a base for organised political action. They justify and influence the different theories of society and human nature. Ideologies have a big impact on policy making, as the government of the day will base their policies around these political ideologies. The two major political parties in New Zealand, National and Labour, each have different beliefs and values which lead to different ideologies. Looking at both parties previous and current policies, we can observe the impact of the ideologies they have adopted on their policy making. The National party in the last 20 years has driven policies from a
Social democracy regulates certain areas of economic activity, and develops the operation of the welfare state. This reinforces the key idea behind social democracy of everyone being of equal opportunity (Duncan, 2007).
The state has a role, and is used as an instrument of social change (Belgrave, Cheyne, & O’Brien, 2008), and this is the general view that social democrats have of the state. They acknowledge that inequality and capitalism exist, and this justifies the need of a welfare state. The welfare state is the key instrument for guaranteeing wellbeing. Social policy is concerned with particular areas of public goods, which are those that are supplied to citizens in need or dependent. Education, health, housing, and income support are examples of these (Belgrave, Cheyne, & O’Brien, 2008). Redistribution of wealth and opportunity is a desirable purpose, and the outcome of this policy should end in a more unified society (Belgrave, Cheyne, & O’Brien, 2008).
Social democratic policies would not have lasted very long without an economic theory to explain them. Failure of the classic neo-liberal economic policy which was based on self-equilibrating markets, in the era of the Great Depression, allowed British economist John Maynard Keynes to then proposed the Keynesian theory. For an economy to reach a point of equilibrium – where demand equals supply, it needs to be helped along the way and