ABSTRACT
Ideology is what makes you know for certain that people who disagree with you must be in the wrong. The crux of ideology lies in its practical consequences. I thus contend that unpacking ideology, in International Relations and elsewhere, requires a focus on its performative quality. We can understand what ideology is by understanding what it does. However, the performativity of ideology cannot be understood in isolation, by singling out formal aspects of an ideological speech act or by excavating a practical grammar underlying all things ideological. The performativity of ideology is always situated, embedded in social struggles, historical experiences and political hopes. Within such contexts, I propose, the performative effect of ideology is to remove particular aspects, crucial to one’s own position, from an open and indeterminate field of contestation.
