ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the general-election campaign that is the preference-defining process. The question on which citizens are asked to vote usually lines them up ‘for’ or ‘against’ something the government is proposing to do, thus severely restricting the range of preference profiles that can be expressed by a vote. The centrality of political parties in shaping and channelling popular preferences renders the electorate’s ability to form new ones quite crucial, however. Parties have often originated as the political wing of an overarching social movement. While the idea of ‘false consciousness’ and group consciousness originated with class, it is of course a problem for all groups, social movements and parties. In a strict 'scientific' Marxist sense, ideology means a false view of the world – the ‘false consciousness’ created by capitalists in order to keep the workers happy. Marxism itself is an ideology but a highly developed, complex, subtle and general one.
