Date of Award
2021
First Advisor
Chris Coggins
Second Advisor
Maryann Tebben
Abstract
Post-structuralist critiques of sovereignty and the institution of the nation-state have informed the misrepresentation of those represented within government, culminating in the escalation of far-right ideology in high office. The fragmentation and illusion of representation naturally tends towards oppressive policy, ideology, and institutions dependent on an auxiliary economic mode of production. The same analysis of a sectarian democracy dependent on liberal institutionalism still requires inquiry into the institution as a tool for honest representation and change. In querying the institution and its accessibility to the subject, I hope to establish the significance of the institution as the primary force for enacting social change and protest the oppression and misrepresentation of alterity. In discussion with Louis Althusser, I advocate for a more hopeful rendering of his theory of ISA wherein the subject’s indoctrination to bourgeois ideology is flawed and imperfect. The following is a discussion of ideology and institutions which aims to ultimately establish the common basis of all social groups and the significance and ambiguity of the individual and her representation. The social group holds the potential for actualizing the needs of the subject, no matter where she is or who is her oppressor.
Recommended Citation
Albano, April, "Digging up Althusser: on Ideology and Institutions" (2021). Senior Theses. 1522.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/sr-theses/1522
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