| Many factors have often been advanced as the reason for the success of ideologies. Among these factors are the rational calculations of individuals who adhere to an ideology because it enhances their self-interest; the socio-economic structure that determines whether a society is open or closed, and thus favors the advent of a specific ideology; and the socio-political structure that enhances or inhibits the advent of an ideology. While recognizing the merits of the above reasons, this dissertation argues that the success or failure of an ideology such as liberalism might also be due to the interactions between the "evolutionary forces" in a cultural environment and the "genes" of an ideology; for the cultural environment seems to "select" which ideology succeeds and which one fails. In this perspective, I use the theory of evolution as a metaphor to suggest that just as organic matters go through the five processes of organic evolution (natural selection, mutation, isolation, inheritance, and drift) so might liberalism. Thus, I attempt to find the cultural equivalents of the five processes of organic evolution that might have impacted the relative "success" of liberalism in America and in Ghana. |
