.

	POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES

.
Lendosa has a rich and diverse assortment of political ideologies found within its borders - liberalism, conservatism, communism, environmentalism, nationalism, fascism, burovianism, and libertarianism all have at least a small band of enthusiastic supporters. Lendosa has no official ideology - it is intended that there be no particular set of beliefs "built in" to the structure of the state, and that any political ideology can be implemented without constitutional reform.

There are a number of different ways in which political parties can be classified. Under any system, however, Lendosa has a considerable array of available parties. Lendosa's electoral system ensures that politics is not dominated by a small number of "catch-all" parties, and most major ideological systems are likely to be present in the Lendosan political world.

Modern Spectrum

Political discourse in modern Lendosan politics tends to describe parties with relation to two continuums, both relating to whether power is given to the state or to the individual. One axis relates to social matters (civil rights, freedom of religion, etc.), while the other axis relates to economic matters (free enterprise or central planning, etc.).

The generally accepted distribution of parties on these axes is shown below.

Traditional Lendosan Spectrum

The Lendosan spectrum, sometimes known as the triangular spectrum, was the primary system by which political thought was classified in historic Lendosa. It is still used today, but not quite as often as the aforementioned "modern" system. The traditional system is based around the premise that there are three basic objectives that a political theory can have - the promotion of stability, the promotion of equality, or the promotion of liberty. These three points can be traced to the historic dominance of Lendosan political thought by three great philosophers:

• Numerio Corane, an authoritarian theorist who strongly believed in order and stability. Corane claimed that order was the underlying requirement for the implementation of any other ideology, and that it should therefore be the state's primary goal to maintain tight control over society. He claimed that strong pursuit of any ideological goal (including liberty or equality) would undermine a state's security, and threaten the survival of civilization itself.
• Alamono Zaro, a liberal theorist who argued in favour of maximising personal freedom. According to Zaro, liberty was desirable both from a moral and a practical point of view - Zaro claimed that as well as being fair and just, the removal of oppression promoted peace, prosperity, and innovation. He believed that "people will order themselves as they should, if only we let them do so without interference".
• Severano Jurentio, an egalitarian theorist who supported the idea of equality. Jurentio argued that all people had equal potential, and that any difference in what they managed to achieve grew out of circumstance, not nature. Jurentio dismissed both stability and liberty as worthwhile goals - both, he claimed, were based on unfair advantage produced by circumstance. Liberty, accordinding to Jurentio, is merely "the ability to exploit one's luck and gain an undeserved advantage", while stability is merely "the preservation of undeserved advantages already received".

In modern times, the focus on these three theorists has been criticised, particularly by those who claim to disagree with all of them. Many communists, for example, consider the "triangular" system inadequate to describe their ideology, and cite Enrico Calatonez (the father of Lendosan communism) as a "fourth theorist". Communism itself is sometimes known as "the fourth point [of the triangle]" in Lendosan political circles. Other scholars, however, say that communism is a variation of Jurentio's egalitarianism, with additional economic theories built over the top. Despite the complaints, however, the traditional spectrum is still used in Lendosan politics from time to time. Coranism, Zarism, and Jurentism (named after the three great theorists) are frequently-used terms in every-day political discussions.

There is always debate about how best to classify certain parties, particularly ones such as the Communists, the Nationalists, the Burovians, and the Fascists. Nevertheless, a commonly accepted diagram is displayed below.