Dualistic and Multiple Approaches to the Study of Ideology in Economic Science

The article analyzes modern Russian and foreign literature devoted to studying ideology in economics. In contemporary Russian scientific economic discourse, a significant variety of values and ideological attitudes determine the vision of economic processes, which ultimately affects the basic theoretical foundations and subject area of study and can also influence normative judgments and research in economic policy. Moreover, analysis, apologetics, and criticism of ideology in economic science have a deeply rooted scientific tradition. The article develops D. North's approach to studying ideologies as mental models. Based on a systematic review of scientific papers from eLIBRARY.RU, ScienceDirect, Lens. org and Google Scholar databases analyzed in this article, the authors have come to the following conclusions: firstly, the approach defining ideologies as general mental models is rooted in economic science; secondly, the presence of ideology in economics is often underestimated; and, thirdly, the dualistic approach to the study of ideologies is widely represented. According to the authors, this dualistic approach should be transformed into a multiple one to studying ideologies in economic science, which includes a comparison of five economic ideologies: neoliberalism, socialism, dirigisme, special path, and environmentalism. On the one hand, this typology of ideologies is not political and is directly related to economic science and the corresponding theoretical narratives (proto models). On the other hand, it will avoid emphasizing the antagonism between ideologies.