From belief systems to social representations

There is an explicit consensus in political psychology that the functioning of a political community is linked to the kinds and variety of beliefs that social actors (elite and mass publics) develop in relation to politically relevant objects, or ideologies, and how these beliefs are organised in relation to others. As Doise and Staerklé argue, ‘democratic functioning of a political community is characterised by antagonistic positioning towards socially relevant topics’ (2002, p. 153). This chapter outlines some of the issues that arise from attempts to describe the social organisation of beliefs, with an emphasis on the links between communication, identity and community, and lay constructions of political categories.

In doing so, this chapter presents the main tenets of social representations theory as a theory of social communication and social knowledge. Serge Moscovici’s notion of ‘social representation’ is one of the concepts that has been instrumental in the crystallisation of the idea of society as a ‘thinking’ and ‘knowledge system’. The chapter ends with a discussion of the original contribution of social representations theory to explaining the heterogeneity and diversity of social and political knowledge, the tensions, changes and transformations of modern social and political life.