When Power Becomes Its Own Proof: Ideology Critique as Epistemic Audit
Summary. This blog explores Aytac and Rossi’s “Ideology Critique without Morality: A Radical Realist Approach” as a toolkit for the exploration of the intersection of power, narrative and strategy. Instead of asking whether systems are morally just, their “radical realist” approach targets how dominant actors use culture, concepts and stories to justify their own authority. By treating ideologies as epistemically suspect when they arise from self‑justifying power, they offer a way to critique organisations, movements and regimes without getting trapped in familiar moral binaries.
Ideology critique without morality offers a sharp, usable frame for analysing how power justifies itself through ideas, narratives and “culture” without leaning on contested moral claims about justice or oppression.
Core thesis in plain terms
Aytac and Rossi argue that the point of ideology critique is not primarily to show that beliefs or practices are morally unjust, but to show when and how they are produced by self‑justifying power and are therefore epistemically suspect.
Instead of asking “is this order unjust?”, they ask “are the beliefs that sustain this order the product of power judging its own case?”.
When the answer is yes, we have a reason to debunk those beliefs—even if they might happen to be true—because the route by which they became dominant is epistemically flawed.
This shifts critique from declaring moral verdicts to exposing the epistemic circularity by which dominant actors manufacture the appearance of legitimacy.
Why realism, and why “radical”?
The piece situates itself in the “realist” revival, rejecting the idea that political normativity must be grounded in moral principles like justice, rights or equality. Instead, it treats politics as an empirical field in which we can make evaluative claims by analysing how power operates, how beliefs are produced and how those beliefs function to stabilise or contest social orders.
It is radical because it does not stop at superficial critique (bad policies, bad leaders) but targets the background cultural “technes” (concepts, scripts, heuristics, narratives) that make particular orders appear natural and legitimate. It is realist because it insists that critique work “on the terrain of empirics rather than that of moral commitments”: social science, not moral first principles, is the primary resource.
This is an invitation to treat stories, categories and frames as empirically traceable artefacts of power, not just as vehicles for moral persuasion.
Ideology as epistemic flaw, not moral wrong
Where newer Anglophone ideology critics (especially Haslanger) make moral wrongness central—ideology is bad when it sustains injustice, oppression, etc.—Aytac and Rossi argue this over‑moralises critique and introduces two risks.
First, the moral commitments of social movements and “the oppressed” can be ideologically distorted too (e.g. elite‑captured antiracism that occludes class or gender). Treating their moral outlook as a privileged foundation shields it from critique and reproduces internal hierarchies within movements.
Second, if we already “know” core moral truths under good enough conditions, ideological critique risks becoming redundant: all that seems left is clearing epistemic obstacles so people can see how their practices violate existing moral commitments.
Their alternative is to locate the flaw in epistemic circularity: when those who wield power also produce, disseminate and entrench the beliefs that justify their own dominance, in ways we know are shaped by politically motivated reasoning. The problem is not that these beliefs are morally bad, or even strictly false, but that they arise from an untrustworthy justificatory loop—power acting as judge in its own case, where self‑generated narratives become the unquestioned reference point for strategy, legitimacy and sense‑making.
The mechanism: self‑justifying power and motivated reasoning
Their abstract model is simple.
A dominant group A sits at the top of a social hierarchy over group B.
A develops and spreads a cultural techne LL (a belief, concept, discourse) that legitimises the hierarchy HH.
Because A controls key institutions and channels, B comes to adopt LL as well; LL’s prevalence helps stabilise HH.
Social‑psychological research on politically motivated reasoning shows that, in such contexts, group A’s reasoning about legitimacy is heavily shaped by its interest in preserving its own status.
So LL is epistemically unwarranted: its justificatory route runs through a biased, circular mechanism in which power manufactures the grounds of its own legitimation.
The critical upshot:
We gain a conclusive reason to reject LL as a basis for understanding or legitimising social relations.
We gain a pro tanto reason to withdraw support from institutions and practices whose legitimacy depends on LL, at least until they can be justified non‑circularly.
Importantly, they are careful to avoid the genetic fallacy. Debunking a techne as the product of self‑justifying power does not prove its content false; it shows that, in this social context, we lack good reasons to treat it as authoritative. This keeps the critique strictly epistemic while still politically potent.
This methodological move matters: it suggests you can question dominant corporate or political narratives on epistemic grounds (how they were produced, which interests shaped them, how contestation is suppressed) without needing to declare the actors morally bad or the outcomes unjust.
Case illustration: neopatriarchy in MENA
The case study on neopatriarchy in the Middle East and North Africa concretises the framework.
Neopatriarchal orders combine:
A modernising, often authoritarian state.
A patriarchal family regime (male guardianship, senior male authority).
Patronage networks and familist clientelism in political and economic life.
The key cultural techne they focus on is the patriarchal analogy between father and ruler—the “father of the nation” trope and broader family metaphors used to justify authoritarian rule. In the Turkish case, for example, Erdogan’s rhetoric frames opponents as unruly children or deviant women, and loyalists as proper sons and daughters under paternal protection.
Aytac and Rossi locate two layers of circularity here.
At the macro level: state power actively maintains and codifies patriarchal norms (through family law, policy and non‑decision) and then appeals to those same norms to legitimate its authority.
At the micro level: patriarchal family structures socialise new generations into obedience and gendered deference, creating a subjectivity tailored to accept patriarchal rule as natural.
Since both the norms and the identities that make neopatriarchy appear legitimate are reproduced by hierarchies that benefit from them, the justificatory structure is doubly circular and thus epistemically defective. The conclusion is not that neopatriarchy is morally wrong (though that may be true), but that it cannot claim genuine legitimacy on the basis of norms and narratives generated by its own self‑interested power.
This neatly mirrors how corporate cultures, brand myths or “purpose” narratives can be propagated by leadership, embedded in HR and comms, and then cited as proof of authentic values—despite being largely products of leadership’s own motivated reasoning.
critique as epistemic disruption
Several practical implications follow for an orientation that works at the intersection of theory, strategy and narrative.
I. Move from moral to epistemic critique.
Instead of (or before) asking “is this strategy just or inclusive?”, ask:
Who generated the key concepts and narratives?
How did they become dominant?
Whose interests and identities do they preserve?
How much contestation have they been exposed to?
This reframes critique as testing epistemic hygiene rather than pronouncing moral judgment.
II. Target self‑justification in narrative audits.
The “self‑justifying power” lens is a powerful diagnostic for narrative analysis:
Identify where an organisation’s or movement’s story functions to validate its own role (e.g. “we are the indispensable mediators”, “our leadership model is naturally trusted”).
Map how those stories were institutionalised (policies, metrics, HR practices, rituals).
Surface the ways dissent, alternative framings, or competing identities have been marginalised.
The question is not only “what do they believe?” but “how did this belief get here, and who benefits from it being taken for granted?”.
III. Use social science as the main engine of critique.
Aytac and Rossi emphasise that ideology critique should be grounded in empirical analysis, even if that analysis is probabilistic and incomplete. This translates into:
Drawing systematically on political psychology (motivated reasoning, identity‑protective cognition) when analysing stakeholder beliefs.
Treating organisational data (surveys, promotions, messaging, product decisions) as evidence of how technes are reproduced and contested.
Designing research questions that can reveal where justificatory loops are operating.
IV. Accept normativity without prescriptions.
Their “radical realist social analysis” is evaluative but explicitly not prescriptive. It tells us which legitimating narratives are epistemically flawed and which power structures are sustained by those narratives, but it does not directly say what should replace them.
This dovetails with the role of a critical strategist: to clarify where a system’s self‑understanding is epistemically compromised, and to open space for alternatives, without dictating a singular moral horizon.
V. Beware moralism as a new ideology.
Finally, the paper is a warning that moral talk—even progressive, movement‑rooted moral talk—can itself become an ideological shield.
When moral vocabularies harden into untouchable premises, they, too, evade contestation and can serve self‑justifying power within movements, organisations, or brands.
An epistemic orientation helps keep those vocabularies open to critical scrutiny, including within our own practice.
If this piece resonated with you, treat it as an invitation to audit the stories your own work runs on. Which concepts, metrics and metaphors in your organisation quietly certify that existing power “deserves” to be where it is?
At strat4, we help teams surface those self‑justifying narratives, test them against reality and design alternative frames that open space for different futures. If you want to put this kind of ideology critique to work in your strategy, communications or movement-building, get in touch and let’s map where power has become its own proof in your context.