ABSTRACT
This short chapter examines the late Jeffrey Friedman’s theory of ideational determinism. Friedman believed that the world was too complex for us to make sense of it without simplifying heuristics and that once we start using some heuristic or another to assess the political world, it can determine our political beliefs. However, as in the theories of partisan identity, Friedman leaves something unexplained: why people choose one heuristic or another to begin with.
