The purpose of the article is to demonstrate that ideas can be treated as a factor explaining political stability and change. Based on the completed analytical tasks, it has been found that ideas have their own dynamics and therefore they deliver unique effects, influencing change or stability of policies. The article demonstrates that the impact ideas have on the political process depends on the understanding of human behaviour in the field of politics. The article reviews the ideational dimension with reference to behaviours covered by the rational choice theory, by historical, sociological and discoursive institutionalism and constructivism. As a result of the analytic tasks, certain differences have been revealed between the above mentioned approaches in terms of understanding the impact of ideas. What the approaches have in common is a close link between ideas and political actors. The article covers theoretical issues without considering methodology aspects. It is based on the outcomes of study projects carried out by authors recognized in the so-called school of ideas, formed in political science following the “ideational shift” during the 1990s and reflecting until the present day on the ideational dimension of politics.

One of the aims of this paper was to characterize liberal theories of rational choice which emerged in XX century, especially theory of public choice. It ought to be noticed that such a task was realized many times by many authors. Due to this fact the text is devoted mostly to review the positions presented by the leading representatives of the intellectual circle mentioned above. Especially the shortages of their philosophical anthropology were pointed out. Moreover, the critique of the linguistic dimension of the rational choice theory was proposed. It was also shown that their endeavours of grounding their works in a long lasting tradition is profoundly disputable.