POLITICAL CULTURE APPROACH

Introduction:
● The strategy of political culture was highly common in comparative studies and empirical
analysis of temporary communities. Scholars wanted in the context of their political cultures
to explore political conduct and procedures. His pioneers were Almond, Verba and Pye.

● Political culture is an array of attitudes and procedures maintained by a nation that shapes
its political conduct. It comprises moral decisions, political myths, convictions and thoughts
on what makes a healthy society. A political culture reflects an administration, but it also
includes historical and traditional aspects that can be prior to the present system.
Political cultures matter because they form the political perceptions and behaviour of a
population. Governments can assist to shape government and political culture through
schooling, government activities and previous remembrance. Political cultures differ
considerably between states and even within a state.

● However, different countries have different political cultures, so that we can understand
why they organize their governments in a way, because of success or failure of democracies
or because some nations still have monarchies.
Understanding our own political culture can also offer hints on political relations such as
those with which we share our governments or others.

● In the US, we might be tempted by the political culture as a democrat or a republican in

terms of our voting status. It is however important to understand that politics is different
than politics. The term political ideology refers to a code of beliefs and opinions on
governments and politics, which can influence the way we vote or if we support certain
legislation or not.

● For example, two individuals, for instance, have distinct political ideologies, and can share a
political culture. In other words, a conservative on the right can come from the same political
culture as a liberal on the left. In other words, we share political culture, while we use a
political ideology to describe ourselves and create political choices.

Relation between political culture and political

system:

● Political culture and political system have a close relationship. The survival of all ancient
and contemporary political structures is based on political culture. A political community can
exist as a political system even without a "state." Whatever the form of a political scheme–it
has a certain type or pattern of political culture, whether created or created. Stateless
political systems, including the United Nations (UN), are, more or less, based on some type
of political culture and many global and regional organizations.

● Political culture is the collection of attitudes, values and feelings that bring order and
meaning to the political process, providing the basic hypotheses and rules governing
behaviour in the political system. It covers both the political ideals and the functioning
standards of a government.

● The psychological and subjective dimensions of politics are, therefore, demonstrated in an

overall form in political culture. A political culture is the product both of the political system's
collective history and of the lives of those who make up this system and is thus equally
rooted in public events and private events.

● A latest term in which the knowledge linked to long-term ideas such as political ideology,
domestic ethos and mind, domestic political psychology, and the values of the basic people,
is intended to be much more explicit and systematic. By adopting both leaders and citizens '
policy directions, political culture is more inclusive than terms like political style or
operational code that focus on elite conduct. The word is, however, more clearly political
and, consequently, more restrictive than notions such as domestic public opinion.

● More specifically, in response to the necessity to overcome a widening gap between the
level of microanalysis, based on psychological interpretations of the political behaviour, and
the level of macroanalysis, based on variables common to social science politics, the concept
of political culture was developed.

Contributions by Almond and Verbal:

● In 1963 a study on the political cultures linked in the five democratic countries of Germany,
Italy, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States was produced by two political
scientists, Gabriel Almond and Sydney Verba.

● Gabriel Almond, a "dean" of modern theory of political society, starts by showing that, for
over two thousand years, culture— the cognitions, values, and affective obligations of
people— was a key element of significant social reasons. He also argues that, in contrast to
rationality, culture has been of great significance in explanation of social life through the
horrific "unreasonable" occurrences of the 20th century (including the World Wars I and II
and the Holocaust). Indeed, culture's effectiveness in this area was strengthened by advances
in theory of measures, social surveys and statistical analysis in the middle of the century.
Almond investigates the roots of contemporary political theory and perhaps too rapidly
rejects its critics. But he is confident and optimistic about the centrality of future applications
in the growth of social science in his study of contemporary political culture.

● The key concept of Almond and Verba is that in societies where the subjects and parochial
attitudes are the most stable in terms of a culture that is fundamentally involved.
This mixture is called city culture. The people are sufficiently active in politics in this perfect
mixture to convey their preferences to leaders, but not to refuse choices with which they
disagree. Civic culture therefore resolves the tension between popular control and efficient
governance within democracy.

● There are three basic types of political culture, according to Almond and Verba that can
serve for explaining why individuals are or not engaged in political procedures.
The general citizen is uninformed and uninformed of their governments and has little
interest in the political process in a parochial political culture, like Mexico. Citizens are
somewhat educated and aware of their government in a political culture, as in those found in
Germany and Italy, and occasionally engage in a politic process. Citizens are informed and
actively engage in the political process in a participating political culture, like the United
Kingdom and the United States.

Types of political culture:

The political culture of one nation has also been noted to be essentially different from that of
other nations. In the globe today there is no nation with a single uniform cultural
background. Four perfect kinds of political culture have been listing Almond and Verba.

They are:
1. Parochial Political Culture:
Where people do not understand the domestic political system, do not have a tendency to
take part in the procedures of input and don't know the processes of output, such a political
culture is called the parochial political culture. This category covers the African tribes and
Eskimos. In political culture these kinds of individuals have no part to play.

2. Subject political Culture:

In the subject nations and monarchies this sort of political culture can be discovered. There,
the people know whether or not they like the government scheme. You also understand the
role of the government in creating legislation, enforcing legislation and collecting taxes, etc.
People are not instructed to take part in the input tasks for this sort of culture. Sometimes
they cannot, so it is hard for individuals to impact the functioning of the political system.

3. Participant political Culture:

People like this have a keen interest in participating in and influencing the political system.
They always make sensible requirements and are engaged in decision-making on the
political system. They take a specific approach to the political system. This category is
covered by political and lobbying parties (interest groups) and decides what role they can
play.

4. Political Sub-culture:
There is no need for all groups in a given nation to be advanced similarly; some can be more
advanced while others can be less developed. Those organizations that are more developed
therefore create a participatory culture, while others still maintain topics or parish culture.
This is because there are different ethnic groups in many nations around the globe. Political
culture differences evolve because of the differences between schooling, political
preparation, social and economic backgrounds.