Module Detail

Political Science
Subject Name

Comparative Politics
Paper Name

Political Culture
Module
Name/Title

Pre-requisites

1. To understand the meaning of political culture

Objectives
and to discuss various types of political
cultures.
2. To discuss the concept of political
secularization.
3. To know about the new trends coming up in
political culture.

Culture, Political Culture, Political Socialization,

Keywords
Civic Culture, Public Opinion, Elite Political Culture

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Role Name Affiliation

Professor Ashutosh Kumar

Principal Investigator Panjab
University,
Chandigarh

Professor Pampa Mukherjee

Paper Coordinator Panjab
University,
Chandigarh

Assistant Prof. Rohit Sharma Arya

Content Writer/Author (CW) College,
Ludhiana

Content Reviewer (CR) Professor Pampa Mukherjee, Panjab

University,
Chandigarh

Language Editor (LE) Professor Ashutosh Kumar, Panjab

University,
Chandigarh

POLITICAL CULTURE

Introduction

Under the influence of behavioural studies1, the social scientists started using concepts across
disciplines for better understanding of society, polity and economy. For instance, the idea of

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Behavioural studies attempts to develop rigorous research by implying precise methods of analysis to political
behaviour problems. It emphasize on the empirical analysis of individuals behaviour and social groups rather than
structures and institutions.

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market is a key concept in the study of economics or management studies but the same concept
is used in the subject of political science in the formulation of a rational-choice model. This
model helps in analysing voting behaviour of the individuals. In the same vein, the concepts like
class and community that are used in the study of sociology, power and legitimacy in political
science, personality or behaviour in psychology are being used across the disciplines of social
sciences to comprehend the existing complexities in societies. Similarly, the concept of culture is
being used by political scientists to draw the insights and theory on people’s beahviour. (Pye:
1991). The political system of any country is shaped by its environment (social and
psychological); and that environment helps in determining people’s ideals and patterns of
behaviour that developed over the period of time and influence the political life of a state, region
or nation. The concept of political culture is thus extremely useful in understanding, analyzing
and comparing politics in general and behaviour of individuals towards polity in particular.

The culture that is vital for the study of politics provides the context for political understandings
and the language of political discussions because people are united with each other due to shared
common language and symbols. It may be mentioned here that the same culture can also divide
people, by highlighting differences in their experiences and interests. Consequently, political
culture is responsible in shaping the terms of debate for the competing interests in society. That
is the reason in recent years political culture has become the very substance of political conflicts.
In the cotemporary times the cultural wars have become important phenomena to understand
current scenario of politics in a nation. These cultural wars spurts over sexual preferences, gay
marriage, abortion rights, etc. All this have became the part of political activism that has also
acquired central stage in politics in the past two decades. Yet these explicitly culture-centric
political conflicts are only the most visible, and explicitly manipulated, manifestations of the
deep and broad cultural context that always shapes politics.2

What is Culture?

In broad terms culture is a way of life of a people within a society. It comprises attitudes, values,
and acquaintances that is not only shared by people within a society but also is transmitted from
one generation to the next. The culture can be learned easily by individuals due to human nature

2
For further details kindly refer http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/10_1_1.html

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i.e. innate. This learned culture can be different in nature when compare it with one society to
another. There is an important aspect of any culture that they are reluctant to change the norms of
their culture. In other words they resist new changes with whom they are not familiar and find it
difficult to adjust with them. The reason for this is difficult to change the cognitive faculty of any
individual, because values that an individual acquires or learns while growing up, becomes and
an ends in itself over the time. Therefore, the abandonment of values and ideals that an
individual inherited would generate deep sense of insecurity and anxiety not only to them but to
society also. Whenever any society faces transitions in their culture, society, economy etc. it is to
be said that culture has got changed or may be transformed. It may be noted here it is not easy
for individuals to accept changes in the culture that they are accustomed to or are socialised to a
particular pattern of culture. The desired or rightful changes take place only through the
transmission of new values by intergenerational population (Inglehart: 1990).

Every country is having its own distinct culture vis-à-vis political norms that shape its citizens
perceptions about the way of life and politics. Therefore it is to be believed that the working of
political institutions of any country is a partial reflection of attitudes, norms and expectations of
its citizens. Therefore, in order to make sense of patterns and of events that is occurring in a
country or in order to understand the politics, one needs to start with the analysis of people
behavior, their attitudes with respect to politics, political objects and their role within the
political system.

What is Political Culture?

During World War II (1939-1945), the nations of the world were either becoming authoritarian
or democratic. In that period social scientist were interested to explore the possible explanations
that why some nations had turned to authoritarianism while others have became supports of the
democratic institutions in the world. In the times of world wars the anthropologists like Margaret
Mead and Ruth Benedict developed “culture and personality” approach. This approach asserted
that members of different societies develop different modal personalities, which in turn can
explain support for different kinds of political programs and institutions. In a somewhat different
vein, the German exile philosopher Theodor Adorno and colleagues undertook a massive study
during the war time and came up with their work The Authoritarian Personality (1950),

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continuing earlier research by critical theorists into the structure of authority in families, which
they believed had led Germans to support authoritarian politics and social prejudice. In a similar
vein, Harold Laswell described a set of personality traits shared by “democrats,” including an
“open ego,” a combination of value-orientations, and generalized trust.3

These scholars showed that cultural norms of any given society can be responsible for bringing
change and also in the formulation of political culture. Heywood (2007) has rightly put forward
that political culture is merely a reflection of people’s psychological orientations and a general
‘pattern of orientations’ towards political objects. Generally, political culture is misunderstood
with public opinion. It may be important to note here that the political culture is not similar to the
concept of public opinion because it is fashioned out of long-term values rather than simply
people’s reactions to specific issues and problems.

How Political Culture is different from Public Opinion?

Political culture is a sum total of individual’s beliefs and values towards polity and the political
system. For instance what is people’s perception about democracy? What do they expect from
the government? What do people think about the notion of welfare state? etc. On the other hand
public opinion is a cluster of an individual’s opinions as well as of reactions towards any
particular issue or event that occurred in any nation state. It may be important to mention here
that political culture can influence the public opinion and if that public opinion continues for a
long period of time, later on that will turn into political culture.

Defining of Political Culture

The term political has been defined by number of political theorists and comparativists. Roy
Macridis (1955) for instance, defines political culture as, “the commonly shared goals and
commonly accepted rules.” The most comprehensive understanding of political culture is
reflected from Lucian Pye and Almond’s work on political culture. Lucian Pye in his seminal
work “ Politics, Personality and Nation Building(1962) states that political Culture is a set of
attitudes, beliefs and sentiments that give order and meaning to political process and that
provides the underlying assumptions and rules that govern the behaviour in political system.
3
International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2nd Edition

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According to Almond and Powell (1966) Political Culture is the pattern of individual attitudes
and orientations towards politics among the members of a political system. It may provide with a
valuable conceptual tool by means of which one can bridge the 'micro-macro' gap in political
theory.

Samuel Beer (1974) defined it as “components of the culture and values, beliefs and emotional
attitudes about how a government ought to be conducted and what it should do”.

Andrew Heywood (2007) Political culture is a psychological orientations of peoples in relation

to political objects (political parties, government and the constitution etc), expressed in their
political attitudes, beliefs, symbols and values. It differs from public opinion in that it is
fashioned out of long-term values rather than reactions to specific policies, problems or
personalities. Now question arises that how do people acquire their political attitudes and values?
People acquire their political attitudes and values through a process of political socialisation.
This may be seen either as a process of indoctrination that takes place throughout a person’s life,
or as the transmission of values from one generation to the next, largely accomplished during
childhood. The major agents of political socialization are the family, education, religion, the
mass media and the government.

In a nut shell, political culture is a set of beliefs, values, emotions and perceptions of the people
about politics, political system and political objects of a country. It can help the students of
comparative politics to comprehend and analyse the success or failures of any political system in
the countries of world. For instance it can answer the question like why democracy or democratic
institutions are successful in a few countries but is an utter failure in the other countries? It may
be important to note here that political culture cannot answer about everything that occurs in the
realm of politics. The reason is, despite of same values and culture people behave differently
when they encounter with different types of problems or opportunities. In this regard it is also
true that cultural norms typically change slowly and reflect enduring patterns of political action.
In this sense political culture is a critical element in understanding politics across countries or
across time. It helps to understand how politics unfolds itself.

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Aspects of Political Cultures

How do groups of citizens behave or participate in a nation? How cultural norms shape citizens
political views? etc. The answer is the nation’s political culture shapes citizen’s perceptions that
encompasses their orientations towards the nation’s political system, its policy making process
and policy outcomes (see, Table 1.2).

Table 1.2

Aspects of Political Culture Examples

System Pride in Nation
National Identity
Legitimacy of Government
Process Role of Citizens
Perceptions of Political Rights
Policy Role of Government
Government policy priorities
Source: Almond, et.al. p.46, 2009.

The perception of the citizens involves their values and organisations which comprises the
political system and is involved under the system level. It is important to explore people’s
orientations, their commitment towards their system, the polity, the nation and national identity.
For instance in advanced industrial societies one can find that there national pride is at highest
level. In a survey of World Values in 2000-2002, the data set shows the high level of national
pride in advance nations like United States and Poland.

This sense of national pride and the national identity helps in bringing legitimacy to the system
under which citizens are governed. It all is possible due to shared ideals and values of a nation’s
citizens. This element of legitimacy is very important for the successful functioning of polity or
the political system. In traditional societies, the ruler or the monarch’s legitimate authority to rule
usually depends upon people’s response to his powers. In modern advanced democratic societies
legitimacy lies in the constitution of the country. The ultimate authority lies with the people, they
through the process of elections chose their representative to govern and by obeying the laws
they provide legitimacy to the power of the head of state. In some countries the sovereign still

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draws their legitimate authority from the culture, traditions and ideology that exist in the nation.
The advance nation countries like England are best example for this.

It is important to note that the element of legitimacy is very crucial as it highlights the
relationship between citizens and institutions that exists in the nation. If the existing system or its
institution can’t be able enough to discharge its functions properly towards its people, the people
can revolt, they can replace the system. Therefore, people always have some general ideas or
expectations like how they should be governed, what should be the nature of society? What
should be the role of public institutions? etc. All this includes under the second aspect of political
culture that is the process level. The government tries to meet up the expectations of people by
making policies for their betterment. Policies are also made for the economic and political
development of a nation which carries its implications on the life of people. Hence, the policy
level deals with citizens expectations from the government in terms of policy making. The policy
of any country is influenced by the role of government in policy making. Here, political culture
includes expectations of people and, government’s engagement in terms of policy as well as for
economy. Should government or private forces guide economy? Should government interfere in
society? These are the specific policy demands by the citizens in the advanced industrial
societies. Some policy goals can be in terms of material values or of welfare measures and all
these vary across nations because of difference in nation’s cultural traditions. For example,
people in developing countries will emphasizes on the role of government in providing basic
services like health, education, food, shelter, safe drinking water, employment etc. On the
contrary, in advance industrial societies, where all the basic needs have been taken care by the
government, people there are more concerned with the quality of life issues like protection of
environment, arts, gays and lesbians rights etc. (Almond et.al. 2009).

Nature of Political Culture: Civic Culture

As mentioned earlier that the political scientist developed their interest in the study of political
culture during 1950s and 1960s under the influence of behavioural studies and were trying to
analyse the systems with the new techniques of behavioural analysis that were empirical in its
nature. Here, Almond and Verba’s used opinion surveys to analyse political behaviour and
political attitudes of individuals about democracy in five countries, namely the USA, the UK,

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West Germany, Italy and Mexico. This is presented in their classic work ‘The Civic Culture
(1963). Almond and Verba’s attempted to understand and explain the fall down of representative
government in interwar Italy, Germany and elsewhere in the world. They wanted to identify an
effective political culture that could uphold democratic norms and culture (Heywood: 2007).
Therefore, they identified and classified the political culture into three general types:

I. Parochial Political Culture

In a parochial political culture citizens do not identify themselves with the state. That
shows that there is an absence of a sense of citizenship. Therefore people do not have any
idea or knowledge about political system; hence they do not participate in politics. They
identify themselves with their locality rather than the region or state. Such type of
political culture can be found in tribal societies where tribe head is all in all and tribe
people follow him without questioning his authority

II. Subject Political Culture

In this type of political culture people act passively. Such kind of political culture can be
seen in the colonial states where citizens cannot involve themselves in politics because
they think that they have no capacity to influence government. But once when they
acquire political consciousness they do fight for their rights and liberation and could
overthrow the colonial regime.

III. Participant Political Culture

In this type of political culture citizens actively participate in political activities to ensure
their desired outcome. They are capable in doing so because of high level of political
consciousness. The citizens are fully aware of their rights and duties and also their role in
decision-making process. For instance such type of political culture is popular or could be
found advance countries like the UK and the USA.

Almond and Verba (1963) acknowledged that a participant political culture has come closer to
the democratic ideals. The participation of citizens in the political process is the prime necessity

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for the government to govern on people. Here, they both argued that the civic culture is
intermingling of all three political cultures that they have identified after their research. They
argued that political culture in advance democratic societies is a blend of citizen’s active
participation or non- participation in polity. The civic culture emphasises on the input process by
individuals in the polity, i.e. the participation in political activities that are concerned with their
lives. It is important to note that in the civic culture one can generally witnesses the prevalence
of political activities, highly exposure to political communications, of political discussion, of
concern with political affairs etc. In the civic culture people are not only oriented to political
input they are oriented positively to the input structures and the input process. In other words, the
political culture and structure are congruence. It may mention here that in civic political culture
we cannot odd out or miss the parochial and subject orientations because they are congruent with
the participant orientations. This all leads to maintenance of balance in a political culture where
one can find active participation of people in political activity which shows the level of
rationality in the people and also making balance of parochial values. Almond and Verba
concluded that the UK is the best possible example of the civic culture as it exhibits both
participant and subject features of political culture. In the case of USA participant attitudes
predominated over subject ones. The difficulty of building or rebuilding s civic culture was
underlined by the examples of both West Germany and Italy. A decade and a half after the
collapse of fascism, neither country appeared to have a strong participant culture; while the
subject culture was dominant in Germany, Parochial attitudes remained firmly entrenched in
Italy (Heywood: 2007).

Secularisation of Political Culture

Political culture is dynamic in nature where change takes place with the passage of time. The
process through which awareness or consciousness about polity is spread among people is
termed as secularisation of political culture. As a result of this political consciousness people
become capable to check or evaluate their own political system and polity with logic and
rationality. It implies people’s departure from parochial values. According to Almond and
Powell (1963):

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 Secularisation is the process whereby men become increasingly rational,
analytical and experienced in their political action. Secular (political)
culture is one in which traditional orientation and attitudes give way to
more dynamic decision-making processes involving gathering of
information, the evaluation of information, the laying out of alternative
course of action, the selection of course from among these possible courses
and the means whereby tests whether or not a given course of action is
producing the consequences which were intended.

It may be mentioned here that secular political culture is a distinctive feature of advance
industrial countries like the UK, USA, Canada, Switzerland, France etc.

Consensual or Conflictual Political Cultures

As mentioned earlier that political culture is a feature of every nation in the world and the values
and beliefs towards polity may also vary not only among the nations but also within the nations.
It may be important to mention here that Almond and Verba’s approach tends to treat political
culture as a homogenous entity. The reason may be that they emphasised or analysed on the basis
of national identity, national culture or national character. In doing so they missed or
overshadowed the political sub-culture that prevails within the boundaries of a nation and tends
to disguise social fragmentations that are based on class, race or gender. Therefore, political
culture can be consensual or conflictual over the issues of public policy, political arrangements,
government etc. In consensual political culture, citizens tend to agree on the appropriate means
of making political decisions; agree over the solutions to tackle on the major problems that
society faces. In conflictual political culture, citizens are sharply divided both in terms of
legitimacy and regime and also on deriving on a decision.

When a nation got divided in political attitudes, then a distinctive sub-political culture would
develop over the period of time. Citizens may have sharp differences on the issues like
boundaries of a nation, the nature of state, etc. Consequently these affected people formulate
parties to assert and create their identity. For instance Robert Putnam (1993) argues that
variations in the quality of local government in different regions of Italy were determined by the
presence or absence of traditions of civic engagement, reflected in differing levels of voter
turnout, newspaper readership, and membership of choral societies and football clubs. Putnam

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actually using Italy shows that how political culture directly enhances and impact on the stability
of political system where there is such culture (Heywood:209:2007).

Putnam in his research focused on the diversity of nation and culture. He showed how a country
varies in political cultures and how it influences the performance of regional government. 1970,
Italy already has regional government, all similar in structure and political power but 20 new
regional governments varied in their performance. According to him it was because of political
culture. The successful regions have positive political culture. Traditions and trust exists there
that’s why they are progressive and also called it social capital4. Northern Italy was performing
well as compared to southern Italy. Why? Because it has long history of feudal rule, foreign
invasion, authoritarian state etc. were the reasons of its poor performance.

Trends in Political Culture

As mentioned earlier that it a dynamic concept and changes can happen with the passage of time.
For instance the personal experiences of an individual or the agents of political socialisation
largely play their role in shaping their attitudes, beliefs and also brings changes in the society.
History of any nation can throw the light on the trends that brought about the changes in the
culture of the nation. In contemporary times one can also identify social trends that are
responsible for bringing change in the existing culture. For instance, in trends like modernity,
secularism, post-materialism, fundamentalism and democratisation, and marketization can be
easily identified in the advance industrial societies. All such trends are reflection of
developments in the society of a nation. The North America, Western Europe, and Japan have
developed the characteristics of a post-industrial society because the socio-economic
modernization has appeared there. The young people who grew up in economically prosperous
countries are now less concerned with material well being and personal security than the
generation of their parents. The young people are emphasizing on post-material values like social
equality, environmental protection, cultural pluralism and self expression. It has spawned new
citizen groups such as the environmental movement, the women’s movements and other public

4
The concept of social capital was developed in the 1970s to highlight the social and cultural factors that underpin
wealth creation. The term has since been used to refer to social connectiveness as represented by networks, norms
and trust that promotes civic engagement. Social capital is thus a precondition for successful communities and good
governance. See Heywood, 2007 p. 210.

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interest associations. Such kinds of changes in the values have also impacted on the policy
agendas industrial democracies. In the advance industrial societies citizens are asking the
government to restore the environment, expand their social and political liberties and emphsaises
on the policies that can ensure social equality in the society. The political leaders in such
advance societies are now struggling to balance these new types of policy demands against the
continuing policy needs of the past.

Democratization

Ironically, when democratic values are started to take root around world, the citizens of many
western democracies have become skeptical about the model of democracy, their politicians and
political institutions. For instance, in 1964, three quarters of Americans had trust on the
government; and today only a third of the citizens believe so. This malaise is also spreading to
other developed nations in Western Europe and Japan. In other words, people’s support for
democratic norms has not waned yet; in fact, democratic norms and values have strengthened
over time as democracy has developed in the west. The people are only critical or skeptical
towards the democratic institutions and their functions. The citizens of advance industrial
societies are expecting democracy to fulfill its ideals and are critical of politicians and political
parties when they fall short of democratic ideals. All this cynicism is a strain for the politicians
of advance industrial societies, which is somehow good too as it emphasises on democracy to
improve and adapt new ideals, which will ultimately strengthen the democracy and democratic
norms.

Marketisation

Under the wave of globalisation, the cultural trend that came up on the world stage is a shift
toward marketization. There is acceptance of free markets and private profit incentives among
the citizens of advance societies. They are in opposition of economy that is managed and
controlled by the government. For instance, in the 1980s a movement appeared in the United
States and many western European nations where economies had experienced serious problems
of inefficiency and economic stagnation. That time Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald

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Reagan in the United States rode to power on waves of public support for reducing the scale of
government (Almond et.al 2007).

Post- Materialism

As discussed earlier that political culture is not a static, it keeps on changing over the time. The
only one thing is required for this change is mass participation of people at a large scale to bring
about the change. During 1940s-1970s most of western countries experienced tremendous
growth of industries and economy. Interestingly this time frame is relatively witnessed peace in
the world. This environment enabled a particular segment to grow up who had not experienced
any world wars etc. in addition to that; newly emerged welfare states in the west were committed
for the social security of the citizens from hunger, poverty etc. by ensuring employment or other
aids. This combo of social security and peace led towards to a silent revolution among the young
generation that took place particularly in the western political cultures. The old generation
cherished old values, religion, order and security and sexual morality whereas the young
generation is concerned with the issues of quality of life. The young people in the west are
particular about their life-style, sexual choices, environment etc. In other words, they de-
emphasised the traditional political issues like religion. They put emphasis on the expression of
self, hence are attracted towards single issue groups whether it is feminists groups, LGBT, World
Peace, PETA, World peace etc. Such kind of impact is quite visible in the Western Europe and in
the United States of America.

Summing Up

Politics, to a great extent takes place in the minds of individual’s and is shaped with the
individual’s ideas, values and their perception as well as assumptions towards the organisation,
functioning and expectations from political system. The concept of political culture is very
relevant to comprehend the contemporary society’s vis-à-vis the world. The post-cold war era
has witnessed the upsurge of ethnic and national differences among the nations as well as within
the nations. This testifies that relevance to cultural components to be taken into account to make
sense of such upsurges and political realities. In addition to this the top most agenda for political
scientists to understand the ‘transition of nations from their traditional models of governance to

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democratic model of governance’. Moreover to understand the process of modernisation culture
is very important variable.

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