Political culture approach

The concept of political culture provides a new name for one of the
oldest subjects of concern in political science it refers to the cultural
milieu in which political behavior takes place and to which it is
systematically related.
Political culture as a concept was introduced by Gabriel Almond in
his 1956 article Comparative political systems.

History of political culture

When we say that political culture focuses on the ides, values, and
beliefs of a society, we are saying that the history, religion, and
general socio cultural background and orientation of a country are
important for understanding it.
One of the first to study comparative political culture in a serious
and systematic way was the great German sociologist Max
Weber. In the late nineteenth century Weber embarked on a
massive project to study the relations between religion and
economic development. He wanted to know why the countries of
Europe, especially Northwest Europe (England, Holland,
Germany), had so far outdistanced the countries of Asia and the
Middle East in terms of economic growth. He was also interested
in why the Protestant countries of Northern Europe had done
better than the Latin or Mediterranean countries of the south. So
he comparatively studies the values embedded in Buddhism,
Catholicism, Confucianism, Islam, and Protestantism to get at the
roots of these differences.
His conclusion was not the simplistic one that people who have
never read Weber often spout, that Protestants are good guys and
that all these others are bad. Instead, his research revealed that in
Protestantism, especially in its Calvinist in the Netherlands and
other countries, the God-ordered emphasis on hard work, honesty,
seriousness, and the thrifty use of money and time (both of these
latter lent to us by God) was particularly conducive to business
and capital accumulation. Other societies based on different
religions lacked these qualities.

More recently David S.Landes has embarked on a similar quest

in his important book The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: why
Some are so rich and some so poor. Like Weber, Landes is
interested in explaining this.
Landes comes to the same basic conclusion as did weber: that it
is ideas, values, and culture that both are the driving forces in
change and that explain differences between countries, and not so
much economic or institutional causes.
Political culture studies achieved widespread acceptance and
popularity between world wars I and II through the emerging field
of cultural anthropology.
World war II proved to be a turning point in political culture
studies, however. By this time, serious studies of cultural
anthropology and political culture were being supplanted by what
were called national character studies that often involved
dangerous stereotyping. National character studies can become
the basis for ethnic slurs, racism and hate crimes. Stereotyping
people by religion, ethnicity, race or national origins can be both
dangerous and destructive.
A major breakthrough in the study of comparative political
culture came with the publication in 1963 of Gabriel A.Almond
and Sidney Verbas book entitled the civic culture: Political
Attitudes and Democracy in five nations. The book was a
pioneering work for a number of reasons: first, it contained a
sophisticated discussion of political culture; second, it involved a
genuinely comparative study of five nations (Great Britain,
United States, West Germany, Italy, and Mexico); and third,
rather than being based on impressionistic interpretation as in the
old national character studies, it was grounded on hard data
generated from detailed public opinion surveys carried out by the
investigators in each of the five countries. This last was
particularly important because it enabled researches to move
away from dangerous national stereotyping and toward a more
empirical or scientific examination of patterns of behavior.
POLITICAL CULTUREs definition

Political culture may be defined as basic values, ideas, attitudes and

orientations that citizens of different countries have about their political
systems.

- Political culture refer to core values (democracy, civil liberties, etc.).

- Political culture can vary greatly from country to country.

- We can distinguish among three types of political culture:

1-Participatory political culture or civil political culture. It is a

democratic political culture where people can note have rights and
participate fully in political system

2-Parochial political culture it found in poor illiterate under-developed

societies where people may focus on their own narrow parochial
family.

3-Subject political culture is one in which people are becoming aware

of the larger political system but are not themselves participants in it.
 They are subject to the state which is top-down and authoritarian but
they have few rights (transitional systems).

-Political socialization is the means through which political culture is

transmitted across generations. It is a universal process.

To survive all societies must pass on the skills needed for people to
perform political roles, varying from voting at an election to governing
the country. The key point about socialization is that it is largely
uncontrolled and uncontrollable

Political socialization takes place through a variety of institutions

the family. The peer group, the work place as well as formal education.

Although most research on political socialization has focused on

children, we must remember that the process is lifelong basic political
outlooks mature in response to events and experience and political
learning doesn't stop at childhood's end ,

- Criticisms of the political culture:

The main criticisms leveled against the political culture approach

include the following.

1-political culture is used as a residual category that is, whenever we

can not find any other explanation for countrys behavior, we blame it
on political culture if a regime is corrupt or authoritarian or unstable,
the temptation may be strong to say, it is just a political culture.
 2-The concept of political culture is too vague. It seams to include
everything:
Literature, art, music, values, political ideas, religion, history,
behavior whatever. We have to remember that political culture asks as to
consider the specifically political aspects of art or literature.
4-Political culture approach was accused of ignoring structure (class
system means of production).

5-Political culture ignored international influences the early political

culture literature was written before most of the developing nations had
very many rachis, T.V. and satellites before also the onset of
Globalization.

the renaissance of political culture.

- The renaissance of in political culture studies began with the end of the
cold war in the early 1990s.

- One of the most important of the post Cold war books was Samuel p.
Huntingtons clash of civilizations He argued that future of
international conflicts would involve much clashes between
civilization or cultures he identified the major civilizations Confucian,
Japanese, Islamic Hindu, Latin American and African.

- A second study that emphasized cultural factors was by Robert Putnam

Making Democracy work. He was interested in the question of what
makes democracy work or not work, he concluded that democracy
works best in that regions with high level of civic community by
 which means social cooperation based on tolerance, trust and
participation.
- A third major work is that of Francis Fukoyama. In his book The End
of History he argued that with the declining of authoritarianism.
Struggle between grand political Ideas had ended and that democracy
was the system that all peoples desired.
In general we can say that Political culture can be a powerful
explanatory tool. Political culture is important in explaining
differences and similarities between countries. The question is
how to use this tool of analysis in the most analytic, balanced,
and non-prejudicial way.

We, therefore, conclude this with a number of cautionary

admonitions:
Use political culture but with caution
Keep in mind that political culture is dynamic; it is not fixed
but changing, usually in conjunction with larger social,
economic, and political changes.
A country may have more than one political culture, and
these may be in conflict.
Political culture is often manipulated by different political
elites for their own advantage- another reason to be cautious.
Political culture provides a useful but still partial
explanation; avoid elevating it into a single, mono-causal,
 all-encompassing explanation; remain open to other
explanatory factors.
Avoid ethnic or religious stereotyping and racism; use
tendency statements; utilize survey data as much as possible
and give the percentages; always remember that within any
group no one ever conforms entirely to the general patterns
observed.