Section 13: "Political Culture and Democracy" "Every time I hear the word 'culture,' I reach for my revolver!" - Friedrich Nietzsche Until the mid-1950s comparative political studies seldom discussed cultural influences in shaping political systems except in impressionistic terms of `national character' which political scientists during the behavioral revolution came to disdain as not being sufficiently `rigorous.'[Verba, Sidney, "On Revisiting The Civic Culture: A Personal Postscript," The Civic Culture Revisited, ed. by Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba, (Newbury Park, Sage: 1989), p. 397.] In 1956, however, Gabriel A. Almond proposed a definition of political culture as "a particular pattern of orientations to political action" in which a given political system was embedded.[Almond, Gabriel A. ""Comparative Political Systems," Journal of Politics, Vol. 18, August 1956, pp. 391-409.] Almond posited the existence of a few political cultural `types' that each could embrace several different societies. Thus a common political culture was held to embrace the United States, Britain, and certain of the Commonwealth nations while a different type of political culture was held to be common to all `totalitarian' systems. However this notion of political culture only made its major impact when Almond and Verba presented it in 1963 in the Civic Culture bolstered by impressive statistical analyses of cross-sectional survey data collected across five nations.[Almond, Gabriel A. and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations, (Princeton University Press, Princeton: 1963)] Almond's description or definition of political culture follows: "The term political culture thus refers to the specifically political orientations---attitudes toward the political system and its various parts, and attitudes toward the role of the self in the system. . . It is a set of orientations towards a special set of social objects and processes....[the term, political culture] enables us to utilize the conceptual frameworks and approaches of anthropology, sociology, and psychology." [p. 13] In "Figure 2", reproduced from p. 17 of the Civic Culture, are summarized three basic types of political cultures. The partici- pant culture builds on but does not totally supplant the parochial and subject patterns of orientation [p. 20] Parochials and subjects can also be found in a predominantly participant political culture. ---------------------------------------------------------- Figure 2 [from p. 17] Types of Political Culture ========================================================== System as Self as General Input Output Active Object Object Object Participant ---------------------------------------------------------- Parochial 0 0 0 0 Subject 1 0 1 0 Participant 1 1 1 1 ---------------------------------------------------------- 0 = "none, does not exist" ; 1 = "it exists" The "parochial" political culture is one in which people identify with their family, extended family, kinship group, or village more than with their nation or government. In whatever contacts they have with government officials they view them not as public servants but as threatening outsiders, i.e. people who pry into your family affairs in the name of "taking the census," who rob you of your money in the name of "taxes," and who rob you of your sons in the name of "military service." Parochials neither know about, nor care about, politics and government. They are fatalistic and do not believe that anything that they do will ever make a difference. Sad to say there are U.S. citizens in this country, and even students in my POLS 101 Introduction to American Government classes, who fit this description. It does not, however, describe the greater number of Americans. The "subject" political culture is one in which people do identify with their nation or government and are aware of their obligations to obey the laws of the society in which they live, to co-operate with officials, to pay taxes and to render military service as needed. While they believe that the government is effective, benevolent, just, and seeks to serve its citizens they do not have much confidence in their ability or their right to make demands on the political system or to participate in its function- ing. This may describe those large numbers of law-abiding Americans who limit their political participation to voting once every four years and who vote more out of a sense of civic obligation than out of a conviction that their voting will make a difference. The "participant" political culture is one in which not only do its members identify with the political system, and believe that it is effective in seeking to serve the people, but also believe that they have the power and right to make demands upon the political system to perform in certain ways. This would describe the attitudes and beliefs of those Americans who actively partici- pate in a wide range of social and civic activities. After having studied the five nations of interest Almond and Verba summarized their findings more or less as follows: Summary of pp. 492-497: Participant Subject Competence Competence ------------------------------- | | | United States | Stronger | Strong | |-----------------------------| | | | Great Britain | Strong | Stronger | |-----------------------------| | | | Germany | Weak | Strong | |-----------------------------| | | | Italy | Weak | Weak | |-----------------------------| | | | Mexico | Strong | Weak | |-----------------------------| Shortly after its publication the Civic Culture was greeted by accusations of ethno-centricism and its American authors were accused of describing the political culture of the United States as the superlative example of the ideal "Civic Culture." (In fact they had decided that Britain was closer to their ideal.) There were more substantive methodological objections raised. For instance was the measurement of individual attitudes really a good measure of the underlying political culture? Despite its flaws, the Civic Culture at least forced political scientists to take the role of political culture seriously and to try to study and measure it methodically. As four of the nations studied by Almond and Verba are also being studied in this course I thought it would be useful to reproduce their conclusions regarding the political cultures of these nation-states: The United States: A Participant Civic Culture The role of the participant is highly developed and wide- spread. There is frequent exposure of citizens to politics. Political discussion and involvement in community affairs, a sense of civic obligation and a sense of competence to influence the government are frequently reported. People are often actively involved in voluntary associations. They have an emotional commitment to national elections and pride in their political system. Their attachment to the political system includes both generalized system affect as well as satisfaction with specific government performance. In specific measures of subject competence, that is, expecta- tions of consideration by bureaucratic and police authority, Americans are third place below Germany and Britain. Americans tend to have high distrust of governmental and bureaucratic institutions and seek to subject judiciary and bureaucracy to direct popular control.[pp. 440-441] Great Britain: A Deferential Civic Culture The political culture of Britain best approximates the ideal civic culture. The participant role is highly developed. Exposure to politics, interest, involvement, and a sense of competence are relatively high. There are norms supporting political activity, as well as emotional involvement in elections and system affect. The attachment to the system is balanced: there is general system pride as well as satisfaction with specific government performance. The British political culture, like the American one, fuses parochial and subject roles with the role of participant. Primary groups are relatively open to the political process and available as influence resources. The political culture is permeated by more general attitudes of social trust and confidence. Open patterns of partisanship predominate. British political culture represents a more effective combination of the subject and participant roles. Germany: Political Detachment and Subject Competence Germany was the only country studied in which a sense of administrative competence was reported more frequently than a sense of political competence. Although there is a high level of cognitive competence, the orientation to the political system is still relatively passive---the orientation of the subject rather than of the participant. Almond and Verba speculated that the then current cool [early 1960s], pragmatic and also cynical approach to politics was a reaction to the German people's disillusionment with the political and nationalistic enthusiasms of the Hitler era. Hostility between political partisans is still relatively high and not tempered by general social norms of trust and confidence. Almond and Verba concluded that the ability of Germans to cooperate politically had serious limitations.[pp. 428-29] Mexico: Alienation and Aspiration Mexico was ranked lowest of the five countries in citizens' expectations of government's impact and of fair and considerate treatment at the hands of the bureaucracy and police. The report sense of national pride was much higher than that reported among the citizens of Italy and Germany. The sense of participation in Mexico appeared to be independent of any sense of satisfaction with government's actual performance. As subjective competence increases sense of general system effect increases but belief in government's competence does not increase. High frequencies in reported subjective political competence were coupled with the lowest frequencies in all five countries of political performance (political information score, voluntary association membership, and political activity).[pp. 414-415] The aspirational character of the Mexican political culture means that a sense of political identity and pride in the Mexican Revolution and its Presidency are still coupled with a rejection of the actual operation of politics and government.[p. 416]