TOPIC 2

POWER, STATE AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS

The concept of Power, State and Politics

Power-is the ability to influence and direct the behavior of other people and guide the course and
outcome of events.

Authority- implies that an individual or group has the right to use power by making decisions,
giving orders and demanding obedience.

Legitimacy-refers to citizens’ belief that their leaders have the right to exercise power and
authority; it is the acceptance of the government by the governed.

Political power-is the ability held by an individual(s) and groups in society that allows them to
create and enforce policies of the community and manage public resources.

Sovereignty-is the supreme and ultimate authority that cannot be overruled by a higher power; it
is the highest exercise of political power.

Power is frequently defined by political scientists as the ability to influence the behavior of
others with or without resistance. It can be seen as evil or unjust, but the exercise of power is
accepted as endemic to humans as social beings. The use of power need not only to involve
coercion, force or the threat of force.

The sociological examination of power involves discovering and describing the relative
strengths: equal or unequal; stable or subject to periodic change. Sociologists usually analyze
relationships in which parties have relatively equal or nearly equal power in terms of constraint
rather than of power.

Power may derive from a number of sources, including social class (material wealth can equal
power), resource currency (material items such as money, property, food), personal or group
charisma, ascribed power (acting on perceived or assumed abilities, whether these bear testing or
not), social influence of tradition (compare ascribed power), etc.
People use more than rewards, threats and information to influence others. In everyday
situations, people use a variety of power tactics to push or prompt others into particular action.
There are many examples of power tactics that are quite common and employed everyday. Some
of these tactics include bullying, collaboration, complaining, criticizing, demanding,
disengaging, evading, humor, inspiring, manipulating, negotiating, socializing and supplicating.

The Need for Power

Conflict, defeat, and success give rise to the desire and search for power. Power is sought to
control and determine the future of organizations, the outcomes of interpersonal conflicts, and
personal security and prosperity. The more the disorganization or conflict in an organization, the
more the need for power will be felt and sought.

The desire to impact others, or the need for power, can also be responsibly sought for the
purpose of doing good for the organization and community at large. All power seekers are not
necessarily neurotic, despotic, or troubled people (though some clearly are). Power seekers can
be effective, well adjusted, and highly motivated. It turns out that power is the ultimate resource
for human control, a tool that only the mentally healthy can successfully wield..

A sense of efficacy, achievement, and usefulness are in itself sources of power and confidence
for the individual. That a person feels they are contributing, and that what they do makes a
difference, is the essence of the subjective experience of power. Also, self-esteem and self-worth
are a source of power in one’s self. This source can be realized as an essential contributor to the
urge and acquisition of all power bases.

Types of Power

French and Raven (1959) identified five basic types of power;

a) Legitimate Power

Legitimate power is the formal power and authority legitimately granted to the manager under
charter by the organization’s peers. This power is clearly assigned by written or verbal contract,
and it outlines the manager’s responsibilities. Based upon this sanctioned, authorized, and
exalted position of the manager, subordinates believe that the manager has the right to direct
employee behavior or else employees may face retribution.

An excessive usage of formal power curbs motivation and creativity (as will be seen later), while
a lack of power prolongs decision making. Thus, both lack and excess of formal power are
detrimental to project success. A delicate balance must be struck that is difficult to achieve with
exactness, thereby rendering conflict inevitable.

b) Reward Power

Reward power is the ability of the manager to confer or withhold rewards such as money,
privileges, promotion, or status (which, in itself, carries formal power). Objective determinations
of rewards, reward schemes, and other communicated courses of action help to defuse arbitrary
practices in the employment of reward power.

c) Coercive Power

Coercive power is predicated entirely upon fear: it makes the subordinate believe that he may be
deprived of something if he does not comply. Things the manager can deprive the subordinate of
are also the things mentioned under reward power: promotion, privileges, money, etc. Whatever
the tactics or origins used to foment the use of coercive power, coercion is akin to the forcing
style of conflict resolution.

Whereas reward powers exhort personnel to work with the aim of receiving something (whether
received or not), coercive power is used to make the subordinate work with the fear of not losing
anything (whether lost or not). The logical principle of reward and coercive power bases is thus
essentially identical.

External threats are another source of coercive power. For instance, a government organization
can threaten a contractor to remove his company’s list from the active list of pre-qualified
contractors if he does not pay a bribe. Reward and coercive powers coexist intrinsically in
organizations, and the employees must balance their perceptions of receiving versus losing.
Managers resort to coercive power when legitimate power is disrupted, or when instructions are
ignored or not respected. While coercive and reward powers cannot be meaningfully exercised
without legitimate authority, legitimate power has no arrows to its quiver without corresponding
coercive and reward potential. Coercion can be exercised by a combination of other power bases
too, and can be manifest through discrimination and harassment; it can be resisted in
constitutional, psychological, diplomatic, and confrontational ways.

d) Expert Power

Expert power is the manager’s influence over personnel based solely upon the manager’s
superior knowledge, expertise, and proven ability to perform. Given a fair opportunity, personnel
will choose to work with a competent person in order to enlarge their own sphere of knowledge.

Sometimes, employees will attribute the manager with expert power by virtue of his occupation
of the post, even though the manager’s actual expertise may be relatively low. This is often to
their own disappointment, for they are misled by their perceptions.

Managers are invariably in the envious position of being at the center of information transfer.
They are thus allowed superior and timely administrative information that contributes to the
defined meaning of expert power. Further, the manager’s have expert power due to: (1) their
genuine qualifications, abilities, and skills and (2) the information they hold by virtue of being
where they are.

e) Referent Power

Referent power is based upon the less powerful person’s identification with the manager. Shared
identity, personality personification, hero worship, shared culture, or idolization are some of the
sources of referent power. It is a kind of power an alert manager can use only when personnel
perceive this power. The power of charisma is an intricate part of referent power.

Frequently, junior personnel epitomize senior personnel and seek to emulate their behavior. They
secretly desire to be in senior positions themselves, which could be a presentiment of ambition.
Whereas balanced ambition is a virtue, misplaced ambition—or an underdeveloped emotional
psychology—can make junior personnel vulnerable to influence by father figures (i.e., senior
managers).

Referent power can be used constructively to the benefit of the organization, has significant
ramifications in the appropriate exertion of power, and has been extolled as a positive power
base for modern management.

f) Reciprocal Power

This power base follows from fundamental moral, Christian, and Confucian values: do unto
others as you would have others do unto you. Fulfilling people’s requests, doing them a favor,
rising to their real help (not just patronizing them), helping a friend in need, etc., enables the
manager to solicit help from them in return. It is a useful and harmless power base until it begins
to be used for surreptitious purposes.

The concept of "Political Power"

All politics is about power. Political power is a key concept in the study of politics: for if politics
is the resolution of conflict, the distribution of power within a political community determines
how the conflict is to be resolved and whether the resolution is to be effectively observed by all
parties.

Political power may be broadly defined as" the capacity to affect another's behaviour by some
form of sanction. Sanction may take the form of coercion or inducement: power may be backed
by the carrot or stick and it may be exercised in a positive or negative fashion".

Political power should also be seen as a relationship: the holder of political power has the
capacity to make another behave in a manner that he, she or it was unwilling to do before the
threat or application of sanctions. The actors in a power relationship may be individuals, groups
or institutions. If political power implies a relationship, it is important to discover who or what
has power in relation to whom or what.
Political power is behavioral. It consists in the behaviour of the two actors towards one another.
Being behavioral, power is subject to measurement and comparison. It is measured and assessed
on the basis of its influence. Also, power is situational. In order to know it one must relate it to a
specific situation. Power is known by the specific role of the power holder in a specific situation.

Nature of Political Power

Political power is the power, which operates within the periphery of the state and its institutions.
It is based upon the power of the state. The state wields the strongest power sanctioned by prison
and punishment. However, the essential nature of the power of the state is not different from the
power found at any level of society.

Power is judged in the perspective of social variables. The social process conditions political
power. It changes according to the variation in the nature and working of the social process. The
political institutions in their turn, influence social environment.

Several theories have been identified to explain the distribution of political power and the causes
behind it. These theories may be classified into elitist and non-elitist. The elitist theory was
advanced to refute the non-elitist theory of Karl Marx.

According to Marx, political power in every civilized society is unevenly distributed. The ruling
class monopolizes the political power by the ownership of the means of production. The social
order is marked by a perpetual conflict between the ruler and ruled classes. This conflict is
conditioned by the development of productive forces. The nature of conflict determines changes
in the distribution of power. Thus economic determinism is the hallmark of Marxist theory.

The elitist theories however differ themselves from Marxist theory principally because they
maintain that economic factors are not the sole determinants of power structure. They look
forward to not to a classless, egalitarian society but a hierarchical one. For them, the ruling class
is not stable and fixed. According to an elitist concept, political power is always concentrated in
the hands of a minority who are the political elite. They rule as a self-conscious, cohesive and
conspiratorial group.
However, pluralists question the contention of elitists. They argue that decision-making cannot
be understood without the context of a continuous bargaining process among the elites and the
mass approval.

Political power is determined not by hierarchical but by horizontal leaderships. Though the elitist
and the pluralist agree that political power is always unevenly distributed and political decisions
are made only by the few and not by all, they disagree on the questions as to who exactly
constitute the powerful minority and how do they actually operate it.

Max Weber identified three sources of authority:

1. Traditional Authority: It is based on traditions and customs. It involves a belief in the right
of the holder of a high social position to give commands, since that has become the established
pattern of life.

2. Charismatic Authority: It rests on the devotion to the specific and exceptional sanctity,
heroism or exemplary character of an individual person and of the normative patterns of order
revealed or ordained by him. A charismatic leader is capable of diverting people from traditional
patterns of allegiance into a new course.

3. Rational-legal Authority: It is based on the law or written rules, and is likely to be found in
modern states of the world. It is said to rest on a belief in the legality patterns of normative rules
and the right of those elevated to the authority under such rules to issue commands. Those
making the rules are seen as having the right to do so, and wider society would expect to benefit
from obedience to the rules.

Fundamental features of Power

Power tends to possess the following fundamental distinguishable features;

1. Power is domination through coercion, repression and violence, its overt nature.

2. Power is control, authority over others, or instrumental power.

3. Power is the capacity or ability to effect outcomes and to carry out one's will.
4. Power is the capacity of an individual, or group of individuals to modify the conduct of others
in the manner which one desires.

5. Power is the influence to make decisions, to shape political agenda, to manipulate needs and
preferences of subjects, to restrict political conflict to safe issues, its covert nature.

6. Power is the ability to give rewards and punishments; for giving incentives and punishments
accordingly.

7. Power is an opportunity waited by the powerless so that a change in social arrangement can
give them power.

8. Power is a productive thing as "pastoral power", by promising to foster and respect the
liberated individual, a strategy of moulding by regimes of power.

Contemporary States and Political systems

State refers to the political unit within which power and authority reside.The unit can be a whole
nation or a sub division within a nation.

Nation is a people with common customs, origin, history or language.

Government refers to the group of persons who direct the political affairs of a state. It is the rule
by which a state is run. The type of government under which people live has fundamental
implications for their freedom, welfare and their lives.

A state exists where there is a political apparatus of government (institutions like a parliament,
civil services officials, etc.) ruling over a given territory, whose authority is backed by a legal
system and by the capacity to use military force to implement its policies.

Characteristics of the Modern State

1. The state is a recognizably separate institution or set of institutions, so differentiated from the
rest of its society as to create identifiable public and private spheres.

2. The State is sovereign, or the supreme power, within its territory, and by definition the
ultimate authority for all law.
3. The state’s sovereignty extends to all the individuals within a given territory, irrespective of
formal positions held in the government or rule-making institutions.

4. The modern state’s personnel are mostly recruited and trained for management in a
bureaucratic manner.

5. The state has the capacity to extract monetary revenues (taxation) to finance its activities from
its subject—population.

All modern societies are nation-states, usually having some form of congressional or
parliamentary system. A nation-state is a nation governed by a state whose authority coincides
with the boundaries of the nation. Their system of government lays claim to specific territories,
possesses formalized codes of law, and is backed by the control of military force.

Nation-states have come into existence generally after 19th century. The world today is largely
organized into nation-states.

Functions of the State

As with all social institutions, the state is organized around a set of social functions. It is an
important agency of social control which performs this function through laws.

The main functions are maintaining law, order and stability, resolving various kinds of disputes
through the legal system, providing common defence, and looking out for the welfare of the
population in ways that are beyond the means of the individual, such as implementing public
health measures, providing mass education and underwriting expensive medical research.

Specific functions of the state include;

1. Limiting internal power struggles to maintain internal peace.

2. Bringing power to bear on other societies in defence of national interest or in expanding and
building empire.

3. Controlling the members of society so as to bind them to the pursuit of collective goals.
4. Recognizing and implementing the interests and demands of various groups.

5. Regulation of the economy through trade, commerce, money market and credit agencies

Types of States

States come in a variety of forms that vary based on who holds power, how positions of
leadership are obtained, and how authority is maintained. Contemporary states in the world
constitute;

1. Monarchy

A monarchy is a form of government in which supreme power is absolutely or nominally lodged

with an individual, who is the head of state, often for life or until abdication. The person who
heads a monarchy is called a monarch.

The characteristics most commonly associated with monarchies are not universal. For example,
monarchies are often though of as highly centralized forms of absolute power. But holding
unlimited political power in the state is not the defining characteristic, as many constitutional
monarchies such as the United Kingdom and Thailand are considered monarchies yet their
monarchs have limited political power.

Hereditary rule is often a common characteristic, but some monarchs are elected (e.g., the Pope),
and some states with hereditary rulers are nevertheless considered republics (e.g., the Dutch
Republic).Most states only have a single person acting as monarch at any given time, although
two monarchs have ruled simultaneously in some countries, a situation known as diarchy.

2. Oligarchy

An oligarchy is a form of state in which power effectively rests with a small elite segment of
society distinguished by royalty, wealth, family, military, or religious hegemony. Oligarchies are
often controlled by politically powerful families whose children are heavily conditioned and
mentored to be heirs of the power of the oligarchy. These types of states have been tyrannical
throughout history, relying on public servitude and complacency in order to exist.
States may be oligarchies de jure or de facto. In de jure oligarchies, an elite group is given power
by the law. The law may give only nobility the right to vote, or a theocracy may be ruled by a
group of religious leaders. In de facto oligarchies, those with more resources are able to gain
political power, despite laws that ostensibly treat all citizens equally.

Corporate oligarchy best illustrates an Oligarchy. It is a system in which power effectively rests
with a small, elite group of inside individuals, sometimes from a small group of educational
institutions, or influential economic entities or devices, such as banks, commercial entities,
lobbyists that act in complicity with, or at the whim of the oligarchy, often with little or no
regard for constitutionally protected prerogative.

Monopolies are sometimes granted to state-controlled entities, such as the Royal Charter granted
to the East India Company, or privileged bargaining rights to unions (labor monopolies) with
very partisan political interests. Today’s multinational corporations function as corporate
oligarchies with influence over democratically elected officials.

3. Dictatorship and Totalitarianism

Dictatorship and totalitarianism are often associated, but they are actually two separate
phenomena. Dictatorship is a form of government in which the ruler has the power to govern
without consent of those being governed. Dictatorship can also be defined simply as “a system
that does not adhere to democracy,” where democracy is defined as a form of government where
those who govern are selected through contested elections. A dictator’s power can originate in
his or her family, political position, or military authority.

Totalitarian governments are those that exert total control over the governed; they regulate nearly
every aspect of public and private behavior. Totalitarianism entails a political system where the
state recognizes no limits to its authority, and it strives to regulate every aspect of public and
private life wherever feasible. Totalitarian regimes stay in political power through all-
encompassing propaganda campaigns (disseminated through the state-controlled mass media), a
single party that is often marked by political repression, personality cultism, control over the
economy, regulation and restriction of speech, mass surveillance, and widespread use of terror.
Dictatorship concerns the source of the governing power (where the power comes from—the
people or a single leader) and totalitarianism concerns the scope of the governing power (what is
the government and how extensive is its power). In this sense, dictatorship (government without
people’s consent) exists in contrast with democracy (government whose power comes from
people) and totalitarianism (where government controls every aspect of people’s lives) exists in
contrast with pluralism (where government allows multiple lifestyles and opinions). Many
dictatorships are also totalitarian

4. Democracy

Democracy is a form of government in which the power of government comes from the people.
In a democracy, the right to govern, or sovereignty, is held by the majority of citizens within a
country or state. Even though there is no universally accepted definition of democracy, all
definitions include two fundamental principles: First, in a democracy, all citizens have equal
access to power. Second, all citizens enjoy universally recognized freedoms and liberties.

Democracies come in several forms, some of which provide better representation and more
freedoms for their citizens than others. An essential process in representative democracies is
competitive elections that are fair both substantively and procedurally. Furthermore, freedom of
political expression, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press are essential so that citizens are
informed and able to vote in their personal interests.

Democracies must balance conflicting obligations to try to maximize freedom and protect
individual rights. For example, many democracies limit representation. In a full, direct,
democracy, every citizen would be able to vote on every law. But in reality, in most
democracies, citizens are represented by elected lawmakers charged with drafting and voting on
laws.

Many also institute measures such as the separation of powers, which divides executive, judicial,
and legislative authority among different branches of government to protect against the
possibility that a single government or branch of government could accumulate too much power
and become harmful to democracy itself. Although such measures may limit representation, they
make lawmaking more efficient and help guard against dangers such as the tyranny of the
majority.

5. New State Spaces

States are not necessarily the same as nations. New state spaces are redefining borders, and they
may not be ruled by national governments. For the last couple centuries, states have been largely
coterminous with nations: the two tend to overlap. But states are not necessary the same as
nations, and state boundaries will not necessarily always be the same as national boundaries.

Recent sociological work has argued that, with globalization, relevant political borders are
changing. This branch of sociology defines new state spaces as geographical spaces that are not
governed simply by national governments. Instead, they may be more directly influenced by
local, regional, or even international governmental bodies. One of the most prominent theories in
this field is that of global cities.

6. Global Cities

A global city is a city that is central to the global economic system, such as New York or
London. According to global cities theory, globalization is not a process that affects all places
evenly. Globalization is carried out by certain cities, which can be arranged in a hierarchy of
importance. Some of these cities are absolutely central to the operation of the global economic
system, and some are more peripheral. The most complex and central cities are known as global
cities.

Not only are global cities important economically, but they are also politically unique. In some
ways, global cities are more intimately connected to the global economic system and to other
global cities than they are to surrounding regions or national settings.

In general, global cities tend to actively influence and participate in international events and
world affairs. They may be national capitals, or they may host the headquarters of international
organizations such as the World Bank, NATO, or the UN. They also tend to have large expatriate
communities, groups of people from other countries, who give the cities a cosmpolitan flair and
also increase the relevance of foreign political events for global cities.

Forms of Political Systems

Politics is the social structure and methods used to manage a government or a state. Just as
varying types of economic theories and systems exist, many varying political theories and
systems exist as well. Various states and governments obviously exist around the world. The
form of political system under which people live has fundamental implications for their freedom,
their welfare, and even their lives.

a) Democracy

Democracy is a political system in which citizens govern themselves either directly or indirectly.
The term Democracy comes from Greek and means “rule of the people.” In Lincoln’s stirring
words from the Gettysburg Address, democracy is “government of the people, by the people, for
the people.” In Direct (or Pure) democracies, people make their own decisions about the
policies and distribution of resources that affect them directly. An example of such a democracy
in action is the New England town meeting, where the residents of a town meet once a year and
vote on budgetary and other matters. In Representative democracies, people elect officials to
represent them in legislative votes on matters affecting the population.

Representative democracy is more practical than direct democracy in a society of any significant
size, but political scientists cite another advantage of representative democracy. At least in
theory, it ensures that the individuals who govern a society and in other ways help a society
function are the individuals who have the appropriate talents, skills, and knowledge to do so. In
this way of thinking, the masses of people are, overall, too uninformed, too uneducated, and too
uninterested to run a society themselves.

Democracies are certainly not perfect. Their decision-making process can be quite slow and
inefficient; as just mentioned, decisions may be made for special interests and not “for the
people”; and, as we have seen in earlier chapters, pervasive inequalities of social class, race and
ethnicity, gender, and age can exist.

b) Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism

Authoritarianism refers to political systems in which an individual or a group of individuals

holds power, restricts or prohibits popular participation in governance, and represses dissent.

Totalitarianism refers to political systems that include all the features of authoritarianism but are
even more repressive as they try to regulate and control all aspects of citizens’ lives and fortunes.
People can be imprisoned for deviating from acceptable practices or may even be killed if they
dissent in the mildest of ways..

Compared to democracies, authoritarian and totalitarian systems are more unstable politically.
The major reason for this is that these governments enjoy no legitimate authority. Instead their
power rests on fear and repression. The populations of these governments do not willingly lend
their obedience to their leaders and realize that their leaders are treating them very poorly; for
both these reasons, they are more likely than populations in democratic states to want to rebel.
Sometimes they do rebel, and if the rebellion becomes sufficiently massive and widespread, a
revolution occurs. In contrast, populations in democratic states usually perceive that they are
treated more or less fairly and, further, that they can change things they do not like through the
electoral process. Seeing no need for revolution, they do not revolt.

Since World War II, which helped make the United States an international power, the United
States has opposed some authoritarian and totalitarian regimes while supporting others. The Cold
War pitted the United States and its allies against Communist nations, primarily the Soviet
Union, China, Cuba, and North Korea. But at the same time the United States opposed these
authoritarian governments, it supported many others, including those in Chile, Guatemala, and
South Vietnam, that repressed and even murdered their own citizens who dared to engage in the
kind of dissent constitutionally protected in the United States.

Earlier in U.S. history, the federal and state governments repressed dissent by passing legislation
that prohibited criticism of World War I and then by imprisoning citizens who criticized that
war. During the 1960s and 1970s, the FBI, the CIA, and other federal agencies spied on tens of
thousands of citizens who engaged in dissent protected by the First Amendment. While the
United States remains a beacon of freedom and hope to much of the world’s peoples, its own
support for repression in the recent and more distant past suggests that eternal vigilance is
needed to ensure that “liberty and justice for all” is not just an empty slogan.

Political Culture and Socialization

Political Culture

Almond defines political culture as ‘the particular pattern of orientation to political objects in
which political system is embedded.’

Lucian defines ‘political culture as “the set of attitudes, beliefs and sentiments that give order
and meaning to the political system and provide the underlying assumptions and rules that
govern political behavior.”

Political culture implies a set of political beliefs, feelings and values that prevail in a nation at
given time. It filters perceptions, determines attitudes, and influence s modalities of participation.
Culture is major component of the political game. It essentially a psychological refers to what
people think about politics, to their values and emotions. It doesn’t refer to the actual political
behavior.

Components of Political Culture

There are three components of political culture based upon their orientations. They are

1. Cognitive orientation- it refers to the knowledge and awareness of political objects. For
instance, the knowledge about the existence of the political or the state assembles, the
executive body and the judiciary systems and the pressure groups and the interest
groups.
2. Affective orientation- it refers to the emotions and feelings about the political object.
For example the support or opposition to the government forms the core of this
orientation.
 3. Evaluative orientation- it refers to the judgment about the political objects. The
political objects of the orientation include institution as the executive, legislative and the
judiciary, the political parties and pressure groups.

Dimensions of Political Culture

This is the extend of information people have about the individual holders of political offices and
procedures and institutions in the government system and salient political issues. People’s beliefs
about how the political system operates and evolutions of the system’s performance, beliefs
about what political rules are valid- people’s values and preferences for settling political matters,
their convictions about the proper or improper “rules of the political game” in society.

Attitudes toward public officials and office- what status do public offices enjoy in the people’s
eyes and how do the people award prestige to different public offices in the political system.
Beliefs about how are can participate in political life and related behavior example how citizens
feel they can participate in political life and how they do actually participate. What people say
about the fundamental purpose of government, what they think government should do?

Nature of Political Culture

Political culture governs the “rules of the political game”in a society. It encompasses beliefs
about the nature of political leadership and authority, about the power and improper way of
handling political affairs and about the proper and improper functions of government.

All these orientations and attitudes are closely interrelated and form part of an individual’s
psyche. They constitute the latent political tendencies, the propensities for political behavior and
these are of singular importance for the survival and stability of a political system.

Political culture is determined by

 Awareness of government
 Expectations of government
 Participation of government
Types of Political Culture

There are three type of political culture

1. Parochial culture-in this parochial culture the people have low level of awareness and
have low level of expectations and they hardly participations and they hardly participate
in politics means to say they have minimum level of participation. In this model people
don’t have any cognitive orientation towards the political system. People don’t expect
anything positive of the government nor do they participate in the politics as it is seen as
the domain of elites. Government is seen as the enforces of its own rules.
2. Subject political culture- higher level of awareness, expectation and participation is
minimal. People have cognitive orientation towards only the output aspect of the systems.
People except positive actions from the government but doesn’t tend to be political active
themselves. See politics to be a domain.
3. Participatory culture- in this model the citizen has cognitive orientation about both
input and output aspects of the system. Citizens have high expectations of the
government and personally participate in politics. Especially at the time of election in this
participation in vibrant.

Public attitude about political system will powerfully affect the working of the system. Political
culture helps to legitimate the political system of a society. When it collapses or is thrown into
doubt, a crisis of legitimacy is created. Crisis, scandals, failures can quickly undermine citizens
faith in the whole system. Preservation of a proper culture is a major concern for the politicians
and bureaucrats.

Political Socialization

Socialization is a process by which individuals learn about which values, beliefs and attitudes of
a political culture are transmitted from one generation to the next.

Political culture is transmitted within societies through a process of political socialization

whereby people learn to confirm to social norms, a process that makes possible an enduring
society and the transmission of its culture between generations.
Political Socialization as the process of induction into a political system. We do this by
acquiring information on political symbols, institutions, rules and procedures. It is a complex
process by which people acquire their political values. It shapes and transmits a nation political
culture.

Types of Political Socialization

1. Direct and manifest socialization

It is a process in which the content of the transmitted information, values or feeling is
clearly political. One explicitly learns about the pattern and functions of the government
the views of a political party or gets convinced of the superiority of a particular political
ideology.
2. Indirect or latent socialization
Individuals as a result of his relationship with parents and teachers may develop an
attitude to authority in general. This attitude may late on be directed to political authority
in particular. Thus orientation to non- political objects is ultimately transformed into
political orientations..

Agents of Political Socialization

a) Primary socialization
Socialization is a lifelong processes that being at an early stage. Family, peer group,
school, college, work place, political parties, religious institutions and mass media are
some of the agents of socialization. They exercise varying influence on the individual.
 Family
It is first and fore most important influencing agent of socialization on the
formation of the individual. Children first get socialized at home, learning what is
permissible and what obligation he/she has to in family and their rights and
privileges. They learn about loyalty, conflict, power and authority. But some
family values run contrary to societal and bureaucratic values. It performs the task
of establishing children’s basic political orientations and knowledge.
 School/college/universities
 These are an excellent medium to promote values that one congenial to political
systems. Schools and colleges help in civic education. History is all about
political socialization. Children are taught to contribute socio-political cohesion.
Inculcating societal values and beliefs of society to the young, leadership roles
responsibilities and decision making skills are developed.
 Peer groups
Peer group refers to a group of people who are friends or to people of similar age
or characteristics. Individual members have tendency to identify with group of
people like themselves. Relationship with the members is personal, intimate and
emotional. Peer groups fulfill members need of approval they affect formation of
political attitudes and beliefs. Interpretations and explanations for political content
is available in peer groups.
b) Secondary socialization
Membership to secondary groups provides a very good apprenticeship for dealing with
relationship in the political world, equips them with skills, information and
predispositions, political parties, trade unions, membership to clubs.
 Religion
Religion organizations have been one of the dominant agents of political
socialization. It may be direct or indirect, religion being a source of moral
authority can reinforce status quo or be a dissenting voice. Plays important role
because they draw religious imagery to unite citizens, Church in Europe, Hindu,
Muslim organization do promote certain beliefs.
 Mass media
Television, radio, the internet, newspapers and magazines all play an important
role in political socialization. Some of them owned by political parties
themselves, these media would our thinking and form opinion. They do these both
consciously and unconsciously.

Importance of Political Culture and Socialization

1. It brings enlightenment among the people.

2. It brings efficiency in the working of the political system
3. It provides legitimacy to political system
4. It helpful in the formation of the political culture
5. It helpful in maintaining political culture
6. It prepare the people for political roles
7. It provides link between political system and social system
8. It provides knowledge about the political matters.
9. It provides stability to political system.