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Political Culture - STUDY

ballb (Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar Law University)

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POLITICAL CULTURE

Political culture remains one of the very important approaches to understand politics in general
and comparative politics in particular. This approach has been very popular for conducting
comparative studies and making empirical analyses of transitional societies. Scholars have liked to
investigate political behaviour and processes of the political systems in the context of their
political cultures. In other words, how people view their country's politics can be explored through
political culture.

Political culture is a distinctive and spotted form of political philosophy that consists of a set of
beliefs, values, norms and assumptions concerning the ways on how governmental, political and
economic life is being carried out or ought to be carried out. Political culture, thus, creates a
framework for political change and is unique to nations, states and other groups. Thus, in essence,
this approach examines a sociological aspect of the subject of political development. It is
potentially a powerful, unifying approach to comparative politics.

In general, political culture is referred to as a set of shared views and normative judgments held by
a population regarding its political system. Therefore, it is often seen as the foundation of all
political activity, or at least as a factor determining the nature, characteristics and level of political
activity. It, for that reason, essentially includes historical experience, memory, social communities
and individuals in politics, their orientation, skills, influencing the political behaviour and this
experience primarily contain a summary, transformed form of impressions and preferences in
foreign and domestic policy. It is for this reason that this political culture approach does not refer
to the attitudes to specific actors, such as the current president or the prime minister; rather it
denotes how people view the political system as a whole, including the belief in its legitimacy.

Political culture is of the view, aspirations, and beliefs of most citizens of the country towards
political systems. It can be said to be a psychological matter of the people. It is also the type of
people’s mentality in relation to political activities, not political activities itself. Different types of
political cultures exist among the people of different states. In this context, it is to be noted that
the tradition of British citizens, the protests among French nationals and the patriotism among

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American citizens are strongly present. These are one of the characteristics of the political culture
of those countries.

The concept of political culture is changing oriented, but this is change slowly. Persons’
perceptions change as new experiences unfold. Depending on the city-life experiences of people
coming from village to city and living in the city, there are rapid changes in attitudes. But cultural
attitudes or values change very slowly. Hence, the attitude towards political action reflects fairly
permanent aspects of political culture.

MEANING AND DEFINITION OF POLITICAL CULTURE

There are several definitions of political culture by different scholars dealing with different
perspectives. The International Encyclopaedia of the Social Science defines political culture as
“the set of attitudes, beliefs and sentiments that give order and meaning to a political process and
what provides the underlying assumptions and rules that govern behaviour in the political
system.”

According to Eric Rowe, “Political Culture is a pattern of individual belief, values and emotional
attitudes”.

According to Almond and Powell, “Political Culture consists of attitudes, values and skills which
are current in entire population and those propensity and pattern which may be found in separate
parts of the society.”

Almond defines Political Culture as set of attitudes, beliefs, notion, faith, and understanding of
political system, political issues, political ideology and political characters.

Gabriel A Almond and Sidney Verba in 1963 stated that political culture refers specifically, to
the political orientations and attitudes towards the political system and its various parts, and
attitudes towards the role of the self in the system.

Sydney Verba defined political culture as “the system of beliefs about the pattern of political
interaction and political institutions” and those beliefs are fundamental, usually unstated, and

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unchallengeable, assumptions or postulates about politics. He also established a denotative


criterion of political culture for subsequent political culture studies by distinguishing it from other
specific political psychological constructs such as partisan affiliation and attitudes or beliefs about
domestic and international policy issues.

Moreover, Almond and Verba (1963) have identified five important dimensions of political culture
namely:

 A sense of national identity


 Attitudes towards one’s self as a participant in political life
 Attitudes towards one’s fellow citizens
 Attitudes and expectations regarding governmental output and performance and,
 Attitudes towards knowledge about the political process of decision making

Patrick O’Neil defines political culture as the norms for political activity in a society. It is a
determining factor in which ideologies will dominate a country’s political regime; it is unique to a
given country or group of people. Andrew Heywood states that political culture is the people's
psychological orientation. It implies a pattern of orientation to political objects such as parties,
governments and constitutions expressed in beliefs, symbols and values.

Almond and Powell (1966) regarded the concept of political culture as a specifying variable in the
explanation of political behaviour. It is a particular pattern of political orientation, attitudes
towards the political system and its various parts and attitudes toward the role of the self in the
system. They elaborate it in three directions:

 Substantive content: this can be interpreted as system culture, process culture and policy
culture.
 Varieties of orientation (cognitive, affective and evaluative).
 Systematic relations among these components.

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According to Lucian Pye (1965), political culture involves attributes including attitudes, feelings,
sentiments, beliefs, and values which concern the nature of politics that give form and substance
to political processes.

From the above, it can be derived that political culture is a shorthand expression to denote the
emotional and attitudinal environment within which the political system operates. In this process,
a set of political beliefs, values, and attitudes influences people’s political behaviours, and their
political behaviours then become a pattern and their political culture. In other words, it is the
overall distribution of citizens’ orientation to political objects. It gives the impression of the very
political processes of a given political system. Thus, this approach of political culture can be used
to distinguish one political system from the other. It is, therefore, an important approach in
understanding the varied dimensions of comparative politics.

FEATURES OF POLITICAL CULTURE

 The views of the people regarding the world of politics are the subject of political culture,
but not the various events organized in world politics. So, it can be called the psychological
dimension of politics.
 In the political culture, the attitude of both the political ideal and the effective system of
the state is expressed.
 It consists of empirical concepts of political life and values that are worth pursuing in
political life, and they can be emotional, perceptive.
 If there is a kind of attitude among the people about important political issues in the
political culture, then there is political stability. It is easy to get rid of the crisis if people’s
attitudes are favourable to political institutions during the crisis period of the country.
 Political culture does not remain unchanged. It is also constantly reorganized in terms of
cultural change in society. With the arrival of foreigners to live, the revolution, the war, or any
other major change can completely change the political culture of a state.

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CLASSIFICATION BY ALMOND AND VERBA

The Civic Culture by Almond and Verba (1963) is based on their surveys conducted during 1959-
60 in the USA, Britain, West Germany, Italy and Mexico. This study which pioneered the study of
political culture as a subfield has identified three pure types of political culture. These are as
follows:

 Parochial Political Culture: This refers to a political culture where citizens are only
distantly aware of the existence of central government- as with remote tribes whose existence is
seemingly unaffected by national decisions made by the central government. Further, there is no
political orientation towards political objects. People have neither knowledge nor interest in
politics. They have no orientations towards all components of politics. This type of political
culture is compatible with a traditional political structure. This type of orientation is found in a
passive society where there is hardly any specialization of roles, and therefore, people are
indifferent towards governmental authority. Thus, in this type of political culture people have low
awareness, expectations and participation.

 Subject Political Culture: In this political culture, citizens see themselves not as
participants in the political process but as subjects of the government – as with people living
under a dictatorship. In other words, citizens under this political culture have a passive orientation
towards a political system and conceive themselves as having a minimum influence on the
political process. In this type of political culture, citizens are aware of the central government, and
are heavily subjected to its decisions with little scope for dissent. The individual is aware of
politics, its actors and institutions. Citizens have orientations toward the output aspects of the
system. People know about decision-making mechanisms. There is a political awareness but no
confidence to air political views, thus there is an absence of participatory norms. This type of
political culture is compatible with a centralized authoritarian structure. In this model, the people
have a higher level of awareness and expectations, but low participation.

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 Participant Political Culture: In this political culture, citizens believe that they can
contribute to the system and that they are affected by it. They, therefore, respond positively to all
political objects and have an active orientation to political activities. Here citizens can influence
the government in various ways and they are affected by it. The individual is oriented toward the
system towards all four components of politics, i.e., input, output, political system, and self-role.
This encourages more and more participation and participation is the highest value. There is an
ability to criticize the authority and hold a positive orientation towards the political system. In this
model, people have a high level of awareness, expectations, and participation. Almond and Verba
argue that there is never a single political culture. The three categories of political orientations
which have been mentioned above are not always present in a pure form; rather they are
intermixed in many situations of political culture. Thus, they re-classified political culture into
three sub-types.

 These are discussed below:


 Parochial and Subject: This type of political culture represents a shift from parochial
orientation to subject orientation. Here the parochial loyalties gradually get weathered and the
inhabitants develop a greater awareness of the central authority.

 Subject and Participant: This type of political culture represents a shift from subject
political orientation to participant political orientation. In such a political culture, people generally
on the one hand develop an activist tendency and participate in the process; but on the other hand,
there are those individuals too who possess passive orientations and remain at the receiving end of
the decision-making process.

 Parochial and Participant: This type of political culture represents the parochial
orientation in the individuals whereas the norms introduced require a participant political
orientation. In such type of political culture, there emerges a problem of harmony between the
political culture and political norm. However, Almond and Verba suggest that a participatory

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political culture fits a liberal democratic regime. The participant political culture is the type of
political culture is congruent with a democratic political structure and the same has been called by
them as ―Civic Culture.

CLASSIFICATION BY ROBERT DAHL

According to Robert Dahl, there are five orientations of Political Culture: -


 Orientation to Problem Solving: This means how people think about their problems
and how they find solutions to those problems.
 Orientation to Collective Action: It means the willingness on peoples’ part to work
collectively in a political system.
 Orientation to Political System: It demonstrates the attitudes and behaviour of people
towards a political system.
 Orientation to Others: The faith of person in other person or individuals.
 Self-Orientation: It shows the ability of individual to present their own and original
proposals regarding the political system.

CLASSIFICATION BY FINER

 Attempting to understand the phenomena of military intervention in the politics of


developing countries, Samuel E Finer (The Man on the Horseback, 1962) came to relate civil-
military relations with political culture. In his analysis, there are four levels of political culture:

 Mature Political Culture: In this type of political culture, there is widespread public
approval of the procedure for transfer of power; a belief that the persons in power have the right to
govern and issue orders; the people are attached to the political institutions and there is a well
mobilized public opinion.
 Developed Political Culture: In this type of political culture, the civil institutions are
highly developed and the public is well organized into powerful groups but from time to time

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there arises a dispute on the questions of who and what should constitute the sovereign authority
and how power should be transferred.

 Low Political Culture: At this level of political culture, the political system is weak and
narrowly organized; there is a lack of consensus on the nature of the political system and the
procedures and the public attachment to the political system is fragile.

 Minimal Political Culture: At this low level of political culture, articulate public
opinion does not exist in the political system and the government can easily ignore public opinion;
political cultures are decided by force or the threat of force. A person or institution capable of
asserting itself can enforce its will and the extent of one’s authority is directly related to the degree
of force at one’s disposal. Finer argued that developing countries with weak legitimacy are prone
to experience coup d etat or extreme forms of military intervention.

ALMOND’S CLASSIFICATION OF POLITICAL SYSTEMS

Based on Gabriel A. Almond’s classification of political culture and his analysis of its applied
factors in different political systems, the following aspects have been highlighted. According to
Almond the four-fold classification of the political system is based on some terms and these are:
 First, a political system is a system of action.
 The unit of the political system is the role.
 The distinguishing property of the political system is the legitimate monopoly of physical
coercion over a given territory and population.
 The fourth concept is the orientation to political action. The political culture is not the
same thing as the general culture, although it is related to it.

Now, here an attempt has been made to throw light on the classifications of Almond regarding
political systems and the related culture.

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Anglo–American Political System: Associated with the advanced countries of the West,
even termed as matured political culture, it incorporates the political consensus and higher
degree of organization. It is the operating system that acts as the benchmark which is being
borrowed by other nationalities. The political culture of this system happens to be
homogeneous, secular:

 A multi-valued, rational-calculating, bargaining, and experimental political culture. It


is a homogeneous culture in the sense that there is a sharing of political ends — the values
of freedom, mass welfare, and security — and means.
 A secularized political system involves individuation of and a measure of autonomy
among the various roles. Each one of the roles sets itself up autonomously in the political
business, so to speak. The political system is saturated with the atmosphere of the market.
The secularized political process has some of the characteristics of a laboratory; that is,
policies offered by candidates are viewed as hypotheses, and the consequences of
legislation are rapidly communicated within the system and constitute a crude form of
testing hypotheses.
 The basic principles of the system: Liberty, Equality, Democracy, Civic duty,
Individual Responsibility, Trade Unionism, etc. Bargaining politics: between rulers and
rule (the elected and electors, leaders and its followers)
 Plural society- the society is heterogeneous and therefore different parties and interest
groups operate to influence the decision-making process in response to their respective
interests.
 Checks and balances- there is a diffusion of power and influence where legal
institutions are checked by the channels of mass communication and mass education so
that the prospect of authoritarian rule is mitigated, even eliminated.
 Separation of power and stability of differentiated roles Political Culture
 Political ideologies – multiculturalism, libertarianism, welfare state,
 utilitarianism, individualism, egalitarianism etc.
 Political folklore- use of symbol

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 Civil supremacy

Continental European Political System: These are the western countries of Europe like
Italy, France, and Norway etc. It's even considered a developed political culture because in
these societies’ public is highly organized.

 Fragmented political culture- the political culture is fragmented where different


sections of society establish different patterns of cultural development, while some are
more developed than others. Thereby, political culture incorporates distinctive sub-
cultures.
 No political bargaining- the process of political bargaining is virtually non-existent
that creates a situation in which politics becomes like a game. The result is that various
sub-cultures are at war. It is a race of superiority and power.
 Expected criteria- stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law,
human rights, protection of minority etc.
 Form of governance- it imbibes both monarchism, republicanism, presidential, semi-
presidential, parliamentary republic, etc., For instance, countries like Belgium, Netherland,
Sweden, Spain etc. have constitutional monarchies
 Formation of International Organization: For example, the European Union
 Legitimacy of institutions
 Civilian government

Developing Countries Political System: This category includes countries that emerged
from the days of long colonial domination.

 Master and subjects-the political culture of the masters is superimposed over the
political culture of the subjects. The result is the erosion of the political culture of the
subjects and the super-imposition of the political culture of the rulers that is deemed to be
superior in all respects.
 New source of legitimacy by the rule over time
 Single structure multivariate political culture

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 Commonality of history
 Primacy to the subject through providing voting rights and peoples
 participation in governance
 Agro-industrial fused society.

Totalitarian Political System: The countries included here are the Soviet Union and
China.

 Legitimacy of centre: the quality of the acceptance of the legitimacy is artificially


created. The characteristic orientation to authority tends to be some combination of
conformity or apathy produced by the central control or the means of communication and
of the agencies of violence
 Concentration of power
 Hierarchy of bureaucracy, police and army
 Coercion as the hallmark of the exercise of authority
 Single pattern of cultural development
 Unitary system
 Lesser people participation

CRITICISM

Almond and Powell have realised that the approach of political culture to the political system is
inadequate.

Critics have pointed out that the following difficulties come in the wake of this study:

 The concept is merely a new label for an old idea;


 Its definition is vague. Various political writers have given it a meaning of their own.
So, this concept conveys conflicting ideas.

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 It is difficult to distinguish those elements which contribute to political culture from the
elements which are generally found in the political culture.
 It is not clear whether political institutions and practices are parts of the political culture
or are its products.

SIGNIFICANCE OF POLITICAL CULTURE:


 Political Culture enables to understand the connection between the social and economic
factor on one hand and political development on the other hand.
 Political Culture helps to understand the process of political socialization and
transmission of political culture from one generation to the other generation.
 Political Culture enables to understand how the laws and constitution of different
countries are observed by different individuals and groups.
 Political Culture shows the attitude of people towards a political system.
 It enables to understand the reason that similar phenomenon in the different countries do
not produce the same result.

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