Caramani (ed.) Comparative Politics
Section IV: Actors and processes
Chapter 17:
Political culture
by Svante Ersson and Jan-Erik Lane
Chapter 17: Political culture
Introduction (1/1)
Introduction
The field of political culture
Definitions of political culture
Dimensions of political culture
Current issues in political culture theory
Conclusion
In increasingly multicultural societies, the concept of political culture
acquires new scope and relevance.
Political culture stands for the basic attitudes of people towards politics,
policy and polity.
The main dimensions of political cultures are value orientations, religion,
and ethnicity.
Chapter 17: Political culture
The field of political culture (1/1)
Introduction
The field of political culture
Definitions of political culture
Dimensions of political culture
Current issues in political culture theory
Conclusion
Theorizing political culture goes back to classical political theory (e.g.
Montesquieu, Tocqueville).
In the 20th century, the study of political culture was first addressed within
democracy theory.
The connection of civic culture with concepts of trust and social networks
gave rise to theories of social capital.
With the integration of “new politics” (e.g. environmentalism, feminism,
etc.), the concept of political culture has been broadened.
Chapter 17: Political culture
Definitions of political culture (1/1)
Introduction
The field of political culture
Definitions of political culture
Dimensions of political culture
Current issues in political culture theory
Conclusion
Culture as ethnicity or religion often employs historical information,
whereas culture as value orientation uses survey data (e.g. World Value
Survey).
The study of political culture includes both micro-analysis of people’s
attitudes and the macro-analysis of country differences.
Variation within countries is often larger than between the countries.
Methodological challenges for survey data:
• Converse’s principle
• Robinson’s principle
Chapter 17: Political culture
Dimensions of political culture (1/2)
Introduction
The field of political culture
Definitions of political culture
Dimensions of political culture
Current issues in political culture theory
Conclusion
(1) Value orientations:
Support for political institutions
Interpersonal trust
Post-materialism
Secularization
(2) Ethnicity:
•
Fields of research:
Theories of nation
Racism
Multiculturalism
•
The two main dimensions of ethnicity are language and race
Chapter 17: Political culture
Dimensions of political culture (2/2)
Introduction
The field of political culture
Definitions of political culture
Dimensions of political culture
Current issues in political culture theory
Conclusion
(3) Religion:
•
Religion impacts politics through:
Cleavages within societies
Cleavages between cultures (religions as civilizations)
•
With the rise of fundamentalism, the relevance of religion to
politics has increased
(4) Tradition:
•
Cultures inherited from the past may have a great relevance to
the presence (collective consciousness)
•
Elazar’s typology:
Moralism (strong civil society)
Individualism
Traditionalism (weak civil society)
Chapter 17: Political culture
Current issues in
political culture theory (1/2)
Introduction
The field of political culture
Definitions of political culture
Dimensions of political culture
Current issues in political culture theory
Conclusion
Since the early 2000s attention has focused on three topics:
(1) Social capital:
•
Aims at explaining democratic and institutional performance
•
Social capital emerged from trust theory
•
Difficult to define social capital empirically, since there are
different ways to measure trust:
Direct: Interpersonal trust values
Indirect: Occurrence of free associations
Chapter 17: Political culture
Current issues in
political culture theory (2/2)
Introduction
The field of political culture
Definitions of political culture
Dimensions of political culture
Current issues in political culture theory
Conclusion
(2) Civilizations:
•
Clash of civilization (Huntington’s thesis)?
•
Integration of Muslim population in Europe
•
Cultural compactness
(3) Gender equality and homosexuality:
•
Cultural change fostered post-materialist value
•
Attitudes towards gender equality and acceptance of
homosexuality are strongly correlated
•
New political cleavage in post-modern societies
Chapter 17: Political culture
Conclusion (1/1)
Introduction
The field of political culture
Definitions of political culture
Dimensions of political culture
Current issues in political culture theory
Conclusion
The rising salience of political culture reflects the spread of the multicultural societies.
The cultural approach goes beyond rational choice theory:
- Endogenizing of goals and values
- Where do our goals (preferences) come from?
Not only institutions, but also culture seems to have an influence on
politics.