What is political culture and types?

Political culture is defined as the collection of a set of attitudes, sentiments, and beliefs which give meaning and order to a political process and also shed light on the assumptions and rules that govern the behavior in the particular political system.

Table of Contents Show

1) Parochial Political Culture
2) The subject of Political Culture
3) Participant political culture
4) Political SubCulture
5) Civic Culture
6) Secular Political Culture
7) Ideological Political Culture
8) Homogenous political culture
9) Fragmented Political Culture
Classifications
Almond & Verba
National political cultures
United States
Further reading

Both political ideas and operating norms of polity are a part of political culture. Political culture is considered as a product of both the history of the political system and the members’ histories. it is also seen that the political culture of a particular country differs substantially from other countries.

Political culture is categorized into various types as follows :

1) Parochial Political Culture

When people and understanding of the national political system and they do not possess any tendency to participate in the process of input or are not aware or conscious of the output processes is called Parochial Political Culture. These people have no role to play in political culture.

African tribes and Eskimos are considered under Parochial Political Culture. This type of political culture characterizes the traditional societies in which people are mostly ignorant or backward about their political systems. There is a very little specialization of functions and most of the rules are combined such as religious, political or economical.

The orientation of individual towards political objects is not positive. the individual usually remains ignorant of the government agencies and his lover only about his local community. What is considered that he is not politically oriented or interested?

2) The subject of Political Culture

In a society where people are oriented to the system as a whole and are responsible specifically for the output aspects in such a society Subject political culture is found. the orientations towards input and the self as a political actor are not present in the subject political culture.

The individuals of the system are trained to accept the system and the outputs of the system negatively in a passive way. The acceptance is criticized and passive and is not attempted to participate and change the system.

This type of political culture is found in monarchies and developing countries where people aware of their government is system along with their flaws and accept the existence whether they like it or not. the individuals are also aware of the government policies and their presence in lawmaking and enforcement along with tax collection.

Sometimes they may not be allowed to do so in order for the people to find it difficult to how to influence the existing political system.

3) Participant political culture

This is the type of political culture in which people are looking forward to participating in the political system and thereby influence the existing working of the existing political system.

They are responsible and always busy making reasonable demands and are also involved in many decision making processes. the developed a particular attitude towards their political system due to the long exposure of the same.

Most of the political parties and pressure groups are categorized in participant political culture and they decide for themselves as to what role they can play. Individuals also participate in the activities of a political system and a part of evaluation and criticism process in the system.

Most developed societies have this type of political culture.

4) Political SubCulture

In most of the countries, not all groups that are participating are advanced. While there are some groups which may be very advanced there are also the groups which are less advanced. that is why it is seen that the groups which are more advanced tend to develop a participatory culture while the other groups still follow the subject or parochial culture.

The reason for this is that many countries in the world have many different ethnic groups. there is a difference in educational political training or social or economic background which is why the difference in the political culture exists.

That is weather backward developer subculture of their own which is called political subculture. When the political system is unable to advance rapidly and to keep the pace with the fast changing needs of the society that is when the subculture develops.

The subculture may be introduced by elite class or some other class of people but there will be certain people who will not be able to cope up with it. it is often seen that different sections of society have different political orientations and agendas.

That is why when a particular section of society is clear the distinguishable from the others we can conclude that they have developed a distinct political subculture of their own. is also seen that these cultures do not make an effective contribution in the political system when there is a national crisis.

In underdeveloped or developing countries the subconscious develops because of the difference in race, caste, religion, and language. India is such an example of a country where numerous politically diverse subcultures are present. there is also a difference in the rulers and the ruled in the political subculture.

Once the government forms they do not accept any control over it and then the read something about the working of government via the news. It is also seen that the rulers develop a superiority complex or particular attitude towards the governed.

Other types of Political culture

5) Civic Culture

Civic culture is the type of Political culture which can be compared to the developed society like America where people participate in various processes of the political system.

6) Secular Political Culture

When people are secular in their outlook, are there is a participation in the decision-making process by most of the individuals, it is worked as a rational process. The traditional attitudes are changed voluntarily, by the way of dynamic and substantial decisions.

7) Ideological Political Culture

This is the type of political culture where people are guided and controlled in the favor of determined political orientations. With the help of the educational system, controlled political socialization the orientations that are desired to be developed are sought in the political system.

8) Homogenous political culture

When the political system has been categorized and characterized by the same rules, values, beliefs, that is when such a political system is called Homogeneous Political Culture. Although this political system may have different parties and subgroups, they share common beliefs, ideas, and culture.

9) Fragmented Political Culture

When everything in a political system is different including individuals, people, their ideologies and beliefs, it called fragmented political culture. It is seen that there are various patterns of cultural development.

Set of attitudes and beliefs that give order and meaning to a political process

Inglehart-Weltzel values map.

Political culture describes how culture impacts politics. Every political system is embedded in a particular political culture.[1]

Definition

Gabriel Almond defines it as "the particular pattern of orientations toward political actions in which every political system is embedded".[1]

Lucian Pye's definition is that "Political culture is the set of attitudes, beliefs, and sentiments, which give order and meaning to a political process and which provide the underlying assumptions and rules that govern behavior in the political system".[1]

María Eugenia Vázquez Semadeni defines political culture as "the set of discourses and symbolic practices by means of which both individuals and groups articulate their relationship to power, elaborate their political demands and put them at stake."[2]

Analysis

The limits of a particular political culture are based on subjective identity.[1] The most common form of such identity today is the national identity, and hence nation states set the typical limits of political cultures.[1] The socio-cultural system, in turn, gives meaning to a political culture through shared symbols and rituals (such as a national independence day) which reflect common values.[1] This may develop into a civil religion. The values themselves can be more hierarchical or egalitarian, and will set the limits to political participation, thereby creating a basis for legitimacy.[1] They are transmitted through socialization, and shaped by shared historical experiences which form the collective or national memory.[1] Intellectuals will continue to interpret the political culture through political discourse in the public sphere.[1] Indeed, elite political culture is more consequential than mass-level.[3]

Elements

Trust is a major factor in political culture, as its level determines the capacity of the state to function.[3]

Postmaterialism is the degree to which a political culture is concerned with issues which are not of immediate physical or material concern, such as human rights and environmentalism.[1]

Religion has also an impact on political culture.[3]

Classifications

Different typologies of political culture have been proposed.

Almond & Verba

Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba in The Civic Culture outlined three pure types of political culture based on level and type of political participation and the nature of people's attitudes toward politics:

Parochial – Where citizens are only remotely aware of the presence of central government, and live their lives near enough regardless of the decisions taken by the state, distant and unaware of political phenomena. They have neither knowledge nor interest in politics. This type of political culture is in general congruent with a traditional political structure.
Subject – Where citizens are aware of central government, and are heavily subjected to its decisions with little scope for dissent. The individual is aware of politics, its actors and institutions. It is affectively oriented towards politics, yet it is on the "downward flow" side of the politics. In general congruent with a centralized authoritarian structure.
Participant – Citizens are able to influence the government in various ways and they are affected by it. The individual is oriented toward the system as a whole, to both the political and administrative structures and processes (to both the input and output aspects). In general congruent with a democratic political structure.

Almond and Verba wrote that these types of political culture can combine to create the civic culture, which mixes the best elements of each.

Elazar

Daniel J. Elazar identified three kinds of political culture:[3]

Individualistic culture – In which politics is a marketplace between individuals seeking to maximize their self-interest, with minimal community involvement and opposition to the government, as well as a high degree of patronage. See also: Neopatrimonialism.
Moralistic culture – Whereby government is seen as important and as a way to improve peoples' lives.
Traditionalistic culture – One which seeks to preserve the status quo under which elites have all the power and citizen participation is not expected.

Huntington

Samuel P. Huntington classified political cultures according to civilizations on the basis of geography and history:[3]

Western civilization
Japanese civilization
Islamic civilization
Hindu civilization
Slavic-Orthodox civilization
Latin American civilization
Chinese civilization
African civilization

Inglehart

Ronald Inglehart proposes that political culture can dictate political systems, and points out a correlation between Protestantism (or more generally societies with high Secular-Rational values and high Self Expression values on the Inglehart-Weltzel values map) and stable democratization.[4] However, the recurrent post-elections clashes in largely protestant Sub-Saharan countries, such as Kenya or Uganda, shows that religious affiliations seem to poorly affect the political behaviour of populations.

National political cultures

Russia

Russia is a low-trust society, with even the highest trusted institutions of church and the military having more distrustful than trusting citizens, and with low participation in civil society.[3][5] This means that Russia has a weak civic political culture. Furthermore, the authoritarian traditions of Russia mean that there is little support for democratic norms such as tolerance of dissent and pluralism.[6] Russia has a history of authoritarian rulers from Ivan the Terrible to Joseph Stalin, who have engaged in massive repression of all potential political competitors, from the oprichnina to the Great Purge. The resulting political systems of Tsarist autocracy and Soviet communism had no space for independent institutions.

United States

The political culture of the United States was heavily influenced by the background of its early immigrants, as it is a settler society. Samuel P. Huntington identified American politics as having a "Tudor" character, with elements of English political culture of that period, such as common law, strong courts, local self-rule, decentralized sovereignty across institutions, and reliance on popular militias instead of a standing army, having been imported by early settlers.[7] Another source of political culture was the arrival of Scotch-Irish Americans, who came from a violent region of Britain, and brought with them a strong sense of individualism and support for the right to bear arms.[8] These settlers provided the support for Jacksonian democracy, which was a revolution of its time against the established elites, and remnants of which can still be seen in modern American populism.[8]

China

The political culture of China is tied closely to political socialization, as children are indoctrinated into the collectivist perspective of the Chinese Communist Party. This inculcation is theorized to explain the delayed growth of secularism in Chinese culture, especially during the Cultural Revolution.[9] Chinese political culture perceives the relationship between government and individuals to be a hierarchy. Because of this, there is little pushback from individuals during policy and regulation change. The political culture also shows a trend against confrontationality, which decreases the quantity and frequency of social conflict.[10] Both of these qualities stem from traditional Chinese values imbedded during the age of Confucianism. When the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1948, Mao Zedong unsuccessfully attempted to remove these traits from the culture, instead opting for revolutionary values and priorities.[11]

India

Due to India's colonization by the British Empire, the contemporary political culture has been influenced by western ideas that were not present before. These influences include democracy and parliamentary systems, two institutions that stood ideologically opposite of the caste system that dictated society before.[12] Because of India's multicultural demography, the political culture varies by group and region. India's successful democratization lead to power being given to both the urbanized and well educated class who focused on national appeal, as well as more traditional, rural, and lower class political actors.[13] In the modern era, the class system of India has begun to break down, and members of lower classes are now entering higher political and economic positions. This is especially true for lower class women, who historically have been excluded from such activities.[14]

References

^ a b c d e f g h i j Morlino, Leonardo (2017). Political science : a global perspective. Berg-Schlosser, Dirk., Badie, Bertrand. London, England. pp. 64–74. ISBN 978-1-5264-1303-1. OCLC 1124515503.
^ [Vázquez Semadeni, M. E. (2010). La formación de una cultura política republicana: El debate público sobre la masonería. México, 1821-1830. Serie Historia Moderna y Contemporánea/Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas; núm. 54. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México/El Colegio de Michoacán. ISBN 978-607-02-1694-7]
^ a b c d e f Hague, Rod. (14 October 2017). Political science : a comparative introduction. pp. 200–214. ISBN 978-1-137-60123-0. OCLC 970345358.
^ Inglehart, Ronald (2 September 2013). "The Renaissance of Political Culture". Cambridge.org. Retrieved 9 April 2022.
^ Schmidt-Pfister, Diana (2008), "What Kind of Civil Society in Russia?", in White, Stephen (ed.), Media, Culture and Society in Putin's Russia, Studies in Central and Eastern Europe, Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 37–71, doi:10.1057/9780230583078_3, ISBN 978-0-230-58307-8
^ White, Stephen; Gitelman, Zvi Y.; Sakwa, Richard, eds. (2005). Developments in Russian politics 6. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-3668-4. OCLC 57638942.
^ Huntington, Samuel P. (2006). Political order in changing societies. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-11620-5. OCLC 301491120.
^ a b Fukuyama, Francis. (30 September 2014). Political order and political decay : from the industrial revolution to the globalization of democracy. Continuation of: Fukuyama, Francis. (First ed.). New York. ISBN 978-0-374-22735-7. OCLC 869263734.
^ Wasserstrom, Jeffrey (1994). Popular Protest & Political Culture in Modern China. New York, New York: Westview Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-8133-2043-4.
^ Shi, Tianjian (2001). "Cultural Values and Political Trust: A Comparison of the People's Republic of China and Taiwan". Comparative Politics. 33 (4): 401–419. doi:10.2307/422441. ISSN 0010-4159. JSTOR 422441.
^ Solomon, Richard H. (1971). Mao's Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-02250-8.
^ Chiriyankandath, James (March 1996). "Hindu nationalism and regional political culture in India: A study of Kerala". Nationalism and Ethnic Politics. 2 (1): 44–66. doi:10.1080/13537119608428458. ISSN 1353-7113.
^ Weiner, Myron (8 December 2015). "6. India: Two Political Cultures". Political Culture and Political Development. Princeton University Press. pp. 199–244. doi:10.1515/9781400875320-007. ISBN 978-1-4008-7532-0.
^ Ciotti, Manuela (February 2012). "Resurrecting Seva (Social Service): Dalit and Low-caste Women Party Activists as Producers and Consumers of Political Culture and Practice in Urban North India". The Journal of Asian Studies. 71 (1): 149–170. doi:10.1017/S002191181100297X. ISSN 1752-0401. S2CID 162611460.