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Meeting Seven (Wednesday, May 27, 19:30-21:30)
Classics of the psycho-social approach
Among social sciences, political science has had the hardest time to find a place for
“culture” among its canonical concepts. While anthropologists, sociologists or historians
developed powerful “culturological” approaches, many political scientists - ever
enamored by the rational choice models derived from microeconomics - fret and often
relegate “cultural” approaches to the margins of their discipline. The unit investigates this
intriguing tension. The students read a major introduction to the field and three articles by
the classics of the discipline: Almond and Verba, Inglehart, and Klingeman.
Required readings:
Almond, Gabriel A. 1989 (1980). “The Intellectual History of the Civic Culture
Concept,” in Almond, Gabriel A. and Sidney Verba, eds. The Civic Culture
Revisited. Newbury Park: Sage, pp. 1-36.
Inglehart, Ronald. 1988. “The Renaissance of Political Culture,” American Political
Science Review 82(4), (December): 1204–30.
Inglehart, Ronald. 2000. “Modernization, Cultural Change and the Persistence of
Traditional Values,” American Sociological Review, Vol, 65 (February), 19-51.
Klingemann, Hans-Dieter. 1995. “Party Positions and Voter Orientations,” In Citizens
and the State. Edited by H-D. Klingemann and Dieter Fuchs. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, pp. 183-205.
Recommended readings:
Harrison, Lawrence E. and Samuel P. Huntington. Eds. 2000. Culture Matters. How
Values Shape Human Progress. Basic Books.
Inglehart, Ronald. 1999. “Globalization and Postmodern Values,” The Washington
Quarterly 23(1):215-28. http://www.twq.com/winter00/231Inglehart.pdf
Fuchs, Dieter and Hans-Dieter Klingemann. 2002. ”Eastward Enlargement of the
European Union and the Identity of Europe,” West European Politics 25 (2), April
2002 (Special Issue edited by Peter Mair and Jan Zielonka), pp. 19-54.
Gamson, A. William. 1992. Talking Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dryzek, John S. and Leslie Holmes. 2002. Post-communist democracies. Political
Discourse across Thirteen Countries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Classical studies of political culture.
1. The traditionally understood field of political culture is dominated by psychosocial
approaches (attitudes accessed through surveys). Among the classical studies belonging
to this genre perhaps the most famous and influential is The Civic Culture. Political
Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations by Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba (1963):
Culture: “we employ the concept of culture in only one of its meanings: that of
psychological orientations toward social objects” (1963:14).
Psychological orientations = attitudes
“Attitude is a propensity of an individual to perceive, interpret and act toward a particular
subject in particular ways” (1963:13)
“The term political culture … 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” (1963:14-15)
“Political culture of a nation is the particular distribution of patterns of orientations
toward political objects among the members of the nation” (1963: 14-15)
Civic culture is a political culture of stable democracies in which:
 A substantial consensus on the legitimacy of political institutions and the
direction and content of public policy
 A widespread tolerance of a plurality of interests and beliefs
 A widely distributed sense of political competence and mutual trust in the
citizenry (1989:4).
Gabriel A. Almond, “The Intellectual history of the Civic Culture Concept.”
1. Six (in the article Almond lists five) sources of this concept.
1.1. The classics: The Bible,
- Plato (The Republic) on the significance of family socialization;
- Aristotle (on moderation):
(In Politics: “The best attainable form of government is the mixed form in
a society in which middle classes predominate: ‘the middle classes are the
least inclined to shun office and to covet office, and both of these
tendencies are injurious to states’” (p.3)
- Machiavelli in Discourses on Livy (on the role of religion): “Roman citizens
were more afraid of breaking an oath than of breaking the law, since the held in
higher esteem the power of God than the power of man” (p.4-5 in Almond).
Also: Montesquieu, Rousseau, de Tocqueville (“habits of the heart”).
1.2. The Enlightenment: the role of education and the vision of the human being as the
“right-bearing” creature.
1.3. European sociology (the classics):
- Emile Durkheim on “collective representations”
- Marx on ideology
- Max Weber: Versehende Sociologie, three types of authority (traditional,
rational-legal, and charismatic), and the four types of human action:
- traditional
- affectual
- instrumental - rational
- goal – rational
1.4. Modern social psychology: instinct, habit, sentiment, and attitude (BUT: today: the
significance of cognitive psychology (as well as cognitive anthropology and sociology):
see Naomi Quinn and Claudia Strauss in the syllabus.
1.5. Psycho – anthropology: leads to the concept of national character (in the 1940s),
which is later criticized. Ralph Linton introduces the concepts of subculture, role and
status.
1.6. Survey research methodology.
2. The model of civic culture:
2.1. From the Enlightenment and liberal political theory: the model of a successful
democracy required that all citizens be involved and active in politics, and that their
participation be informed, analytic, and rational” (page 16). [Is it an analytical statement
or normative? What about Lukes’ second and third “faces of power”?]
2.2. From Aristotle, Polybius and Cicero: mixed government and the separation of
powers (both highly desired) are “most likely sustained” by “moderation, interpersonal
trust, and even certain diffidence regarding political participation” (page 17-18).
2.3. From de Tocqueville: “restraint,” “tranquility,” temperance, moderation.” (p. 19).
2.4. John Stuart Mill: again mixed government: fear of the “tyranny of majority”
[compare our today’s insistence (normatively) on liberal democracy and concern with
“illiberal” democracies].
2.5. Joseph Schumpeter: Conditions for the success of democracy.
2.5.1. Skilled, professional politicians
2.5.2. Political process not overloaded with too many projects
2.5.3. Professional bureaucracy, strong and confident to instruct the politicians.
2.5.4. Democratic self-control (cultural condition): “voters must not withdraw
confidence too easily between elections”. [Today’s voters are better informed,
active, and mobilized than during the initial wave of democratrization in the 19th
century; they demand more and they are more impatient. However, the critical
“error” came during the second wave: extreme, illiberal and non-democratic
parties undermined democracy. The third wave: at least the elites are aware of this
failure and the dangers of extreme politics].
2.5.5. Tolerance of difference of opinions.
3. Research design (study critical points)
4. Political culture and political theory (page 50: see the criticism of rational self-interest
as an explanatory device).
Ronald Inglehart: economic development, culture and postmaterialism.
“The Renaissance of Political Culture,” APSR, December, 1988
1. Rational choice models based on economic variables do not explain the observed
variation in economic performance very well; nor do they explain well the variations in
political phenomena.
2. “The political culture literature argues that the evolution and persistence of mass-based
democracy requires the emergence of certain supportive habits and attitudes among the
general public” (1204).
3. Variables:
3.1. Interpersonal trust (later Robert Putnam: Making Democracy Work. Civic
Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press).
IMPORTANT: leads to the very prominent research tradition today:
SOCIAL CAPITAL
3.2. Satisfaction with one’s life as a whole (strong cross-cultural differences).
What explains them? Short-term fluctuations in economic situations are not
sufficient (Danes versus Italians).
“Democratic institutions seem to depend on enduring cultural
traits such as life satisfaction and interpersonal trust more than
on relatively fluctuating variables such as political satisfaction”
(1209).
[This propositions needs to be tested in the postcommunist world: the third wave
of democratization may have a different dynamic than the first or second].
Syndrome of positive attitudes toward the world we live in:
Life satisfaction
Political satisfaction
Interpersonal trust
Support for the existing social order
All four contribute to adoption and maintenance of democracy
4. Cultural change and economic development.
4.1. Testing Max Weber: the link between Calvinist Protestantism and rise of
capitalism.
4.2. Observes strong correlation between a nation’s level of economic
development and “civic culture:”
- Interpersonal trust
- Life satisfaction
- Support for revolutionary change (negatively correlated)
4.3. Protestant ethic contributed to the rise of capitalism
4.4. Capitalism (rapid economic growth)  increased prosperity
 POSTMATERIALIST VALUES  slower economic growth
“Prosperity engenders a cultural shift toward postmaterialist values, which
eventually leads to a less intense emphasis on economic growth” (1226)
4.5. Significance of the opposition between materialist and post materialist values.
4.6. Growth-inducing potential of Confucianism.
“Globalization and Postmodern Values,” The Washington Quarterly, 1999,
23 (1): 215-28. (http://www.twq.com/winter00/231Inglehart.pdf)
1. Again Inglehart poses the question of the possible correlation between attitudes
and stable democracy.
2. Having done the World Values Survey since the 1980s, Inglehart states that
deep-rooted changes in worldviews are taking place. He observes a strong
positive correlation between economic development and:
- the rise of human life expectancy
- the subjective well being of individuals
3. SO: the correlation is curvilinear. A threshold divides the world
population into two social, geographical and age categories:
- where basic individual needs are secured and where postmodern values are
developing;
- where physical survival is still uncertain and no values change is expected
4. TWO HYPOTHESES:
A scarcity hypothesis: a sort of one-to-one relationship between economic level
and the prevalence of modern and post-modern values. The greatest subjective
value on those things that are in short supply: lower levels of economic
development  concern with “material things;” higher level of economic
development  concern with “quality of life issues.”
A socialization hypothesis relationship between socioeconomic environment and
a set of values is not automatic. There is a time lag: values learned early on in life
do not change easily [culture as a constraint].
Subjective well-being plays an important role in legitimacy of power institutions
(mostly democratic) and thus, democratic stability.
The old democracy formula ‘Get the institutions right and people will follow’
does not work for the majority of the cases. Specific culture and social conditions
do matter. They change slowly; economic development influences this change.
Increased material standard eventually produces the increase in the subjective
sense of security. The next step in the scheme is formation of specific values
which will legitimize a given regime and eventually will lead to stability of
democracy.
My comments:
Strengths:
1. Empirical validity
2. Large bodies of comparative data
3. The best approximation of existing trends we have
Problems:
1. Conceptualization of culture: only psycho-social (attitudes); nothing or very
little on the semiotic dimension.
2. Generalizations are based on the analysis of aggregate of individual data points.
To claim that we thus gain knowledge of the “whole culture” (national character)
is dubious. Danger of reification.
3. Working with the concept of “national culture” makes it difficult to study
subcultures and their competition.
4. Insufficient awareness that this is a study of DISTRIBUTION of individual
features in a given moment in time (in the best case in several time points). Very
little on actual MECHANISMS of the formation of certain distributions of
attitudes in a society. Abstraction from the process (time flow) and mechanisms.
BUT: see “Party Positions and Voter Orientations,” by Hans-Dieter Klingemann,
in Citizens and The State, edited by Klingemann and Dieter Fuchs, Oxford
University Press, 1995.