Lecture 5. Political Culture and Political Socialization A. Definition of Political Culture: B. Key Aspects of Political Culture C. Political Culture as an Explanation for Levels of Participation D. Modernization, Democratization and Political Culture E. Political Culture and Regime Types F. Political Socialization G. Agents of Socialization

A. Definition of Political Culture: “A particular distribution of political attitudes, values, feelings, information, and skills that affects the behaviour of a nation’s citizens and leaders throughout the political system.” Assumption: what people know or feel about their political system affects their political behaviour.

Assumption: Like traditional cultures, political cultures vary across countries and can explain variations in modes and levels of political participation. All these variations can be measured through surveys.

B. Key Aspects of Political Culture 1. COGNITION: What people know about politics: Who are the leaders, what are the government’s policies, how much do they affect your life? what percent of populations actually follow or keep aware of political events and how often they do so. willingness to have and express political opinions

2. AFFECT AND EFFICACY: What they think about their political system, about their own role in the political system, and their ability to affect the outcomes? are they proud of their country? of its leaders? do they feel that they can affect outcomes? sense of efficacy and competence should increase the level of participation do they feel that people have the responsibility to participate in political activity?

3. INTENSITY OF FEELINGS: The depth or intensity with which they hold those values how willing are they to allow other people to express dissenting views? how deep are the cleavages within society? Are there “cross-cutting cleavages” that can limit the level of conflict within the society? conflictual versus consensual political culture See Figure: Conflictual Political Culture

C. Political Culture as an Explanation for: I. Levels and modes of Participation II. For the type of policies that governments adopt in response to perceived public opinion and popular values

Three levels of analysis: a. System Level: Beliefs * the views of citizens and leaders about the entire political system, * especially the values and organizations that hold the political system together * level of government legitimacy affects citizen's choice of modes of participation, includes belief in the right to use violence against an "illegitimate" system

b. Process Level: Popular are the attitudes to the process of participation do citizens get involved in politics, make demands, obey the law?

Three Types of Political Cultures in a political system 1. Participant: informed about politics, make demands on government, support political leaders 2. Subject: passively accept government policies 3. Parochial: totally unaware of politics in the society

the share of the population holding these different types of political cultures will affect the type of political system in that country

c. Policy Level: values of citizens that affect government policies — what are the general attitudes within society about issues such as property rights, individual rights, acceptable levels of government intervention in the economy, etc. Collective values versus individual rights: citizens' right to welfare versus need to create opportunity for upward mobility within society.

D. Modernization, Democratization and Political Culture 1. Values and Democracy Strong belief among social scientists that certain values are necessary for democracy to develop and take root need for “participatory” culture for democracy to succeed

Here is the link between modernization theory—levels of education, communication, participation, political culture and popular attitudes -- and democratization Suggests that non-modern systems cannot be democratic because they lack modern values Raises question of whether political cultures can change quickly -- if not, political systems have problems

Seen to be a biased perspective of Western social scientists Theory weakened by world-wide shift to democracies Third Wave, since 1975 many countries shifted to democracies

2. Institutions/Organizations and Political Culture at systemic, macro-level, establishing democratic institutions may create a democratic political culture the experience of democracy may do this too at micro-level, organizations have own political culture, based on the rules, norms, incentives or hierarchy in the institution.

E. COMPARISON ACROSS REGIME TYPES a. Governments try to influence the dominant political culture * authoritarian regimes try to foster subject if not parochial political culture, depoliticize society, and promote "departicipation.“

* socialist regimes tried to "mobilize" people to support state goals by creating a kind of participatory political culture, but they try to channel the direction of that participation * democratic regimes should teach people the importance of participation as a value in itself

F. Political Socialization Definition: “How states teach values and shape the political attitudes of their citizens.” in all systems, state institutions socialize people to support government policy or accept legitimacy of government and its symbols of legitimacy.

Without such socialization and education, there is little loyalty for political institutions which makes it difficult to govern All states perform this function in different ways, and have different Agents of Socialization

Some states are far more aggressive in controlling the process of socialization while others leave it more to society and societal institutions to fulfill that role. Socialist states in particular tried very hard to shape or change the popular attitudes towards politics from those in the pre-revolutionary society.

G. Key Agents of Socialization School, family, religious organizations, peer groups, interest groups, media and the marketplace, political parties. Some may preach or teach values that unify society, while others may try to highlight differences for the purpose of political mobilization of different sectors of society.