AMERICAN POLITICAL CULTURE CHAPTER FOUR AMERICAN POLITICAL CULTURE

Rights and Responsiblities Please write a short list of five rights and responsibilities we have as citizens or legal aliens of the United States. For each right discuss what responsibilities are associated with that right. Don’t list a right if you can’t list a corresponding responsibility.

This chapter concentrates on the notion of "political culture," or the inherited set of beliefs, attitudes, and opinions people (in this case, Americans) have about how their government ought to operate.

THE MEANING AND UNIQUE QUALITIES OF THE AMERICAN POLITICAL CULTURE

Freedom from government restraints and protection of rights Liberty Freedom from government restraints and protection of rights

Based on personal achievement Individualism Based on personal achievement

Equality of opportunity The idea that each American should have an equal chance to success, but some will do better than others

The obligation to take part in community affairs Civic Duty The obligation to take part in community affairs

Swedes: more deferential than participatory Defer to government experts and specialists Rarely challenge governmental decisions Believe in what is best more than what people want Value equality over liberty Value harmony and observe obligations

Japanese Value good relations with colleagues Emphasize group decisions and social harmony Respect authority

Americans Tend to assert rights Emphasize individualism, competition, equality, following rules, treating others fairly (compare with the Japanese)

POLITICAL CULTURE: SOURCES, EFFICACY, TOLERANCE THEME B POLITICAL CULTURE: SOURCES, EFFICACY, TOLERANCE

American Revolution had liberty as its object.

Historical roots Revolution essentially over liberty; preoccupied with asserting rights Adversarial culture the result of distrust of authority and a belief that human nature is depraved Federalist-Jeffersonian transition in 1800 legitimated the role of the opposition party; liberty and political change can coexist

Absence of an official religion encouraged religious pluralism and ultimate political pluralism.

Religion and Politics Religious movements transformed American politics and fueled the break with England. Both liberals and conservatives use the pulpit to promote political change. Bush, Gore and public support for faith based approaches to social ills

Dominance of Protestantism promoted a participant culture - Protestant Ethic and Puritan heritage emphasized the following:

A. Work B. Save money C. Obey secular law D. Do good works

Child‑rearing practices stressing equality among family members and freedom for child producing similar political values.

Family instills the ways we think about world and politics Great freedom of children Equality among family members Rights accorded each person Varied interests considered

Culture war about what kind of country we ought to live in Two camps: Orthodox: morality, with rules from God, more important than self-expression Progressive: personal freedom, with rules based on circumstances, more important than tradition

Culture War Orthodox associated with fundamentalist Protestants Progressives with mainline Protestants (Congregationalists, Unitarian, Episcopal – churches around at the time of the Revloution) and those with no strong religious beliefs

Political Efficacy The sense that citizens have the capacity to understand and influence political events.

The belief that the political system will respond to citizens. External Efficacy The belief that the political system will respond to citizens.

Internal Efficacy Confidence in one’s ability to understand and take part in political affairs.

Mistrust of government What the polls say Since the 1950s, a steady decline in percentage who say they trust the government in Washington Increase in percentage who think public officials do not care about what we think

Figure 4.1: Trust in the Federal Government, 1958-1998 Source: University of Michigan, The National Election Studies (September 1999), table 5A. 1.

Gallup 2003

Figure 4.4: Views of Toleration and Morality Source: The American Enterprise (January/February 1999): 37, reporting data from Roper, Washington Post, Harvard, and Kaiser Family Foundation polls.

Figure 4.5: Changes in Levels of Political Tolerance, 1930-1999 Source: Gallup poll data, various years, as compiled by Professor John Zaller, Department of Political Science, UCLA; The Gallup Organization, Poll Releases (March 29, 1999), 2-6.

Political tolerance Crucial to democratic politics Citizens must be reasonably tolerant But not necessarily perfectly tolerant Levels of American political tolerance Most Americans assent in abstract But would deny rights in concrete cases

Self-Test

For more information about this topic, link to the Metropolitan Community College Political Science Web Site http://socsci.mccneb.edu/pos/polscmain.htm