1. Political Culture
How it changes

2. Recap:
Political culture is one of several factors which influence how institutions operate, how political processes play out:
Political culture is a source both of problems and resources to solve them

3. Mass political culture:
Attitudes and orientations toward leadership influence the support which different kinds of leaders (elected or un-elected) will enjoy
Degree of homogeneity or fragmentation (e.g. presence or absence of distinct identities, subcultures) influences the agenda of politics, the problems with which political leaders and the system must cope

4. Nigeria: governing an ethnically and religiously divided society
Problems of heterogeneity
North: Muslim
East & West: more western, more Christian
Different tribes and peoples throughout
Long periods of military rule:
Rampant corruption, clientelism under both civilian and military rule

5. Building democracy in Russia & other former Soviet Republics:
Legacies of Communism:
Egalitarian ideology but unequal system
Experience of indoctrination and mobilization from above
Minimal experience in operating either a market economy or a liberal democracy

6. Sources of change: Impact of events – war, invasion, economic crisis
Impact of politics and politicians, positive and negative - can create greater or lesser trust, hostility
Social and economic change – emergence of new classes or groups
Impact of time and acculturation

7. Remaking German political culture:
Imperial Germany ( )
A fragmented and divided society
prevailing values authoritarian

9. The Weimar Republic (1918-1933)
democratic regime, established following surrender
highly fragmented
lacked legitimacy:
some groups supported it, others tolerated it, but few loved it
aristocracy, business elites, military fail to support regime when it was challenged
totalitarian regime established by legal means

10. Postwar Germany Occupied, divided into 4 occupation zones
Liberal democratic regime established in the three Western zones
Communist regime in the eastern (Soviet) zone
Problem for both east and west: how to establish new regimes in a country which had given fervent support to Nazism

11. Solutions: German Democratic Republic (DDR)
See Nazism as an aberration of capitalism
The solution is Communism: if you remake end capitalism, you end Nazism
As a result minimal de-nazification undertaken

12. Federal Republic of Germany
Remaking Political Culture:
Basic Law establishes liberal democratic order
West Germans initially quiescent, accepting… proud of economic achievements
Holocaust eventually acknowledged
dealt with in schools
Political system gains acceptance,
in part because of economic success, stability, integration into Europe

13. Contemporary Germany:
Problem of bringing together east and west
Different experience of ‘Ossies’ and ‘Wessies’
Problem of who belongs:
East v west
Immigrants and refugees
Question of Germany’s role in the world

14. Contrasts between Germany and Austria
Austria’s self image as victim
Limited de-nazification
Reluctance to come to terms with Holocaust
Today: far greater support for parties of the right

15. Remaking political culture in countries transiting to democracy:
What does it take to remake elite political culture?
What does it take to remake mass political culture – if it has to be remade?

16. Some questions
Has Canadian political culture changed over the last years?
What is constant and what is not?

17. One to think about:
How has Newfoundland and Labrador political culture changed?
Is it the same as it was 30 or 50 years ago?
What would your parents or grandparents say?
If it has changed, what caused it? What are the sources of these changes?

18. Have a nice thanksgiving and a good break