1. AMERICAN POLITICAL CULTURE
CHAPTER FOUR
AMERICAN POLITICAL CULTURE

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. THE MEANING AND UNIQUE QUALITIES OF THE AMERICAN POLITICAL CULTURE

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

6. Based on personal achievement
Individualism
Based on personal achievement

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

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

9. 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

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

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

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

13. American Revolution had liberty as its object.

14. 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

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

16. 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

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

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

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

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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

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

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

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

26. 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

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

29. Gallup 2003

30. 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.

31. 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.

32. 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

33. Self-Test

34. For more information about this topic, link to the Metropolitan Community College Political Science Web Site