Political Culture and Political Change

Abstract

In “A Culturalist Theory of Political Change” in the September 1988 issue of this Review, Harry Eckstein argued that “a cogent, potentially powerful theory of political change can be derived from culturalist premises.” But Herbert Werlin finds Eckstein's effort to accommodate culture theory to political change unsatisfactory. Werlin argues that politics in the sense of political engineering, rather than cultural changes, mainly accounts for transformations in political life. Eckstein responds, arguing that the political methods for inducing change are themselves culturally conditioned.