Political Culture and Post-Communism by Stephen Whitefield (review)

Abstract

762 SEER, 86, 4, OCTOBER 2008 and Tymoshenko started would not triumph without widespread popular support. But it was also a verymodern revolution.Wilson perceptively highlights the unprecedented use of cell phone messaging, Internet, satellite television and rap music as political tools. His analysis is also strong on more traditional points, such as the cultural divide between Ukrainian-speaking western Ukraine and theRussian-speaking east, an issue on which the official candi date Viktor Yanukovych played. This ploy largely worked, as it did in all previous elections, but this time central Ukraine supported Yushchenko on civic issues,which made all the difference. Finally, the author provides a balanced treatment of the controversial issue of the financial support that Russia and the West gave to the two opposing sides inUkraine (pp. 118 and 183-84). In short, Western money went toNGOs rather than directly toYush chenko. The opposition thus spentmuch less than the authorities, and won because of itspopular support. Some of Wilson's forecasts for the future did not come true:Yanukovych's descent into a political afterlife, the collapse of his Party ofRegions, and the Orange Coalition's majority after theparliamentary elections of 2006 (pp. 155 and 171-71). But the author's warnings about Tymoshenko's perilous econom ic populism, the danger of her splitwith Yushchenko, and the president's own indecisiveness proved prophetic. Wilson's sympathies are clearly with theOrange side, yet readers of all political orientations will enjoy his superb analysis ofUkrainian politics. Department ofGermanicandRussian Studies Serhy Yekelchyk UniversityofVictoria Whitefield, Stephen (ed.). Political Culture and Post-Communism. St Antony's Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, 2005. xvi + 234 pp. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. ?52.00. This volume celebrates the outstanding contributions of Archie Brown to the fields of Russian studies and political sciences. It is a result of a successful conference held tomark his retirement entitled 'Political Leadership, Political Institutions, and Political Culture'. The book's major claim is that our under standing of the dynamics of Communist systems has been substantially improved by taking political culture into account, as illustrated by the pupils and colleagues influenced by Professor Brown's work. Although the term 'political culture' was used as early as the eighteenth century, it came intowide usage in political science about half a century ago (Gabriel Almond, 'Comparative Political Systems', Journal of Politics, 18, 1956, 3, pp. 391-409). Even then, the tendency was to consider the 'culture' explana tion as a last resort, after other explanations (institutionalistor rational choice) were exhausted. Brown points out how undersold the political culture concept has been in thepast. Inmany ways it isBrown's work that has brought it into the centre of post-Communist studies. REVIEWS 763 Although political culture should not be expected to account forall political beliefs and actions ? as Stephen Whitefield emphasizes in chapter one? it is claimed that in a wide range of cases itcontributes something significant to our understanding. Most authors writing in the volume accept that political culture refers to the subjective understanding of politics and is concerned with people's values, attitudes and theirperception of history.Whitefield, as editor, distinguishes two contrasting approaches to political culture. First, there are those whose approach to political culture as a particular form of individual-level social-psychological attribute that can be measured and tested for its relationship to overt political behaviour (Whitefield and Jeffrey Hahn). According toHahn, political culture differs from 'public opinion' because it refers to 'deeper, sometimes even subconscious, values that are enduring' and which result from the process of political socialization. By contrast, the second approach (Richard Sakwa, Charles King and Mary McAuley) tends to view political culture as a property of social collectives, embedded in historically-conditioned social practices, thus generating some explanatory power, whether one uses the concept of political culture as such or not. Out of the formulae offered in the volume Brown himself favours the one whereby 'political cultures are socially constructed normative systems that are the product of both social [...] and psychological [...] influences but not reducible to either' (Richard W. Wilson, 'TheMany Voices of Political Cul ture:Asessing Different Approaches', World Politics, 52, 2000, 2, pp. 246-73: 264). Some contributors are critical...