Political Culture, not Values

Abstract

It has become intellectually fashionable to talk about Canadian values, and to oppose these to values held by other people, especially Americans. Americans and Canadians, as individuals, are said to hold different values from one another, and this is said to show that there are national differences between inhabitants of these two polities, and even that these differences are growing.1 Canadian values have even been marketed by Canadian federal government as a property worth exporting, a commodity that demonstrates to rest of world that Canadians have a comparative advantage in being multicultural, and that others would do well to follow our example. There are economic, as well as political, reasons that such a position-if it holds-stands to benefit Canada and Canadian government. As Will Kymlicka notes, knowing that Canada is a diversity-friendly country may encourage people to visit, study, do business, and even settle there.2 It is, however, highly problematic: as Denis Stairs has written, the assumption that our ability to integrate immigrants and minorities is due to superior Values' leaves us both unduly smug and ignorant.3It is purpose of this article to provide beginnings of an alternate framework to understand why different political communities behave way they do. Values, out of context, don't provide much of an explanation for political behaviour.In first place, what are values? Michael Adams uses them in sense that they are beliefs that become motivators of action. In this way, for instance, one's belief that fathers should be heads of households might be one of a bundle of values that would lead one to take a stand against same-sex marriage. Or another's belief that religion should rightly play a significant role in public life might lead to pressure on political candidates to demonstrate their religious adherence as part of a campaign.However they are defined, values are a problematic predictor of political behaviour. To argue that German values per se led to Holocaust, or Rwandan values to slaughter of 1994, is nonsensical and misses important aspects of circumstance and context. Recent polling has found that roughly one-fifth of Canadians claim to be evangelical Christians, compared with one-third of Americans. It is not difference between onefifth and one-third of population, however, that determines role religion plays in public sphere. In 2004 American election, both candidates were expected to-and did-demonstrate role that religion played in their personal lives and how it related to their policy-making, something that is unheard of, and would be widely deemed both bizarre and out of place, in Canada. Values are only one part of a complex set of factors that determine behaviour in political contexts-both on an individual and at a collective level.I would posit that far more relevant is political culture, but political culture redefined. Gabriel Almond first defined concept as the pattern of individual attitudes and orientations towards politics. Lucian Pye later modified definition as the set of attitudes, beliefs, and sentiments that inform the political process and underlying assumptions.4 Both were building on Weber's insights about role of culture in allowing for development of capitalism. But I mean something different. Political culture is crucible of forces in which that set of attitudes, beliefs, and sentiments-those individually held values, if you will-combine with historical and current events, as well as with myth and symbol, to produce a collective response that is then translated into policy and practice, and that itself comes to be seen as a shared value. Political culture is both space in which, and process by which, context and events translate into individual and collective political behaviour. Political behaviour does not refer to voting patterns or even how institutions function in a particular context, but rather any actions in public sphere that have implications for collective or civil life. …