Concept Of Political Culture Research Articles

Political Culture, Interparty Competition and Political Efficacy in the American States

When Gabriel Almond introduced the concept of political culture, he wryly observed that what is true of souls is also true of new conceptsmany are called, but few are chosen. For a while, at least, his concept appeared to be among the elect. It was endorsed and used by many eminent scholars of the day, including Pye, Ward, Rose, LaPalombara and Barghoorn.' Of course, it was central to The Civic Culture, in which Almond and Verba claimed that political culture formed the connecting link between micro-level and macro-level politics.2 In later years, however, the concept came to be viewed with suspicion. It was thought to be too imprecise and impressionistic, and cultural explanations of behavior were often criticized for being circular and conservative.3 Consequently, use of the concept declined in the study of comparative politics. Now, however, it has been reactivated by some students of American state politics. At least seven recent studies have employed political culture as an explanatory variable to account for interstate differences in political structure, electoral behavior and policy outputs.4 For the

Political Culture and Political Symbolism: Toward a Theoretical Synthesis

The concept of political culture embraces some of the most basic, perennially fascinating concerns in behavioral political science; because of certain ambiguities in its theoretical formulation, however, there has been a tendency for the term to grow fuzzy with continued use. Its connection with related concepts, such as political psychology, political structure, and political language, has remained unclear, with the result that political culture has been difficult to isolate as an independent variable. Thus it has come to occupy a position on the periphery of politics, and is usually presumed to reinforce the status quo.This paper re-examines previous formulations of the concept and proposes a theoretical synthesis. The analytical framework is derived fromsemiological theory, a branch of science specifically designed for the analysis of meanings. The central variable is thepolitical symbol. By analyzing the interactions of political symbols within a comprehensive semiological framework, the traditional concerns of political culture can be accommodated in a more precise and systematic way.

An Organizational Approach to the Study of Political Culture in Marxist-Leninist Systems

This paper is addressed to three tasks and the analysis operates at three levels. First, there is an attempt to specify an analytic approach to Marxist-Leninist sociopolitical systems that integrates regime and sociocultural units. This approach rests on a structural conception of political culture, a conception that stresses the informal adaptive quality of political culture, and that includes behavioral as well as attitudinal patterns. The second task consists of analyzing the paradoxical character of development in Soviet-type systems; development that simultaneously reinforces and undermines traditional-peasant political cultures at the community, regime, and elite levels. Finally, this pattern of development is examined in the context of a single Soviet-type regime and society, the Romanian.

On the Concept of Political Culture: A Theoretical Reassessment

This paper considers the basic requirements for retaining the concept of as a useful theoretical category. First we examine two main pitfalls often found in current usages: reductionism and normative bias. Then we respecify the concept in terms of (1) the activities focused on, and (2) the significance of the symbols, either institutional or legitimational. Next we offer some generalizations about the internal dynamics of culture. Finally, we suggest that be treated as a specifying variable in the explanation of behavior. The concept of political culture has been extensively used for over a decade as a tool in cross-national comparisons. The prime movers in this area have been Gabriel Almond and his colleagues who have applied categories from Parsonian structural-functional theory to the concerns of science.1 Unhappily, the term has come to be employed so imprecisely that today its denotations and connotations point to differing referents and raise theoretical and methodological issues which have not been systematically explored. The general purpose of this paper is to examine the utility of the concept of culture. Specifically we consider: the major pitfalls implicit in current usages of the term; several theoretical dimensions directly or indirectly implied in these usages and in related categories; some generalizations about links among these dimensions; and the causal status of variables in accounting for variations in behaviors. Our treatment centers on theoretical issues, and hence we eschew systematic consideration of how one best measures culture. Needless to say, we do not disparage such an undertaking, but it seems practical first to focus on the theoretical standing of what will be

On the Concept of Political Culture: A Theoretical Reassessment

On the Concept of Political Culture: A Theoretical Reassessment

School political culture. What is it and how to study it?

The article is an attempt to create a new category in the study of the school, which is school political culture. Theoretical meta-analysis was used. In the first part, the author explains why she asks about school political culture. Based on the assumption that the school is an organisation, it justifies applying the tools of political culture to its study. The school as an organisation is a separate system of activity, with clearly defined goals, a specific division of labour among members of the school community and connectivity between elements with a certain degree of formalisation and hierarchy of power. A comparison of elements of the school’s organisation with the basic elements of the political system is presented. The second part introduces the criteria that the theory of political culture should meet to become a theory that can be applied in school space. A meta-analysis of selected concepts of political culture: Gabriel Almond, Vilfredo Pareto and Zbigniew Blok (based on the developed criteria) allowed the selection of a leading theory. The results of meta-analysis are the subject of the third part of the article. The initial adaptation of the selected theory leading to the school specificity is a contribution to further scientific work on the development of a research tool allowing the classification of school political culture: of individual students, as well as the one dominating in the group.

A Salience Dimension of Politics for the Study of Political Culture

The present trend in the comparative study of politics is a departure from the country-by-country approach and a search for analytical models based on dimensions common to all political systems. This trend is in part based on the assumption that the construction of new concepts and conceptual frameworks for comparative politics would provide the starting point for a general empirical theory of political systems. One of the new concepts which has become common currency is “political culture.” Originally proposed by Almond in 1956 and developed by Almond and Verba in The Civic Culture, the concept of political culture refers to patterns of politically relevant orientations of a cognitive, evaluative and expressive sort. It is intended to provide a researchable connecting link between the psychological tendencies of individuals and groups and the structural-functional characteristics of political systems, and to translate such concepts as “historical heritage” or “national character” into sets of cultural components more amenable to measurement and comparison across nations.The study of political culture thus involves comparisons between the orientations of social groups towards specific political objects, between those of particular groups towards different objects, and between patterns of orientations and patterns of behavior. From a methodological viewpoint, all empirical political research is comparative research; we must therefore expect to encounter the problem of the comparability of political data, and in particular, the problem of equivalence of meaning, in all areas of political study. In the comparison of cultural data across nations the requirements of equivalence of meaning are probably more difficult to meet than in any other area. Generally speaking, there are two possible sources of differences in meaning in cross-cultural data: (a) cultural differences of a non-political nature, such as language, education or the degree of frankness or “openness” of personal opinions, and (b) cultural differences of a political nature.

The Concept of Political Culture in Comparative Politics

*I wish to thank the Research Councils of Hobart and William Smith Colleges and of the College Center of the Finger Lakes for financial support for the research project from which this paper is drawn. I wish also to thank Professors John C. Wahlke, Leon Stover and Dan Nimmo for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper. 1Kroeber & Kluckhohn undertook a critical review of a few hundred definitions of culture: A. L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn, Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions, 1952. 2Culture, or civilization, . . is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society, quoted by Kroeber-Kluckhohn, Ibid., p. 43. 3A. L. Kroeber, Anthropology, 1948, p. 253 & p. 292. 4Clyde Klyckhohn, The Concept of Culture, Culture and Behavior, ed., Richard Kluckhohn, 1962, pp. 19-20.