National Political Culture Research Articles

National Consciousness, History, and Political Culture in Early-Modern Europe.

National Consciousness, History, and Political Culture in Early-Modern Europe.

National Consciousness, History, and Political Culture in Early-Modern Europe. Edited by Orest Ranum. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975. Pp. x + 177.

National Consciousness, History, and Political Culture in Early-Modern Europe. Edited by Orest Ranum. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975. Pp. x + 177.

National Consciousness, History, and Political Culture in Early-Modern Europe

(1975). National Consciousness, History, and Political Culture in Early-Modern Europe. History: Reviews of New Books: Vol. 3, No. 7, pp. 177-178.

Deferential-Participant Politics: The Early Republic's Political Culture, 1789–1840

The concepts of “party” and “party system” may be obscuring the nature of early national political culture. The presence of a modern party ethos before the 1830s seems to be taken for granted, as are assumptions regarding the alleged benefits of party. Historians have not yet demonstrated, however, the many dimensions of institutionalized party behavior. Focus is recommended on three observable elements of party (after Sorauf): as organization, in office, in the electorate. Studies of party self-consciousness developing over the entire 1789–1840 period are necessary in various political units. Evidence is inconclusive, but weighs on balance against a first party system of Federalists and Republicans (1790s–1820s). While relatively stable elite coalitions and even mass cleavage patterns perhaps developed at staggered intervals in different arenas, especially during the war crisis period of 1809–1816, the norms of party did not take root and pervade the polity. The era to the 1820s was transitional, a deferential-participant phase of mixed political culture roughly comparable to England's after 1832. Theories relating party to democratization, national integration, and political development, should be reconsidered.

Deferential-Participant Politics: The Early Republic's Political Culture, 1789–1840

The concepts of “party” and “party system” may be obscuring the nature of early national political culture. The presence of a modern party ethos before the 1830s seems to be taken for granted, as are assumptions regarding the alleged benefits of party. Historians have not yet demonstrated, however, the many dimensions of institutionalized party behavior. Focus is recommended on three observable elements of party (after Sorauf): as organization, in office, in the electorate. Studies of party self-consciousness developing over the entire 1789–1840 period are necessary in various political units. Evidence is inconclusive, but weighs on balance against a first party system of Federalists and Republicans (1790s–1820s). While relatively stable elite coalitions and even mass cleavage patterns perhaps developed at staggered intervals in different arenas, especially during the war crisis period of 1809–1816, the norms of party did not take root and pervade the polity. The era to the 1820s was transitional, a deferential-participant phase of mixed political culture roughly comparable to England's after 1832. Theories relating party to democratization, national integration, and political development, should be reconsidered.

Leader and Vanguard in Mass Society: A Study of Peronist Argentina, by Jeane Kirkpatrick

The Argentine political system constitutes a type of traditional Latin politics under conditions of mass society. This book examines the mix of advanced industrial technology, regime instability, military and mass participation, and personalismo that characterizes contemporary Argentine politics. It suggests that this mix of traditional and new, of democratic and autocratic elements may become increasingly common as technological advances are achieved in societies with an autocratic political tradition.The Peronist movement is identified by the author as a particularly clear-cut embodiment of this pattern of politics. A Caesarist movement in a technologically advanced society, Peron, the Peronist vanguard, and the working-class mass base are important for Argentine politics and relevant to a number of broadly influential hypotheses concerning political movements and political development.Both the micro and the macro levels of Argentine politics are examined. An interaction model derived from past and present political practices is presented, and the underlying political culture is explored. Using data from a stratified national sample, the author examines the perspectives--identifications, expectations, and demands--of Argentines generally and of Juan Peron's mass following in particular. The Peronist world is described, its size and social composition delineated. Three chapters are devoted to analyzing Peronists' perspectives on the functions and influence of such groups as the military, the Church, landowners, and the trade unions; Peronists' perceptions of government and their relationship to it; and the political demands of the movement. In each of these chapters, Peronists' orientations are related to those of other Argentines.Several important conclusions are presented in the book's last chapter. For instance, the author finds that the Peronist movement was well within the national political culture and asserts that, although it dealt with the concrete bread-and-butter issues of daily life and shared a common ideology between leaders and masses, it lacked the radical impulse for destroying the traditional order and, as such, was not an alienated mass movement. In an epilogue, Professor Kirkpatrick comments on developments in Argentina under General Ongania and observes that the chronic instability of Argentine governments results from elite rivalries rather than from deep divisions in mass opinion.This is the 12th volume in the MIT Comparative Politics Series.

Functional Representation and Interest Group Theory: Some Notes on British Practice

This article seeks to develop a number of themes regarding the manner and the scope of interest group involvement with economic ministries in contemporary industrial societies, with special reference to Great Britain. It has two main premises: (1) that the phenomenon of functional is analytically inseparable from the assumption by government of general responsibilities for economic steering and welfare in the postwar period; and (2) that distinctive characteristics of a nation's political culture are the primary determinants of the exact form that this relationship takes in a specific societal context. A survey of the existing literature on interest to search out theoretical propositions or concepts that might be useful in pursuing this mode of analysis reveals little in the way of applicable theory. Those writings which are not simply empirical case studies tend to be insufficiently rigorous in defining their subject and to lack precision in differentiating among the various types of interest activity. The most venerable tradition in the field, that which sees pressure groups as intruding upon the rightful domain of official decision-makers, clearly is inappropriate for a critical analysis of this dimension of industrial politics.l Taking seriously, if not literally, the classical liberal theory of elected representation and impersonal governance, writers in this