Role Of Political Culture Research Articles

Global prescriptions and local adaptations: the role of political culture in shaping governance strategies for university funding

ABSTRACT This article explores the influence of New Public Management (NPM) reforms on local higher education (HE) governance in the context of globalisation, focussing on the funding mechanisms of universities in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Through the development of an analytical framework for governance strategies, the study examines the principles underlying funding allocation and distribution decisions in these regions. The findings show that, although both regions adopt performance-based funding aligned with NPM principles, significant differences emerge due to their distinct political cultures and societal expectations. Taiwan’s strategy is characterised by regulatory oversight driven by societal shifts and electoral pressures, while Hong Kong’s approach is market-oriented, reflecting its British colonial heritage and alignment with industry demands. This study highlights the role of path dependency in shaping localised adaptations of global governance models, demonstrating the diversity and adaptability of HE governance strategies. The paper concludes by proposing directions for further research into the interplay between political culture and HE governance, advocating for the development of context-sensitive frameworks that address evolving governance strategies.

The Challenges of Enforcing Public Accountability: Experience from Tanzania

Abstract This article explores some challenges of enforcing public accountability in Tanzania using secondary data. In so doing, the article employs the institutional perspective to identify and discuss five challenges within the institutional architecture that constrain enforcement of public accountability. The main argument is that most of the challenges facing enforcement of public accountability are resulting from the institutional architecture, which presents a paradox of two contradictory logics. One logic is that citizens are the principals with the power to hold their leaders accountable. The other logic is that the ability of citizens to hold their leaders to account must be restricted. Previous research offers explanations for accountability deficits in Tanzania. However, these studies under emphasize the contradictions in the legal framework and the role of political culture thereby obscuring an understanding of constraints to public accountability in Tanzania. This article expands this discourse by exploring the contradictions within the legal framework and between the formal and informal institutions in a way that subverts the ability of citizens to hold their leaders to account. The article also identifies the gap between the theory and practice of accountability to appreciate the role of political culture among citizens as a significant agency in enforcing accountability.

Political Culture of Kurdistan Region Factors and Features

Political Culture is perception and approach of people in relation to politics and political system, which at the same time is an important factor in determining the type of political system and plays an important role in stabilizing democracy. So far, less importance has been given to the role of culture in politics and determining the type of political system in Kurdistan. This research is titled political culture of Kurdistan factors and features, which is also the first research on this topic. The purpose of the research is to show the features and factors of the political culture of the Kurdistan region, which is finally reflected in its politics and political system. Analytical research has been done based on historical and library methods.

РОЛЬ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОЙ КУЛЬТУРЫ В ПРОЦЕССЕ ФОРМИРОВАНИЯ ОБЩЕЙ ГРАЖДАНСКОЙ ИДЕНТИЧНОСТИ

In the current political situation, the role of political culture as an important factor in the process of forming a common civic identity is growing. Maintaining the necessary stability in society and keeping its integrity depends on it. The article deals with studying such aspects of political culture that are related to the formation of a common civil identity of Russians. In recent years, there have been some changes in the priorities of the political culture of Russians, whose consciousness and life are being seriously tested, increasing the risks of instability. On the one hand, it forces a fresh look at the issue of their relations with the state. It is expected to take such actions that help managing the situation in important areas of life, solve economic, political, social and other important issues. On the other hand, those changes require from sociologists the intensification of theoretical and practical research of changes in political culture in line with the process of forming a common civic identity. The article is dedicated to that goal. The material presented in it continues the author’s study of modern trends in Russian political culture in the context of the current situation. The methods used in the study include, among other things, a secondary analysis of the survey data from some sociological centers, such as Russian Public Opinion Research Center, etc.

The role of political culture and ideology in forming the moral character of a civil servant

The article gives a detailed analysis of the moral character of the civil servant, his political culture and its role in reducing political risks, the role of legal and organizational regulation of the civil service, types of such moral regulations, such as mandatory, prohibitive and recommendatory; The codes of professional conduct of civil servants developed in the USA, Germany, Great Britain, France, Canada and Australia are revealed and their professional experience in this sphere is given there.

Role of political culture in Afghanistan political participation(2001-2016)

Political culture, as a part of public culture and a group of beliefs, virtues, norms and approaches with views to the political area, is one of the basic issues which has been paid attention and the subject of many researches, especially since the second half of the 20th century. The topic of this article is studying Afghanistan political culture as well as answering the question of which impacts it has had on Afghanistan political participation during the after-2001 years. Also, in this research, by using an analytic-descriptive method, at first, the definition of political culture and its features in Afghanistan are presented and then, the occurred changes in the indexes of Afghanistan political coopetation in the recent decades are studied too. Political culture, as the system of empirical beliefs, symbols, virtues and the norms, which are regarded as the foundation of political action and the political behaviours of the public people, parties and the government officials is one of the basic issues which has been considered and studied by many experts of politucal area for the recent era. The continuity and strength of any any kinds of cooperations depends on the society political culture origin as it is a very important factor for defining the political social identity of the public members and determining their views, virtues and norms toward politics and authority. Moreover, in this study, at first,the level of changes in the last-two-decade political culture of Afghanistan society is discussed and then its impact on political participation is analysed through explaining the tie between beliefs and behaviours as well as a case study over the political cooperarion increase.

Assessing Local Government Capacity for Implementing Sustainable Transportation: The Role of Political Culture

ABSTRACTTransportation development increasingly relies on local governments to implement sustainable strategies, yet implementation success varies widely. This begs an important question, why are some cities successful and others not? In response, this study focuses on the political culture characteristics of city leadership and staff pertaining to sustainable transportation. Employing semi-structured interviews with officials in two case study cities—Pomona and Pasadena, California—the study identifies and traces the impact of cultural characteristics on network interactions and the resulting transportation innovation. Finally, this research suggests key political and department characteristics that contribute to political cultures that facilitate sustainable transportation development.

Pavlovi, Sra and ivkovi, Marko (eds). Transcending Fratricide: Political Mythologies, Reconciliations, and the Uncertain Future in the Former Yugoslavia (review)

REVIEWS 587 alternatives, and the ‘energy weapon’ has gained new meanings. Well-written and easy to follow, this is a must read for all interested in energy relations. International Relations Group, School of Economics M. R. Freire University of Coimbra Pavlović, Srđa and Živković, Marko (eds). Transcending Fratricide: Political Mythologies, Reconciliations, and the Uncertain Future in the Former Yugoslavia.SoutheastEuropeanIntegrationPerspectives,9.Nomos,BadenBaden , 2013. 300 pp. Illustrations. Figures. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. €54.00 (paperback). The state of post-war realities in the ex-Yugoslav space is the focus of this fascinating edited volume. With the goal of picturing a way forward for the countries that used to make up the Yugoslav federation, this volume brings together a multidisciplinary group of authors — from history, anthropology, cultural studies and political science — all of whom have in-depth and personal experience in the region, to creatively conceptualize approaches to thinking about the future of the post-Yugoslav space. The volume is prefaced by ‘Shadowplay I’, a reproduction of an oil-oncanvas painting by artist Gordana Živković, a haunting portrayal of hands and fingers attempting but not quite succeeding to touch. The text opens with an Introduction by editors Srđa Pavlović and Marko Živković, who describe as the ‘navel’ of the volume the chapter by Hariz Halilovich and Ron Adams on the village of Klotjevac, on the outskirts of Srebrenica but now located in Republika Srpska. Halilovich and Adams’s ethnographic approach illustrates the complexity of post-war coexistence, the silences required to continue living in this village that had been ‘ethnically cleansed’ during the war. As a powerful contextualization of this local-level experience, the editors rightly describe it as the place ‘we get closest to what this book is about — contradictions, tensions and ambivalences of attempts to mend horrible rifts’ (p. 21). As background James Waller documents the history of the concept and term genocide, and puts the Yugoslav wars into that context. Stefano Bianchini’s chapter compares socialist Yugoslavia with the European Union (EU), demonstrating the similarities and parallels between the Yugoslav crisis of the 1980s and the crisis of the EU in 2008–10. Wladimir Fischer focuses on the role of culture in politics, analysing the myths in Yugoslav discourse — the initial modern myth, which arose in the immediate aftermath of World War Two, and then the myths of the late 1980s — as well as the continuities between the two, showing that they are SEER, 92, 3, JULY 2014 588 largely modern rather than ancient. Fischer concludes that nationalism seen in Yugoslavia in the 1980s–90s was ‘based on a very European logic’ (p. 91), and that it was that European logic that led to the inevitable destruction of Yugoslavia. Ian Armour focuses on the tendentious and very partial readings of documents and events of the nineteenth century by Serbian historian Vasilije Krestić, a specialist in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as a way to illustrate the ‘recurrent pathology of national victimhood’ (p. 98). Mitja Velikonja’s chapter argues that Yugonostalgia, rather than being an actual longing for a return of the past, is instead actually about the present and future — what is missing from the present, and as a ‘counter-hegemonic potential’ for thinking about the future (p. 114). As such he argues that it is a ‘liberating discourse, […] a struggle […] to regain what Yugoslavia was striving to achieve but failed’ (p. 126). Tanja Petrović also tackles the concept of Yugonostalgia, focusing on ‘the extent to which the socialist Yugoslav past may be a source of reflection, resistance, collectivity and solidarity’ (p. 130) in the post-Yugoslav present, and showing that many values that inform Yugonostalgia are very European. Andrew Gilbert focuses on how different interpretations of the past become dominant and thus relevant for the present. In particular, he traces how ‘World War II and its memorialisation under Communist Party rule served as a model and a target for Serb state separatists’ (p. 171) in Bosnia-Herzegovina, specifically through reinterpreting Yugoslav Communist history of World War Two to support Serb nationalist goals in Bosnia. Dejan Guzina and Branka Marijan’s chapter compares institutions and outcomes of power-sharing between ethnically defined groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia...

Политическая культура в системе управления российского общества

The article describes content, essence and role of political culture in the development of social and individual self-consciousness.

Writing the Environmental History of the World’s Largest State: Four Decades of Scholarship on Russia and the USSR

Abstract This article surveys and analyzes long-term and recent trends in English-language scholarship on the environmental history of Russia and the USSR. This literature, following certain precursors, began to take shape in the early 1970s and was influenced partly by the rise of popular environmentalism in the West and also by the exigencies and context of the Cold War. Gorbachev-era liberal reforms and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union conditioned a new wave of writings beginning in the late 1980s that sought to nuance and complicate Cold War-era narratives. This second wave of historiography highlighted the existence of divergent and positive trends – including successful experiments with nature preserves in the early Soviet period. It also effectively challenged earlier notions of the Soviet Union as a monolithic state/culture with a relatively simple environmental history that could be inferred in part from an examination of Marxist-Leninist ideology. Post-Soviet scholarship (which can be considered a third wave) is more heterogeneous than either of its predecessors but overall continues the trend of replacing broad narratives and fondly-held assumptions with knowledge gained from detailed investigations, painstaking archival-based reconstructions, and – frequently – regional and local rather than national focuses. Although much interesting work continues to emerge, the field remains heavily skewed towards the Late-Imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet periods, which seems an important shortcoming. Similarly, there is an abiding (if understandable) preoccupation with the role of political culture and systems, at the expense of alternative approaches, many of which have proven fruitful in the study of other geographical areas.

What happens when a new government enters office? A comparison of ideological change in British and Swedish foreign policy 1991–2011

This study analyses to what extent a change of government in times of unchanged international structure affects the ideology of foreign policy. The main contribution is to investigate the role of political culture, as reflected through institutional design, as an intervening variable. Effects of changes of government in the United Kingdom in 1997 and 2010 and in Sweden in 1994 and 2006 is studied by analysing speeches in the General Debates of the UN General Assembly. The analysis is based on four ideal types. The results indicate that institutional design is an influencing intervening variable of foreign policy ideology. In the UK, a country dominated by majoritarian institutional design, foreign policy ideology changes more extensively in times of government change than in Sweden, a country dominated by consensual institutional design.

Debussy as National Icon: From Vehicle of Vichy's Compromise to French Resistance Classic

In the late summer of 1944, as the army of liberation moved implacably if indeed arduously toward Paris, intellectual Resistance journals were importuning French solidarity, deftly negotiating hostile factions and divisive symbols. Significantly, they sought to do so not through the conventional political vector of ideology, or the mediation of French Republican and nationalist rhetoric, but through a compelling aesthetic discourse uniquely able to enunciate uninterrupted, if reconfigured, French cultural values. Not surprising for those familiar with French history or nationalist leagues, it was a discourse on French classicism construed as synonymous with France, but in a potent new amalgam, the political and cultural agency of which, as the war concluded, is our subject. This kind of classic model is of prime importance, for it was designed not only to emphasize Vichy's political and cultural compromise but to articulate another nationalism that would signify refusal, reconfiguring a new French ethical and communal whole. In this endeavor to employ the classic to articulate new spiritual unity, new national memory, and those distinctive modes of thought and of expression that were endemic to the nation, two major influences merge: reactionary nationalism and the “critical classicism” of France's Left. Also imbricated in the emergence of “Resistance classicism” is the schism within the Ligue de l'Action Française as a result of Vichy's political compromise, as emblazoned for some league members in official discourse on Richard Wagner and his purported enduring influence on Debussy. The Resistance's reconstruction of Debussy as classic paradigm leads us into the history and articulation of different strains or distinct conceptions of classic values within a political–cultural discourse, whose ramifications cross over French cultural fields. We must analyze the structure of symbolic confrontation as well as the negotiation within this discourse—its role in political culture and music as postwar France, and concomitantly its cultural values, were redefined.

U.S.—Israel Relations

ZEV CHAFETS. A Match Made in Heaven: American Jem, Christian Zionists, and One Man 's Expiration of the Weird and Wonderful Judeo-Evangelical Alliance. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2007. Pp. viii + 231.ZVI GANIN. An Uneasy Relationship: American Leadership and Israel, 1948-1957. Modern History. Syracuse, N. Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2005. Pp. xxi + 255.MICHAEL B. OREN. Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present. New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company, 2007. Pp. xxii + 778.WILLIAM PENCAK. Jews and Gentiles in Early America, 1654-1800. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005. Pp. xiv + 321.ELIZABETH STEPHENS. U.S. Policy towards Israel: The Role of Political Culture in Defining the Special Relationship. Brighton, England: Sussex Academic Press, 2006. Pp. xi + 338.JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER and STEPHEN M. WALT. The Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Pp xxii + 484.In 1918 members of the U.S. House and Senate expressed support for the British Government's Balfour Declaration of November of the previous year. Numerous pro-Declaration statements by individual congressmen alluded to the recent British victory over the Turks in Palestine, seeing it as confirmation and fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Representative William E. Cox of Indiana stated that just as Moses had led the Israelites out of bondage, so the Allies are now redeeming Judea. Judea, in the senator's mind, merited redemption: for Rome taught mankind government of law . . . but it remained for and her to give mankind the true Christian (Stephens, pp. 12-13). In Cox's formulation, and in the understanding of many Americans of the period, Christians were in debt to Jews, for it was from Judaism that Christianity sprang. That debt could be fulfilled by supporting the establishment of Jewish National Home in Palestine. It is instructive to recall that these congressional statements were made long before there was State of or an Israel Lobby.Though the stated objective of the Balfour Declaration was the establishment of national home for the people, the centrality and sanctity of was understood by American Protestant elites as Christian issue. If Jews as nation were to be accepted into the postwar family of nations, American Protestants had role to play in this acceptance - for they could explain to the world that Christianity was in debt to Judaism and that Jews were entitled to land of their own. As Representative Cox noted in his 1918 statement, ideals and teachings of the true Christian religion given to searching mankind, makes and her the greatest on earth (Stephens, p. 13).Thus, thirty years before the establishment of the State of Israel, Judea had replaced Palestine as an American way of referring to Palestine. The preconception that Judea belonged to the Jews was so powerful it erased consideration of the majority Arab population in the Land without people that awaited a without land. This American perception of Judea as territory explains some of current American support for Israel. But biblical understanding of the issue is an important factor not emphasized sufficiently in the six books discussed in this essay.Explaining U.S. support of and fascination with requires varied tool kit and highly skilled analysis. No one explanation including biblical one, is sufficient. Elizabeth Stephens's book focuses on the aspects of the question, which she contrasts with the rational choice theory of many political scientists. These theorists, according to Stephens, would deny altogether the importance of culture predispositions. Stephens notes that political culture approach does not provide the researcher with systematic theory of political action that can be subjected to the scrutiny of scientific rigour (p. …

Book reviews

Book reviewed in this articles. Human rights and ethics Terrorism, human rights and the case for world government. By Louis P. Pojman. International law and organization After anarchy: legitimacy and power in the United Nations Security Council. By Ian Hurd. Foreign policy US policy toward Israel: the role of political culture in defining the ‘special relationship’. By Elizabeth Stephens. China in Africa. By Chris Alden. Conflict, security and armed forces Getting in: mediators’ entry into the settlement of African conflicts. By Mohammed O. Maundi, I. William Zartman, Gilbert M. Khadiagala and Kwaku Nuamah. Arguing the just war in Islam. By John Kelsay. The nuclear taboo: the United States and the non-use of nuclear weapons since 1945. By Nina Tannenwald. Koran, Kalashnikov and laptop: the neo-Taleban insurgency in Afghanistan. By Antonio Giustozzi. Political economy, economics and development The WTO after Hong Kong: progress in, and prospects for, the Doha Development Agenda. Edited by Donna Lee and Rorden Wilkinson. Global outlaws: crime, money and power in the contemporary world. By Carolyn Nordstrom. Capitalism without democracy: the private sector in contemporary China. By Kellee S. Tsai. Ethnicity and cultural politics The politics of the veil. By Joan Wallach Scott. History Summits: six meetings that shaped the twentieth century. By David Reynolds. Fateful choices: ten decisions that changed the world, 1940–1941. By Ian Kershaw. The great partition: the making of India and Pakistan. By Yasmin Khan. Napoleon in Egypt: the greatest glory. By Paul Strathern. Napoleon's Egypt: invading the Middle East. By Juan Cole. Triumph forsaken: the Vietnam War, 1954–1965. By Mark Moyar. Before the killing fields: witness to Cambodia and the Vietnam War. By Leslie Fielding. The history of the PRC, 1949–76. Edited by Julia Strauss. Europe Fianna Fáil, Irish republicanism and the Northern Ireland troubles, 1968–2005. By Catherine O'Donnell. Middle East and North Africa Les Palestiniens: peuple de réfugiés? By Aude Signoles. Algeria: anger of the dispossessed. By Martin Evans and John Phillips. Sub-Saharan Africa Liberals, Marxists and Nationalists: competing interpretations of South African history. By Merle Lipton. Asia and Pacific Ethnic warfare in Sri Lanka and the UN crisis. By William Clarance. Japan rising: the resurgence of Japanese power and purpose. By Kenneth B. Pyle. China: fragile superpower. By Susan L. Shirk. East Asian visions: perspectives on economic development. Edited by Indermit Gill, Yukon Huang and Homi Kharas. India after Gandhi: the history of the world's largest democracy. By Ramachandra Guha. North America Freedom's power: the true force of liberalism. By Paul Starr. Winning the right war: the path to security for America and the world. By Philip H. Gordon. A pact with the devil: Washington's bid for world supremacy and the betrayal of the American promise. By Tony Smith. Latin America and Caribbean Puerto Rico in the American century: a history since 1898. By César J. Ayala and Rafael Bernabe.

A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring and Construction of Qing Rule, 1680–1785 (review)

Reviewed by: A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring and Construction of Qing Rule, 1680–1785 Mi-ryung Song (bio) Michael G. Chang . A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring and Construction of Qing Rule, 1680–1785. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007. xix, 550 pp. Hardcover $49.95, ISBN 0-674-02454-0. Michael Chang's A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring and Construction of Qing Rule, 1680–1785 is a study of imperial touring during the eighteenth century. In particular, this book's focus is the Qianlong emperor's six southern tours between 1751 and 1784. The author's main argument is that southern tours played a critical role in political culture and in the formation of Qing rule during the eighteenth century. The author emphasizes that the Qianlong emperor's southern tours were an integral component of the court's responses to historical challenges such as military threats and floods as well as population growth and commercialization. This book analyzes the imperial tours in eight chapters. The author's exploration of the southern tours starts with their antecedents (chap. 1). According to Chang, by the early sixteenth century, the practice of imperial touring was closely associated with non-Han regimes such as the Khitan Liao, the Jurchen Jin, and the Mongol Yuan. The author emphasizes that the Qing Empire's imperial touring in the eighteenth century revealed its character as a non-Han regime. In chapter 2, Chang demonstrates that the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors practiced the imperial tour as an emblem of the Manchus' ancestral virtues in both the civil and the military fields. In this regard, the author focuses on the Inner Asian elements of the Qing in imperial touring. Chang explains that even though imperial tours referred to abstract and elastic concepts, such as filial piety, diligence, and benevolence, Qing imperial tours also were intended to enhance the political prestige of the conquest elite. It was necessary for the Qing court to express its assertion of multiethnic privilege in a way acceptable to Han scholar-officials. Chapters 3 and 4 portray the martial content of the Qianlong emperor's southern tours. The author points out that the detailed planning of the southern tours was undertaken by the Manchu and Mongol members of the conquest elite (chap. 3). The Qing court considered the management of imperial tours—including the southern tours—as a highly sensitive matter to be entrusted to banner men. For this reason, Han Chinese officials could not serve on the superintendency of the imperial encampment. Also, through explaining the structure of the imperial camp, Chang shows that it was another conspicuous emblem of the Qing court's claim to an Inner Asian heritage of martial mobility and prowess. [End Page 375] In addition, Chang examines how Qianlong used imperial tours to showcase the ruling house as a model of Manchu skill as well as to highlight banner men as members of an active and disciplined conquest elite (chap. 4). As evidenced by a number of court paintings that depict the Qianlong emperor entering local cities in the saddle, Chang emphasizes that the Qianlong emperor thought of riding horseback as a symbol of ethnic honor closely associated with Manchu martial preeminence. In addition, the author suggests that the Qianlong emperor considered the mastery of horsemanship and archery as a proof of an individual banner man's diligence and moral character. Chapters 5 and 6 explore the Qianlong emperor's efforts to encompass groups of Jiangnan Han Chinese elites. First, the author details the relationship between merchants and the Qianlong court. He points out that the Qianlong emperor's southern tours facilitated cultivation of Han commercial elites as sources of revenue during the middle of the eighteenth century. Consequently, in the 1760s, after the floods and military crises had subsided, Qianlong raised a question of "returning to purity and simplicity." It was an antimercantile discourse. At the same time, the Qing court began to pay attention to other Chinese elites who hoped to expand their hegemonic status within the examination system and the local society. The Qing court's embrace of scholarly elites is the subject of chapter 6. There the author focuses on the...

The Role of Political Culture in Shaping Canadian, EU and US Disarmament Initiatives

Canada and the European Union (EU) share, to a certain extent, a similar political culture, one based on multilateralism and the use of soft power. Nevertheless, over the past fifteen years Canada has been sometimes adopting disarmament policies that are similar to those of the EU and different from those of the US, while in other times it has been adopting policies that are similar to those of the US and different from those of the EU. This indicates that similarity in political culture alone is not sufficient enough to create convergence on foreign policies and that certain conditions must first be met for political culture to take precedence over neorealist explanations when dealing with security issues. Using Canadian, EU and US decisions on the issues of anti-personnel landmines and Iranian nuclear proliferation dilemma as case studies, this article analyses the conditions under which political culture plays a role in forming similar security policies.

The Role of Political Culture in Shaping Canadian, EU and US Disarmament Initiatives


 Canada and the European Union (EU) share, to a certain extent, a similar political culture, one based on multilateralism and the use of soft power. Nevertheless, over the past fifteen years Canada has been sometimes adopting disarmament policies that are similar to those of the EU and different from those of the US, while in other times it has been adopting policies that are similar to those of the US and different from those of the EU. This indicates that similarity in political culture alone is not sufficient enough to create convergence on foreign policies and that certain conditions must first be met for political culture to take precedence over neorealist explanations when dealing with security issues. Using Canadian, EU and US decisions on the issues of anti-personnel landmines and Iranian nuclear proliferation dilemma as case studies, this article analyses the conditions under which political culture plays a role in forming similar security policies.
 
 Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v3i3.188

Political Culture and Institutional Development in Costa Rica and Nicaragua: World-Making in the Tropics

Political Culture and Institutional Development in Costa Rica and Nicaragua: World-Making in the Tropics, Consuelo Cruz, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 281.Political Culture and Institutional Development is a groundbreaking historical analysis that seeks to understand the role of political culture, rhetorical discourses and identity formation in explaining the divergent dynamics of democratic development in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. In the same critical vein through which Jeffery Paige, Edelberto Torres, Deborah Yashar, and Andres Perez-Baltodano—each from different theoretical perspectives—have sought to discern the contrasting dynamic of polities' formation in Central America, Cruz advances an integrative, in-depth study nurtured by “elements of rationalist, structural and cultural theories” (1).

US policy toward Israel: the role of political culture in defining the 'special relationship'

US policy toward Israel: the role of political culture in defining the 'special relationship'

Political Culture Resurgent

Political Culture in Post-Communist Europe: Attitudes in New Democracies. Edited by Detlef Pollack, Jorg Jacobs, Olaf Muller, Gert Pickel. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2003. 286 pp., $89.95 (ISBN: 0-7546-1969-9). Interest in political culture has waxed and waned in the mainstream political science literature since its heyday during the 1960s (Almond and Verba 1963; Pye and Verba 1965), largely fading from view as scholars gravitated to a more economics focused perspective on politics. But now, a group of European based scholars has produced a most remarkable book, breathing new life into the application of political culture to an especially salient context: the ongoing democratic consolidation of postcommunist states. Political Culture in Post-Communist Europe is a tour de force in many respects. It is rich in theory, sound in its methodologies, and broadly relevant across the discipline. The central question that editors Detlef Pollack, Jorg Jacobs, Olaf Muller, and Gert Pickel ask concerns the role of political culture in the democratic transitions in Eastern and Central Europe. Yet, the book develops much more in its execution, and it deserves a prominent place in political science scholarship generally and in the study of new democracies specifically. The studies in Political Culture in Post-Communist Europe rely on a variety of survey data, drawn from throughout the first postcommunist decade. Their common goal, however, is to assess attitudinal change, which has usually been ignored by scholars studying citizens' attitudes in the former communist states, in part because of the obvious time commitment required. More to the point, the book takes a specifically noneconomic and noninstitutional perspective in linking attitudinal change to democratic consolidation. The first postcommunist decade has produced a cornucopia of studies assessing the impact of either institutional choice (Crawford and Lijphart 1995; Waldron-Moore 1999), or macro- and microeconomic fluctuations on the long-term health of democracy in the region (Duch 1995; Bahry and Lipsmeyer 2001). This long overdue collection is extremely welcome because it fills a crucial gap in this …