Lecture 5. Political Culture and Political
Socialization
 A. Definition of Political Culture:
 B. Key Aspects of Political Culture
 C. Political Culture as an Explanation for
Levels of Participation
 D. Modernization, Democratization and
Political Culture
 E. Political Culture and Regime Types
 F. Political Socialization
 G. Agents of Socialization
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A. Definition of Political Culture:
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“A particular distribution of political
attitudes, values, feelings, information,
and skills that affects the behaviour of a
nation’s citizens and leaders throughout
the political system.”
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Assumption: what people know or feel
about their political system affects their
political behaviour.
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Assumption: Like traditional cultures,
political cultures vary across countries
and can explain variations in modes and
levels of political participation.
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All these variations can be measured
through surveys.
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B. Key Aspects of Political Culture
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1. COGNITION:
What people know about politics:
Who are the leaders, what are the
government’s policies, how much do
they affect your life?
what percent of populations actually
follow or keep aware of political events
and how often they do so.
willingness to have and express political
opinions
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2. AFFECT AND EFFICACY:
What they think about their political system,
about their own role in the political system,
and their ability to affect the outcomes?
are they proud of their country? of its leaders?
do they feel that they can affect outcomes?
sense of efficacy and competence should
increase the level of participation
do they feel that people have the responsibility
to participate in political activity?
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3. INTENSITY OF FEELINGS:
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The depth or intensity with which they hold
those values
how willing are they to allow other people to
express dissenting views?
how deep are the cleavages within society?
Are there “cross-cutting cleavages” that can
limit the level of conflict within the society?
conflictual versus consensual political culture
See Figure: Conflictual Political Culture
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C. Political Culture as an Explanation for:
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I. Levels and modes of Participation
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II. For the type of policies that
governments adopt in response to
perceived public opinion and popular
values
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Three levels of analysis:
a. System Level: Beliefs
* the views of citizens and leaders about
the entire political system,
* especially the values and organizations
that hold the political system together
* level of government legitimacy affects
citizen's choice of modes of participation,
includes belief in the right to use violence
against an "illegitimate" system
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b. Process Level: Popular are the
attitudes to the process of participation
do citizens get involved in politics, make
demands, obey the law?
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Three Types of Political Cultures in a
political system
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1. Participant: informed about politics,
make demands on government, support
political leaders
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2. Subject: passively accept government
policies
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3. Parochial: totally unaware of politics in
the society
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the share of the population holding these
different types of political cultures will
affect the type of political system in that
country
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c. Policy Level: values of citizens that affect
government policies —
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what are the general attitudes within society
about issues such as property rights, individual
rights, acceptable levels of government
intervention in the economy, etc.
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Collective values versus individual rights:
citizens' right to welfare versus need to create
opportunity for upward mobility within society.
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D. Modernization, Democratization and
Political Culture
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1. Values and Democracy
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Strong belief among social scientists that
certain values are necessary for
democracy to develop and take root
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need for “participatory” culture for
democracy to succeed
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Here is the link between modernization
theory—levels of education, communication,
participation, political culture and popular
attitudes -- and democratization
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Suggests that non-modern systems cannot
be democratic because they lack modern
values
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Raises question of whether political cultures
can change quickly -- if not, political systems
have problems
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Seen to be a biased perspective of
Western social scientists
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Theory weakened by world-wide shift to
democracies
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Third Wave, since 1975 many countries
shifted to democracies
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2. Institutions/Organizations and Political
Culture
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at systemic, macro-level, establishing
democratic institutions may create a
democratic political culture
the experience of democracy may do this
too
at micro-level, organizations have own
political culture, based on the rules,
norms, incentives or hierarchy in the
institution.
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E. COMPARISON ACROSS REGIME TYPES
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a. Governments try to influence the
dominant political culture
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* authoritarian regimes try to foster
subject if not parochial political culture,
depoliticize society, and promote
"departicipation.“
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* socialist regimes tried to "mobilize"
people to support state goals by creating
a kind of participatory political culture,
but they try to channel the direction of
that participation
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* democratic regimes should teach people
the importance of participation as a value
in itself
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F. Political Socialization
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Definition: “How states teach values and
shape the political attitudes of their
citizens.”
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in all systems, state institutions socialize
people to support government policy or
accept legitimacy of government and its
symbols of legitimacy.
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Without such socialization and education,
there is little loyalty for political
institutions which makes it difficult to
govern
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All states perform this function in
different ways, and have different Agents
of Socialization
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Some states are far more aggressive in
controlling the process of socialization
while others leave it more to society and
societal institutions to fulfill that role.
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Socialist states in particular tried very
hard to shape or change the popular
attitudes towards politics from those in
the pre-revolutionary society.
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G. Key Agents of Socialization
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School, family, religious organizations,
peer groups, interest groups, media and
the marketplace, political parties.
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Some may preach or teach values that
unify society, while others may try to
highlight differences for the purpose of
political mobilization of different sectors
of society.
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