A Salience Dimension of Politics for the Study of Political Culture

1968 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 878-888 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshe M. Czudnowski

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.

Author(s):  
Christian Welzel ◽  
Ronald Inglehart

This chapter examines the role that the concept of political culture plays in comparative politics. In particular, it considers how the political culture field increases our understanding of the social roots of democracy and how these roots are transforming through cultural change. In analysing the inspirational forces of democracy, key propositions of the political culture approach are compared with those of the political economy approach. The chapter first provides and overview of cultural differences around the world before tracing the historical roots of the political culture concept. It then tackles the question of citizens' democratic maturity and describes the allegiance model of the democratic citizen. It also explores party–voter dealignment, the assertive model of the democratic citizen, and political culture in non-democracies. It concludes with an assessment of how trust, confidence, and social capital increase a society's capacity for collective action.


2018 ◽  
pp. 213-226

Resumen: Partiendo de la revisión interpretativista que ha cuestionado la rigidez de la clásica noción de cultura política elaborada por Almond y Verba, así como la validez explicativa de su concepto de cultura cívica para dar cuenta del carácter democrático de los sistemas políticos, nos interrogamos acerca de en qué medida los recursos simbólicos que desde la Transición habrían logrado homogeneizar un imaginario de consenso pueden no ser capaces de soportar la emergencia de nuevas formas de representar lo colectivo. El presente trabajo trata de ubicar cuáles han sido los rasgos definitorios de la cultura política de la democracia española, con el fin de estimar la caducidad de los márgenes discursivos del complejo mítico que identificamos como “cultura de la Transición”. Palabras clave: cultura política, cultura cívica, transición a la democracia, consenso, crisis. Crisis of the Culture of the Transition?: Notes and reflections for a criticism of the Political Culture of Spanish Democracy Abstract: Starting from the interpretative revision that has questioned the rigidity of the classic notion of political culture elaborated by Almond and Verba, as well as the explanatory validity of its concept of civic culture to give an account of the democratic character of political systems, we question ourselves about How far the symbolic resources that since the Transition would have managed to homogenize an imaginary of consensus may not be able to withstand the emergence of new ways of representing the collective. The present work tries to locate the definitive features of the political culture of the Spanish democracy, with the purpose of estimate the expiration of the discursive margins of the mythical complex that we identify as "culture of the Transition". Keywords:political culture, civic culture, transition to democracy, consensus, crisis.


2020 ◽  
pp. 297-317
Author(s):  
Christian Welzel ◽  
Ronald Inglehart

This chapter examines the role that the concept of political culture plays in comparative politics. In particular, it considers how the political culture field increases our understanding of the social roots of democracy and how these roots are transforming through cultural change. In analysing the inspirational forces of democracy, key propositions of the political culture approach are compared with those of the political economy approach. The chapter first provides an overview of cultural differences around the world, before tracing the historical roots of the political culture concept. It then tackles the question of citizens’ democratic maturity and describes the allegiance model of the democratic citizen. It also explores party–voter dealignment, the assertive model of the democratic citizen, and political culture in non-democracies. It concludes with an assessment of how trust, confidence, and social capital increase a society’s capacity for collective action.


Author(s):  
А.А. CHEMSHIT ◽  
О.S. STATSENKO

A political analysis of the Ukrainian state project is being carried out. The idea of state insufficiency of modern Ukraine stands out as the starting point. The analysis shows that for a quarter of a century Ukraine has not been able to overcome any of the crisis stages: identity, penetration, legality, participation and distribution, and in the strict sense has not acquired the obligatory signs of statehood. The authors trace the dynamics of the socioeconomic and humanitarianpolitical problems of an irreversible character or, otherwise, systemic degradation of the society. They point out to the shadowing of the economy, deindustrialization of the country, the demographic collapse, the crisis of the educational system, total corruption, formation of a carnival political culture and moral degradation.


2002 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 096369350201100
Author(s):  
E.M. Gravel ◽  
T.D. Papathanasiou

Dual porosity fibrous media are important in a number of applications, ranging from bioreactor design and transport in living systems to composites manufacturing. In the present study we are concerned with the development of predictive models for the hydraulic permeability ( Kp) of various arrays of fibre bundles. For this we carry out extensive computations for viscous flow through arrays of fibre bundles using the Boundary Element Method (BEM) implemented on a multi-processor computer. Up to 350 individual filaments, arranged in square or hexagonal packing within bundles, which are also arranged in square of hexagonal packing, are included in each simulation. These are simple but not trivial models for fibrous preforms used in composites manufacturing – dual porosity systems characterised by different inter- and intra-tow porosities. The way these porosities affect the hydraulic permeability of such media is currently unknown and is elucidated through our simulations. Following numerical solution of the governing equations, ( Kp) is calculated from the computed flowrate through Darcy's law and is expressed as function of the inter- and intra-tow porosities (φ, φt) and of the filament radius ( Rf). Numerical results are also compared to analytical models. The latter form the starting point in the development of a dimensionless correlation for the permeability of such dual porosity media. It is found that the numerically computed permeabilities follow that correlation for a wide range of φ i, φt and Rf.


1995 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Tsebelis

The article compares different political systems with respect to one property: their capacity to produce policy change. I define the basic concept of the article, the ‘veto player’: veto players are individual or collective actors whose agreement (by majority rule for collective actors) is required for a change of the status quo. Two categories of veto players are identified in the article: institutional and partisan. Institutional veto players (president, chambers) exist in presidential systems while partisan veto players (parties) exist at least in parliamentary systems. Westminster systems, dominant party systems and single-party minority governments have only one veto player, while coalitions in parliamentary systems, presidential or federal systems have multiple veto players. The potential for policy change decreases with the number of veto players, the lack of congruence (dissimilarity of policy positions among veto players) and the cohesion (similarity of policy positions among the constituent units of each veto player) of these players. The veto player framework produces results different from existing theories in comparative politics, but congruent with existing empirical studies. In addition, it permits comparisons across different political and party systems. Finally, the veto player framework enables predictions about government instability (in parliamentary systems) or regime instability (in presidential systems); these predictions are supported by available evidence.


2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 39-43
Author(s):  
D.D. Omirzakova ◽  

In this article, a political culture is studied in conjunction with the cultural and spiritual ties formed in the course of history. The author reveals the essence of the concept of "democracy" and considers its versatility. Based on this, the essence of "democracy" is studied in combination with modern values, and its role in society is analyzed. Therefore, the fact that the form of power is also measured by culture has been examined in comparison with the political systems of history.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-28
Author(s):  
Lev Manovich

Abstract In this article methods developed for the purpose of what I call “Media Analytics” are contextualized, put into a historical framework and discussed in regard to their relevance for “Cultural Analytics”. Largescale analysis of media and interactions enable NGOs, small and big businesses, scientific research and civic media to create insight and information on various cultural phenomena. They provide quantitative analytical data about aspects of digital culture and are instrumental in designing procedural components for digital applications such as search, recommendations, and contextual advertising. A survey on key texts and propositions from 1830 on until the present sketches the development of “Data Society’s Mind”. I propose that even though Cultural Analytics research uses dozens of algorithms, behind them there is a small number of fundamental paradigms. We can think them as types of data society’s and AI society’s cognition. The three most general paradigmatic approaches are data visualization, unsupervised machine learning, and supervised machine learning. I will discuss important challenges for Cultural Analytics research. Now that we have very large cultural data available, and our computers can do complex analysis quite quickly, how shall we look at culture? Do we only use computational methods to provide better answers to questions already established in the 19th and 20th century humanities paradigms, or do these methods allow fundamentally different new concepts?


2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 79-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Delia Lin

This paper compares the conception of justice grounded on the liberal political thought and the Chinese notion of justice deeply rooted in Confucian and Legalist theories from the standpoint of the political culture they each supports. It argues that whereas the former supports the liberal culture marked by the plurality of reasonable doctrines and by seeing persons as free and equal, the latter supports an authoritarian culture based on a dogmatic, comprehensive moral doctrine. Such cultural differences have made it difficult for the Chinese elite holding a Confucian view to negotiate and appreciate the political conception of justice as fairness. This paper suggests that it is important for a modern state to formulate philosophies that accommodate the plurality of diverse and often incompatible doctrines and also to think about justice in procedural terms. For China to achieve this requires a change of political culture.


2005 ◽  
pp. 145-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irena Ristic

In his essay ?The Protestant Ethic? Max Weber explains the specific economic development and the foundation of capitalism in Western Europe due to the appearance of protestant sects and the ?spirit of capitalism?. By doing so, Weber assigns religion a significant place among the factors of social and economic development. Taking Weber?s theory and argumentation as a starting point, this article drafts a thesis on ?orthodox ethic? and determines its role in the development of the ?spirit of capitalism? in orthodox countries. For that purpose this article compares political-historical circumstances on the territory of the Western and Eastern Church on one, and pictures the theological-philosophical basis of both Protestantism and Orthodoxy on the other side.


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