Search results

Political culture refers to the values and political conduct of individual or collective agents. As a concept it is as old as the analysis of politics itself. Aristotle wrote about a "state of mind" that could inspire either political change or stability; Machiavelli stressed the role of the values and feelings of identity and commitment; Burke praised the "cake of custom" that enabled political institutions to fulfil their aims; Tocqueville emphasized moeurs as the key determinants of the character of a particular society. But the contemporary understanding of political culture has been uniquely influenced by Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba's classic behaviorist formulation in the Civic Culture (1963), leading up to today's multicausal, relational, and mixed methods approaches to the study of the concept (Thompson, Ellis, & Wildavsky, 1990). As a result of this methodological diversity, political culture has ceased to be narrowly identified with the attitudes toward government of political agents, to be measured in the aggregate and then compared across political systems, or even more broadly conceived as a process in which political meaning is constructed in the interplay between the attitudes of individual citizens and the language and symbolic systems in which they are embedded. Contemporary analysis of political culture is a broad church, taking in everything from data collection on political opinions, attitudes, and values conducted by means of structured interviews with representative samples of citizens (e.g., Inglehart, 1997), to interpretive approaches that use a range of qualitative methods to clarify how political identities are generated, or how symbols and rhetoric can generate compliance or conflict, to discussions of why some ethnic identities become radicalized and others do not. The field has become so broad, that it is hard to pinpoint what is political culture and what is not.

Reconciling the diversity of political cultures, values and national identities with the European integration project is one of the most fundamental challenges contemporary Europe is facing. This challenge is readily apparent in the Baltic Sea region with its mosaic of peoples, cultures and identities. The impact of the ongoing process of European integration on the post-Communist societies on the Eastern rim of the Baltic Sea is indisputable. The negotiations between the European Union and the East European candidate countries were in fact accompanied by a large scale transfer of organization

La finalidad de este artículo es revisitar el complejo concepto de cultura política, reflexionando sobre el origen, la existencia de diferentes culturas políticas, los debates suscitados, la dificultad metodológica de su aplicación y la utilidad que su uso reporta a la Ciencia Política. Para ello se repasan las teorías clásicas de la cultura política y las críticas que han recibido teniendo en cuenta factores territoriales, históricos, psicológicos, institucionales y metodológicos que culminan en la propuesta de un nuevo esquema interpretativo. ; The purpose of this article is to revisit the complex concept of political culture. This work reflects on its origin, the existence of different political cultures, the debates raised, the methodological difficulty of its application and the benefits that its use adds to Political Science. To this end, the classical theories of political culture and the criticisms they have received are reviewed, taking into account territorial, historical, psychological, institutional and methodological factors that culminate in the proposal of a new interpretative scheme.

Aaron Wildavsky well understood that federalism is about freedom and diversity - not hierarchy and decentralization. His was an intensely normative concern with the promise of federalism and its abandonment in the United States. Over time, he became increasingly focused on political culture, federalism, and the Western domains of social life as fields of cultural competition. Although his interest in federalism was overshadowed by his work on political culture, it remained a visible theme in his writing. Federalism and Political Culture is a collection of Wildavsky's essays on federalism over the latter part of his career. It is the second in a series, of his posthumous collected writings. Federalism is not a conventional collection on comparative federal systems, but deals with what federalism means, how it should work, and how it has been abused by those in power who protested their commitment to federal principles and practices but acted otherwise. Wildavsky's analyses concentrate mainly on American federalism after the Great Society of the 1960s which brought major changes to the American federal system. The essays trace the progress of his thought as he first argues that true federalism is noncentralization, then to federalism as competition, and then combines both in reasserting that real federalism is possible only in a confederation.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- List of Tables and Figures -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Some Paradigmatic Issues in the Study of Chinese Political Culture -- Part I: The Chinese Cultural Tradition and Its Modern Face -- 1. Sage, Teacher, Businessman: Confucius as a Model Male -- 2. The Changing Concept of Zhong (Loyalty): Emerging New Chinese Political Culture -- 3. New Confucianism: A Native Response to Western Philosophy -- Part II: Socialization: Official Ideologies, Literature, and the Media

Demonstrating that political culture is equally rooted in public events, internal debates, and historical experiences, this unique, three-volume encyclopedia examines an exceptionally broad range of factors shaping modern American politics, including popular belief, political action, and the institutions of power and authority. Readers will see how political culture is shaped by the attitudes, opinions, and behaviors of Americans, and how it affects those things in return. The set also addresses the issue of American ""exceptionalism"" and examines the nation's place in the world, both histor

Few empirical studies of Arab countries have dealt with political culture and political socialisation or focused on people's beliefs, values, and attitudes towards the government or political leaders, mainly because the regimes have been reluctant to allow opinion to be tested. The significance of this book is that it assesses the influence of state ideology on the new generation of Libyans, and examines their political culture

Aspects of political culture, i.e. concerns with the 'subjective' dimension of politics including dominant political orientations, perceptions and interpretations, always have been particularly relevant with regard to the case of Germany and its great variety of political regimes during the last century. This is true both with regard to political science and practical politics. This volume provides a comprehensive overview concerning the major historical legacies, regional and sub-cultural variations, and current problems of democratic orientations, national identity and relationships to the outside world