Political culture refers to “people’s
psychological orientation, being the pattern of orientations to political
objects such as parties, government, and constitution, expressed in beliefs,
symbols and values”.[1]
It builds upon the studies of political behavior
which focuses on individuals rather than larger political units.[2]
It wishes to look at participants in the political system as individuals who
have the emotions, prejudices and predispositions.[3]
Behavioralism
has eight intellectual foundation stones:[4]
1) Regularities (assumes that
there are “discoverable uniformities”); 2) Commitment to Verification - The ability to verify ones
generalizations, testability by reference to relevant behavior; 3) Techniques – Be more self-conscious
and critical about its methodology; 4) Quantification
(Results to be expressed in numbers where possible); 5) Values – separating facts from values; 6) Systemization – Theory and research
as closely intertwined; 7) Pure
Science (theory and applied research combined ) and 8) Integration (interdisciplinary
character).
Political socialization is the
developmental process through which persons acquire political orientations and
patterns of behaviour.[5] It is
the process of transmitting the central values of society’s political culture
from one generation to another. Studying political socialization does “not only
gives us insight into the pattern of political culture and subcultures in [a]
society, but also locates for us in the socialization processes of the society
the point where particular qualities and elements are being sustained or
modified.”[6]
The pioneering work of Almond and
Verba (Civil Culture: Political Attitudes and
Democracy in Five Nations, 1963) reveals that
democratic stability is characterized by a blend of activity and passivity on
the part of citizens and a balance between obligation and performance on the
part of state leaders. They identified three major types of political culture:
1) parochial (i.e. Mexico and Italy) “where citizens are only remotely
aware of the presence of central government, and live their lives near enough
regardless of the decisions taken by the state.”;2) subject (i.e. Germany) “where citizens are aware of central
government, and are heavily subjected to its decisions with little scope for
dissent” and 3) participant (i.e. UK
and US) where “citizens are able to influence the government in various ways
and they are affected by it.” A similar
study of O.D. Corpuz[7]
reveals the historical and cultural foundations of Philippine politics. The
author writes argues that Filipino political institutions are not merely
“adulterated versions” of alien institutions. Irregularities in the system
manifest because Filipinos have a superstructure of Western-inspired values
sitting on top indigenous infra-structure.
[1] Heywood, A. 2007. Politics (3rd ed). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. pp.
207
[2] Robert A. Dahl,
"The Behavioral Approach in Political Science: Epitaph for a Monument to a Successful Pro-
test," American Political Science Review, 55 (December 1961): 763-772.
[3] David Easton,. "The Current Meaning of Behavioralism," in Charlesworth,
ed., Contemporary Political Analysis,
pp. 11-31.
[4] David Easton,. "The Current Meaning of Behavioralism," in Charlesworth,
ed., Contemporary Political Analysis,
pp. 16-17.
[5] Easton, David.
1968. The Theoretical Relevance of Political Socialization. Canadian Journal of Political Science 1
(2):125-146.
[6] Almond, Gabriel A. 1960. “A Functional Approach to
Comparative Politics,” in Gabriel A. Almond and James S. Coleman (eds.), The
Politics of Developing Areas. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.pp.
31.
[7] Onofre D. Corpuz,
"The Cultural Foundations of Filipino Politics," Philippine Journal
of Public Administration, 4
(October 1960): 297-310.
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