Culture & Political Culture

• Culture = society’s broad sense of shared values, beliefs, norms, and orientations toward the world

• Political Culture = (more specific) society’s shared values, beliefs, norms, and orientations toward politics• How people think about political system,

decision-making process, and their role in politics

• Three primary approaches:• Social Character, Congruence, Social

Capital

Social Character Approach

• Deeply held cultural beliefs become embedded in state institutions• E.g., differences in behavior and beliefs between

American colonies and Canada explain why two countries developed very different political institutions

• Uses wide range of evidence, including survey questions

• Important for understanding kinds of beliefs that help create and sustain effective democracy

Congruence Approach

• Congruence between country’s political culture and institutions

• What political culture necessary to maintain stable democratic institutions?• Almond and Verba: mix of citizen involvement in politics

is best• Participants - do not do much more than vote

• Subjects - obey laws but are not politically active

• Parochial - ignorant about politics

• Inglehart and Welzel: activist political culture important to maintain effective democracy• Self-expression values key (freedom of speech, tolerance, trust in

others)

• Provide motivations to speak out and challenge authoritarian systems

• Create societal bridging behavior, rather than bonding

Bridging vs. Bonding

Bridging Behavior

• Based on mutually agreed interests and empathy for others

• Views people as individuals, not “in-groups” and “out-groups”

• Strengthens generalized trust

• Based on mutually agreed interests and empathy for others

• Views people as individuals, not “in-groups” and “out-groups”

• Strengthens generalized trust

Bonding Behavior

• People identify with their “in-group” based on ethnicity, race, language, or religion and discriminate against outsiders

• Views people as “in-groups” and “out-groups,” not as individuals

• Weakens generalized trust

• People identify with their “in-group” based on ethnicity, race, language, or religion and discriminate against outsiders

• Views people as “in-groups” and “out-groups,” not as individuals

• Weakens generalized trust

Social Capital Approach

• Why people manage to collaborate in some societies, but not in others

• Social Capital = ability of members in a group to cooperate, based on “trust among people in a society and their ability to work together for common purposes” (Hamilton, xvii)

• Social Dilemma = even if all understand the need for cooperation, it will only come about if individuals trust that others are also going to cooperate (e.g., tax collection in Russia vs. Sweden)

• Societies require generalized trust to achieve cooperation, the belief that most people can be trusted outside of one’s close family and friends; accomplished through bridging behavior

• Generalized Reciprocity = trust will be reciprocated in future, not just in the present

• Has a mutually-reinforcing relationship with institutional performance

Approaches Compared

Social Character Approach

Societies have prevailing cultural beliefs and values that give them distinct character and shape behavior, beliefs, and institutional arrangements

Congruence Approach

Lack of congruence between country’s political culture and its institutions likely to create political instability; strong correlation between strength of self-expression values and level of democracy

Social Capital Approach

Achieving collaboration on shared goals for large numbers of people requires generalized trust based on norm of generalized reciprocity

Politics of Identity

• Individuals have multiple identities• The relative importance of these

identities varies from culture to culture• Three identities play especially important

roles in politics, driving political competition over recognition and government resources• Ethnicity• Nationality• Religion

Ethnicity

• “A sense of collective belonging based on language, history, culture, religion” (Varshney 275)

• Very few countries ethnically homogeneous• First and foremost a social identity• Three trends account for political importance

of ethnicity in advanced democracies• Increasing ethnic diversity• Rise of identity politics• Adoption of multicultural policies

Ethnicity & Conflict

• Political struggles based on ethnicity can be pursued peacefully, within confines of political institutions

• In some countries these conflicts can lead to violence:• Mob violence• Forcible removals of one ethnic group from a

territory• Removal of Native Americans to reservations in

the US

• Genocide• The Holocaust; Rwandan genocide (1994)

Nationalism

• Sense of pride in one’s nation and desire to control a sovereign political/territorial state representing that nation• Nation = group of people sharing a

common identity that derives from either having a state of their own or desiring to do so

• Unlike ethnicity, nationalism is inherently political

Religion

• Religious identity not inherently political, but has become the basis of political conflict and violence in many countries• Hindus and Muslims in India

• Three explanations exist for why violence erupts among ethnic, national, and religious groups• Primordialism• Instrumentalism• Constructivism

Explaining Identity Violence

Primordialism

Inter-group conflict inherent in human nature: people need enemies to define who “we” and “they” are

Weakness - fails to explain change in identity or persistent peace between some groups

Instrumentalism

Violence provoked by political leaders who manipulate symbols and beliefs to pit groups against each other for political benefit

Weakness - leaders do not have unlimited power to manipulate identities and must do so within existing conditions

ConstructivismIdentities not given, but socially constructed: constantly refined and redefined over time

Weakness - still has trouble explaining why conflict occurs at specific times in specific locations

Political Culture, Identity, and the Good Society

• Political culture affects capabilities when it is used to construct ethnic or racial categories that privilege some people and penalize others• In many Latin American countries biased political cleavages

have been created between descendants of Spaniards and indigenous peoples; Latin American countries with high percentages of indigenous people have highest levels of inequality

• Citizens living in countries with high levels of generalized trust are more likely to be tolerant toward people different from themselves and support providing resources and opportunities to develop their capabilities

• Societies that share narratives extending a citizen’s moral community beyond their immediate family, ethnic, or racial group promote better overall health and societal support

Generalized Trust and the Good Society

• Do higher levels of generalized trust promote higher levels of capabilities? • Modest support for hypothesis when looking at

indicators such as infant mortality, literacy, and crime rates

• Numerous alternative explanations and outliers• No relationship between generalized trust and

democracy