Humanities 2319
American Minorities: Political Culture in A Global Environment
Introduction top
What is Political Sociology
Political Sociology is the intersection of political science (behavioralism) and sociology. It is the study of the distribution of power among members of a society and political institutions and the relationships that shape them both. It helps us recognize and understand how these relationships shape our lives, our communities and our governments as well as provide a context by which we can view ourselves within the national and global community. By understanding the distribution of power, we are better able to understand the forces that shape policies, effect the rights of minorities, gays, the disabled, children and women, and policies respecting welfare, crime control, or in a broader context, immigration, or individual human rights. In the simplest of terms, political sociology is a subfield of study that can be found in both Political Science and Sociology.
What is the difference between Political Scientists and Political Sociologists?
Political scientists and political sociologists are quite similar. Both study government. What differentiates them from each other is the perspectives from which they approach their study. Political scientists study government from an institutional perspective and political sociologists from a behavioralist perspective. Political scientists focus on the visible aspects of government at all levels, such as legislatures, executives, courts and bureaucracy and the respective functions of those bodies. Political sociologists focus on the distribution of power among members in society and the policies that affect the various groups (women, minorities, children, homosexuals, immigrants, etc) and how those policies shape and are shaped by societies, according to this distribution of power.
What is political culture and how is it defined by society?
....Those who begin coercive elimination of
dissent soon find themselves
exterminating dissenters.
Compulsory unification of opinion achieves
only the unanimity of the
graveyard.1 --U.S. Supreme Court Justice Jackson
In order to understand how political culture emerges and is ultimately defined, it is important to consider our own founding and those individuals and thoughts that helped shape what America was and has become.
Sidney Verba defines political culture as "the system of empirical beliefs, expressive symbols, and values which defines the situation in which political action takes place. Political culture is a fundamental element of any society of which the foundation is made up of the values and opinions of its members. These values are composed of two competing concepts:
Cognitions: Reflect how society sees itself in empirical
terms.
In other words,
'how things are'.
Values: Reflect normative ideas about how society
should be.
Both of these are influenced by personal affect. Affect, according to theory3 implies an instinctual reaction, or emotive response to stimuli before cognitive processes begin to interpret the stimuli. Cognition refers to knowing and involves our memory, attention, perception, action, problem solving and mental imagery. In other words, political culture is the amalgam of cognitions, values and affect that influences how society allocates its resources. Remember, Harold Laswell defined politics as "Who gets what, when and how." The determination of the "who, what, when and how" is shaped by political culture.
Political cultures differ depending upon several factors. Exploring these differences and how they affect the structure and function of governments are, in large part, what this course will cover. Before we begin exploring different types of governments and the differences that influence their formation and stabilization, we need to review several terms that are covered in an introductory government course (GOVT 2301).
While democratic forms of government possess cultures that are more alike than other forms of government like dictatorships or other forms of autocracies or oligarchies, there can still exist differences among democratic regimes. In other words, irrespective of the type of democratic government formed, typically, there are, socially, many more commonalities present in these political cultures than are present in the cultures governed by other forms of government.
A political culture is not static. It is affected by demographic shifts in the population. These changes can subsequently affect the political institutions as well. The question is why political cultures form in the way that they do initially and how does this 'alpha' culture form the institutions that converge into a 'government.'
First, the broadest elements that influence a political culture:
Geographic
boundaries and physical characteristics
Economic
foundations and performance
Degree of homogeneity/heterogeneity within the population
Ethnicity
of the population
Religious
traditions present
You might be asking how does an area's geography influence its political culture----after all, what would the presence of mountains or bodies of water have to do with anything? Why would the economy affect how an individual believes a government should or should not operate? How does the ethnicity of a population influence the formation and transmission of ideas about the proper role and scope of government? Can religious or perhaps should religious traditions present within a society shape culture or influence the government? As you read these questions, you may have thoughts on these questions, and how you answered them reflect issues that shape your own political culture! In this respect, the heterogeneity or homogeneity of a population is often a prevailing factor shaping political culture. For example, the US population is quite diverse and while historically, dominated by Anglo-Saxon culture, the cognitions and values of 'sub-cultures' exist within the overall political culture, there are a number of cognitions and values that provide the overall foundation on which the American political culture is based. These values will be discussed more in-depth in Lecture 2, but to highlight them now is important. These values include:
Democracy
Equality
Liberty
How did we come by our culture though? Political culture is transmitted in several ways by agents of political socialization. The theory associated with the transmission of political culture is referred to as the onion-skin theory. This theory likens an individual to an onion, and over his or her lifetime, layers form, based upon an individual's cognitive ability, and how they see the world and themselves in it, as well as the role government plays (perhaps should or shouldn't) in the world. Consider the very center of the onion. It represents the core beliefs we learn first. These are things that our parents have taught us---ironically, children have their own concept of 'justice' and 'equality' which often represents the first initial conflicts we experience respecting 'values.' Here, these core beliefs will remain throughout your life; and irrespective of any changes in your 'values' as you move into adulthood, your initial understanding of 'the way things work' is what echoes in your head. As you grow, you are exposed to other agents: perhaps churches or synagogues or temples or mosques; teachers in school, peers, social groups and coworkers. What is important to recognize is that the older you become, the less influence these other agents will have on your views. For many years, political scientists considered parents as the primary agent of socialization, but with changes in technology occurring, we really would be remiss not to consider the influence television and the internet now have on children! This is really more of a concern in developed countries, but given the global interconnectedness today, the internet is becoming a major influence for transmitting information and changing cultural values. I have been told that were Facebook a country, it would be the FOURTH largest country in the world. That said, social networking sites may well have become the newest agent and perhaps even replace television!
Now that you understand how political culture is transmitted generation after generation, we can turn attention to how political culture influences government. If we consider a democratic society first, since that is what the majority of you are familiar; we can use Robert Dahl's4 criteria to illustrate how our political culture influences and has been influenced. According to Dahl, there are eight criteria that are present in democratic regimes:
Citizens have the right to vote
Citizens
have the right to be elected
Political
leaders have the right to compete for support and votes
Elections
are free and fair
Citizens
have the freedom of association
Citizens
have freedom of expression
Alternative
sources of information are available and accessible.
Institutions
that make public policy depends on votes or other expressions of
preference.
Seeing these consummate characteristics of a democracy, you can begin to compare other political cultures to your own and understand how the form their respective governments may take in light of your own. In Lecture 2, we will explore how political philosophy shapes a nascent society and its political culture. You will explore the underpinnings of our own political culture and that of other democratic and non-democratic societies.
1. West Virginia State Board of Education v Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)
2. Zajonc, Robert.
1980. Feelings and Thinking: Preferences Need No Inferences.
American
Psychologist, 35:2, pp. 151-175
3. Laswell, Harold. 1935. Politics: Who Gets What, When, How. New York: McGraw-Hill.
4. Dahl, Robert. 1971. Polyarchy:
Participation and Opposition. New Haven: Yale University
Press.