CHAPTER FOUR

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CHAPTER FOUR AMERICAN POLITICAL CULTURE
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Rights and Responsiblities

• Please write a short list of five rights and
  responsibilities we have as citizens or legal
  aliens of the United States. For each right
  discuss what responsibilities are associated with
  that right. Dont list a right if you cant list
  a corresponding responsibility.

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This chapter concentrates on the notion of
"political culture," or the inherited set of
beliefs, attitudes, and opinions people (in this
case, Americans) have about how their government
ought to operate.
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THEME A THE MEANING AND UNIQUE QUALITIES OF THE
AMERICAN POLITICAL CULTURE
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Liberty Freedom from government restraints and
protection of rights
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Individualism Based on personal achievement
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Equality of opportunity The idea that each
American should have an equal chance to success,
but some will do better than others
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Civic Duty The obligation to take part in
community affairs
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Swedes

• more deferential than participatory
• Defer to government experts and specialists
• Rarely challenge governmental decisions
• Believe in what is best more than what people
  want
• Value equality over liberty
• Value harmony and observe obligations

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Japanese

• Value good relations with colleagues
• Emphasize group decisions and social harmony
• Respect authority

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Americans

• Tend to assert rights
• Emphasize individualism, competition, equality,
  following rules, treating others fairly (compare
  with the Japanese)

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THEME B POLITICAL CULTURE SOURCES, EFFICACY,
TOLERANCE
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American Revolution had liberty as its object.
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Historical roots

• Revolution essentially over liberty preoccupied
  with asserting rights
• Adversarial culture the result of distrust of
  authority and a belief that human nature is
  depraved
• Federalist-Jeffersonian transition in 1800
  legitimated the role of the opposition party
  liberty and political change can coexist

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Absence of an official religion encouraged
religious pluralism and ultimate political
pluralism.
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Religion and Politics

• Religious movements transformed American politics
  and fueled the break with England.
• Both liberals and conservatives use the pulpit to
  promote political change.
• Bush, Gore and public support for faith based
  approaches to social ills

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Dominance of Protestantism promoted a participant
culture - Protestant Ethic and Puritan heritage
emphasized the following
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A. Work B. Save money C. Obey secular law D. Do
good works
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Child-rearing practices stressing equality among
family members and freedom for child producing
similar political values.
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Family instills the ways we think about world and
politics

• Great freedom of children
• Equality among family members
• Rights accorded each person
• Varied interests considered

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Culture war about what kind of country we ought
to live in

• Two camps
• Orthodox morality, with rules from God, more
  important than self-expression
• Progressive personal freedom, with rules based
  on circumstances, more important than tradition

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Culture War

• Orthodox associated with fundamentalist
  Protestants
• Progressives with mainline Protestants
  (Congregationalists, Unitarian, Episcopal
  churches around at the time of the Revloution)
  and those with no strong religious beliefs

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Political Efficacy The sense that citizens have
the capacity to understand and influence
political events.
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External Efficacy The belief that the political
system will respond to citizens.
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Internal Efficacy Confidence in ones ability to
understand and take part in political affairs.
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Mistrust of government

• What the polls say
• Since the 1950s, a steady decline in percentage
  who say they trust the government in Washington
• Increase in percentage who think public officials
  do not care about what we think

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Figure 4.1 Trust in the Federal Government,
1958-1998
Source University of Michigan, The National
Election Studies (September 1999), table 5A. 1.
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(No Transcript)
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Gallup 2003
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Figure 4.4 Views of Toleration and Morality
Source The American Enterprise (January/February
1999) 37, reporting data from Roper, Washington
Post, Harvard, and Kaiser Family Foundation
polls.
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Figure 4.5 Changes in Levels of Political
Tolerance, 1930-1999
Source Gallup poll data, various years, as
compiled by Professor John Zaller, Department of
Political Science, UCLA The Gallup Organization,
Poll Releases (March 29, 1999), 2-6.
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Political tolerance

• Crucial to democratic politics
• Citizens must be reasonably tolerant
• But not necessarily perfectly tolerant
• Levels of American political tolerance
• Most Americans assent in abstract
• But would deny rights in concrete cases

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Self-Test
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For more information about this topic, link to
the Metropolitan Community College Political
Science Web Site http//socsci.mccneb.edu/pos/pols
cmain.htm