Fundamentals of Political Science

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Fundamentals of Political Science

• Dr. Sujian Guo
• Professor of Political Science
• San Francisco State Unversity
• Email sguo_at_sfsu.edu
• http//bss.sfsu.edu/sguo

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Gabriel Almond (The Civic Culture, 1963)

• Political systems exist in and are born of a
  political culture. Therefore, to understand
  political system, you must understand political
  culture!
• Every political system is embedded in a
  particular pattern of orientations to political
  action. I have found it useful to refer to this
  as the political culture.
• ... orientation to politics involves three
  components perception or cognition, preference
  or affect, evaluation or choice through
  application of standards or values to the
  cognitive and affective components.

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Definition

• Political culture refers to a particular
  distribution of cognitive, affective, and
  evaluative orientations toward a political system
  or political object.
• For more sophisticated development of the
  concept, see assigned article by Stephen Chilton

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What is the relationship between political
culture and political structure?

• Q In other words, what kind of political culture
  would foster democracy and maintain the stability
  and effectiveness of democratic government?
• A Civic Culture
• Civil Culture ? Democracy ?
• Civil Culture ? Democratic stability ?
• (US/UK vs. Italy/Germany)

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What is the civic culture?

• The civic culture is pluralistic, and based on
  communication and persuasion, a culture of
  consensus and diversity, a culture that permits
  change but moderates it (Almond and Verba 1963,
  p. 8).

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What fosters and sustains the civic culture?

• Civic virtues, such as cooperativeness, social
  and inter-personal trust, compromise, rational
  and informed participation, etc.

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Classification of Political Cultures

• When we speak of the political culture of a
  society, we refer to the political system as
  internalized in the cognitions, feelings, and
  evaluations of its populations
• Cognitions Knowledge about the political system
• Affective Feelings about the roles and the
  incumbents in these roles
• Evaluation How the individual feels about the
  performance of the system against standards and
  norms.

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Where are the individuals oriented in a
political system?

• 1) System as object
• Individual is oriented toward the system as a
  whole - has an understanding of the nation and
  its history and constitution
• 2) Input objects
• Individual is oriented in politics toward those
  roles and structures that emphasize inputs into
  the system that provide information and resources
  for decision making
• 3) Output objects
• Individual is oriented in politics toward roles
  and structures that emphasize decisions and
  actions that flow out of the political system
• 4) Self as object
• Individual sees him/herself as a participant in
  all aspects of the decision process. Believes
  he/she has rights, responsibilities, and
  capabilities

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Three "ideal" Political Cultures

• In the parochial political culture, in which no
  clear differentiation of specific political roles
  and expectations exists among actors, i.e.
  "political specialization is minimal" and
  citizens have no knowledge and opinion of the
  structure of government, roles, political elite,
  and policy making.
• In the subject political culture, in which
  institutional and role differentiation exists in
  political life, but towards which citizens stand
  in largely passive relations and respond to the
  output of government.
• In the participant political culture, in which
  the relationships between specialized
  institutions and citizen opinion and activity is
  interactive and citizens have knowledge and
  opinions on them and contribute actively to the
  system they live in.

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Participant, Subject, and Parochial

• "A participant is assumed to be aware of and
  informed about the political system in both its
  governmental and political aspects. A subject
  tends to be cognitively oriented primarily to the
  output side of government the executive,
  bureaucracy, and judiciary. The parochial tends
  to be unaware, or only dimly aware, of the
  political system in all its aspects" (1963,
  p.79).

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Participant, Subject, and Parochial
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Participant, Subject, and Parochial

• 1. Parochial
• a. Typical of tribal, feudal cultures
• b. No specialized roles (head of family, tribe,
  etc.) - roles are diffuse and changing
• c. No awareness of the system as a whole
• 2. Subject
• a. Typical of autocratic and charismatic
  leadership systems
• b. Individual is aware of the specialized
  governmental authority
• c. Oriented toward the decisions and outputs of
  the system - individual is the subject of the
  system - not a participant in it
• 3. Participant
• a. liberal-democracy or totalitarian movement
• b. Individuals are aware of the roles of
  government
• c. Individuals are oriented toward input in the
  decision making process
• d. Individuals recognize their benefits as the
  outputs of the system
• e. Individuals see themselves as participants

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Mixed political cultures

• Actual societies tend to exhibit combinations
  of these and other characteristics
• 1. Parochial-Subject Culture
• A typical of diffuse empires (Ottomans)
• 2. Subject-Participant
• A emerging liberal democracies of 19th century
• 3. Parochial-Participant
• A merging diverse democracies of the 20th
  century
• What about the Cultural Revolution?

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Almond and Verba on civic culture and stable
democracy

• The civic culture exhibits participatory
  characteristics in which participatory action is
  based upon assumptions of rationality, and in
  such a way that political culture and political
  structure are congruent (31). Moreover, the
  civic culture, with its emphasis upon rational
  participation in political life, combines with
  the subject and parochial political
  orientations. ... The maintenance of these more
  traditional attitudes and their fusion with the
  participant orientations lead to a balanced
  political culture in which political activity,
  involvement, and rationality exist but are
  balanced by passivity, traditionality, and
  commitment. (31-32).
• Q Does China exhibits a civic culture?

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Almond and Verba on civic culture and stable
democracy

• Almond and Verba argue that if a democratic
  political system is one in which the ordinary
  citizen participates in political decisions, a
  democratic political culture should consist of a
  set of beliefs, attitudes, norms, perceptions and
  the like, that support participation (Almond and
  Verba, 178). Moreover, associated with this
  participatory value/orientation is an assumption
  about the character of rational behavior in
  participation, as opposed to emotional, or
  sentiment-driven involvement in politics
• Q What kind of participation in the Cultural
  Revolution?

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Max Weber Three types of society and authority

• Traditional authority Charismatic authority
  Legal and rational authority
• Traditional society - revolutionary
  transitional - democratic society
• (Subject culture) (participatory culture)
  (Civic culture)
• Passive, obedient, active, emotional,
  nationalistic tolerant, compromise, rational

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Charisma defined

• A certain quality of an individual personality,
  endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at
  least specifically exceptional powers or
  qualities, which are not obtainable by
  after-birth training and environmental factors,
  but are endorsed by the birth.
• Charismatic/magnetic qualities for
  socio-political cohesion (vs. divine)
• Leadership will/ spiritual leader vs.
  followers/ordinary people participation (vs.
  subject)
• Historical and strategic vision with skilful
  methods to transform into the dynamics or driving
  forces of masses (vs. simply self-interest/power-d
  riven)
• Historically, there are good and bad cases

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Arend Lijpharts Critiques

• Danger of Reductionism or Individualistic Fallacy
• Having data or empirical observation at lower
  level of unit analysis to make statement or
  inference about empirical relationships at higher
  level of unit analysis, or in other words, using
  simplistic explanation to explain macro-level
  events or complicated social phenomenon.
• Sample subset of people or individual members of
  the subset of population sampled and selected for
  a study from a larger population.
• Population the entire set of individuals of the
  population to which the findings are to be
  generalized or inferred it usually consists of
  all cases one intends to study.

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Edward Muller and Arend Lijphart

• Problem in the direction of Causality cause and
  effect (see Edward Muller)
• civic culture (x) vs. democratic stability (y)
• Democratic stability (x) vs. civic culture (y)
• support the causal relationship between civic
  culture and democratic stability (Inglehart)
• question the causal relationship there might
  exist a reciprocal causation between civic
  culture and democratic stability (Ed. Muller)