Political Culture, Political Science, and Identity Politics

An Uneasy Alliance

Howard J. Wiarda

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317078845
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Political Culture (defined as the values, beliefs, and behavioral patterns underlying the political system) has long had an uneasy relationship with political science. Identity politics is the latest incarnation of this conflict. Everyone agrees that culture and identity are important, specifically political culture, is important in understanding other countries and global regions, but no one agrees how much or how precisely to measure it. In this important book, well known Comparativist, Howard J. Wiarda, traces the long and controversial history of culture studies, and the relations of political culture and identity politics to political science. Under attack from structuralists, institutionalists, Marxists, and dependency writers, Wiarda examines and assesses the reasons for these attacks and why political culture went into decline only to have a new and transcendent renaissance and revival in the writings of Inglehart, Fukuyama, Putnam, Huntington and many others. Today, political culture, now updated to include identity politics, stands as one of these great explanatory paradigms in political science, the others being structuralism and institutionalism. Rather than seeing them as diametrically exposed, Howard Wiarda shows how they may be made complementary and woven together in more complex, multicausal explanations. This book is brief, highly readable, provocative and certain to stimulate discussion. It will be of interest to general readers and as a text in courses in international relations, comparative politics, foreign policy, and Third World studies.

Chapter 1
Introduction: The Culture Debate—Political Culture and Comparative Politics

Political culture is important. Or, as a recent book title puts it, “Culture Matters!”¹

Culture is an important variable in political, social, and economic analysis. Culture counts! Some social scientists think of culture, along with structure and institutions, as one of the three most important factors in determining political outcomes. Others go farther with the claim, supported by considerable evidence, that culture is the most important factor. Modern statistical and computerized multivariant analysis help validate this claim.

Yet others dispute these claims of the importance of political culture. They say culture does not count, that only structural and/or institutional factors matter. Some of these counter arguments are rational; others, downright irrational. In this book we seek not only to explain political culture but also to wrestle with the issue of why that topic evokes so much hostility among some scholars.

When we speak here of political culture, we are referring to the deep-seated ideas, beliefs, values, and behavioral orientations that people have, or carry around in their heads, toward the political system. We are not talking about culture per se—dance, music, paintings, art—although all or any of these may have an effect on the overall political culture. No, our focus is narrower: those aspects of art, religion, music, beliefs, ideology, etc. that specifically affect the political system, political processes, or policy outcomes. Political culture has to do with political values, beliefs, and mindsets, not with paintings on a wall or musical notes, no matter how glorious.

Political culture is learned. So far as we now know, political culture is not genetic—although there is new but still inconclusive research that may point in this direction.² It is not, we think, inherited through your DNA, although sometimes in popular commentary people will say that their beliefs and values are part of their “character.” No, political culture is generally understood to be incorporated through the learning process, which we call “political socialization,” which begins at birth. People are socialized into a prevailing political culture through the immediate family, the extended family (clan groups), the school system, Boy or Girl Scouts, Little League, friends and neighborhoods, peers and classmates. The society, the class or caste into which you were born, the identity, ethnic or otherwise, which you take on, and the nation and world in which you grow up—all have a strong impact on your political belief system and political culture.

Political culture usually has to do with fundamental core beliefs. These are essential, often existential, beliefs related to who you are as a person. They are not fleeting or superficial likes or dislikes. They are not whether you like a particular person, president, candidate, or colleague on a daily basis. Rather, core beliefs include your basic attitudes toward democracy, authoritarianism, or freedom. Political culture and political culture studies seek to tap your attitudes toward the fundamentals, not the superficial or ephemeral.

Although political culture is learned and probably not genetic, it does not usually change easily or quickly. The learned beliefs that are part of a political culture may go on for generations, even millennia, if the culture is isolated enough such as some tribes in the South Pacific or the Amazon jungle. Once a set of beliefs and practices is imbedded in a political culture, it is very difficult to change it. Think of the difficulties of bringing democracy and human rights to such historically authoritarian political cultures as Russia, China, or the Arab Middle East. Or the near impossibility that the United States has faced in trying to change quickly the political cultures of Iraq or Afghanistan and implant democracy there.

While political culture changes slowly, usually requiring two, three, or more generations, it does change. Often almost imperceptibly. Political culture changes under the impact of urbanization, industrialization, and overall societal modernization. Globalization, war, and occupation may also change a political culture. The media have a strong effect in changing a political culture, so does the worldwide web, the internet, and social media. For example, the so-called “Arab Spring” of 2011 which toppled a string of Middle Eastern dictators and brought social and political change was stimulated and spread by social media. Hence, while political culture usually changes quite slowly, it can go through a quite rapid and radical transformation. On the other hand, radicals and revolutionaries often find, to their consternation, that the political culture of their country changes far more slowly than does the leadership, the regime, or the country’s political institutions.

Political culture is not to be confused with racism, although one needs to be especially careful and sensitive when stepping into this terrain. Nor are political culture studies the same as ethnic stereotyping. Nor should they be confused with the older and now generally discredited national character studies.

Culture is one thing, race another. If I say, “all blacks” or “all Greeks” are this or that, that is racism, unacceptable ethnic stereotyping. But if I say, “Blacks tend to identify with and vote for, in ratios of nine- or ten-to-one, the Democratic Party,” that is not a racist comment. That is a tendency statement, a factual statement, and a matter of identity, culture, or self-interest politics—perfectly acceptable. What we now call “identity politics,” to which political culture studies are closely related, is similar. No stereotypes are used; voting behavior is analyzed; percentages are used. We are not saying all blacks or all Greeks are this or that or vote in a certain way; we are using sociological tendency statements. But you can probably guess that, in popular commentary and conversation, a factual, statistically derived tendency statement may sometimes begin to shade over or be expressed as a perceived racist statement. We need to carefully guard against such slippage or the confusion of race and culture.

To further distinguish race from culture, let us consider recent immigrants into the United States. Many of these immigrants, of whatever race, color, or identity, absorb one political culture in their home countries, but when they arrive in the US, they must adjust to and absorb another political culture. They cannot change their race or ethnic identity but they do change their culture. Think, for example, of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, both very Germanic and very American in his behavior.

Many of these immigrants, recently arrived, carry elements of both their old and their adopted countries’ political culture. Some of them fall so in love with America that they become, as the saying goes, “more American than the Americans.” Many of these immigrants become very successful in this country as they leave their former values behind and adapt to take advantage of the opportunities available in America. Their children, born here and socialized in America, are usually bi-cultural in language and family loyalty but are also thoroughly American in how they think and behave. By the time we get to the grandchildren, the pressures are enormous to be completely American, forgetting or refusing to speak the old-country language, inter-marrying with Americans often of other ethnicities, and completely identifying with American values.

All this has to do with culture, culture change, and assimilation, not race. The values (authoritarianism, hierarchy, and ascription) and social structures (two-class, top-down, elitist) that once held you back in the former country no longer exist in egalitarian and upwardly mobile America, giving you the opportunity, once you have adjusted, learned the language, and mastered the system, to move up in the social scale. It is culture and cultural adjustment that account for your new-found prosperity, no longer—or at least not so much—your color or ethnicity.³

Perhaps here, albeit not yet systematically, we have some hints as to why some people, despite all the evidence of its importance, still dislike the use of political culture as a behavioral explanation. First, we have all by this time, after the horrifying experiences of Nazi Germany and of racism, been brought up (“socialized”) to be suspicious of anything that smacks of racist or ethnic stereotypes. No matter how much we say we are only dealing in tendency statements and using statistical correlations, when we say “Blacks tend to vote Democratic” or “Jews tend to be oriented toward social justice,” it raises deep suspicions in some quarters. We need to be very careful and sensitive when we employ this kind of analysis.

Second, it will be noted from the paragraphs above that culture change usually takes a long time, often two or three generations. It is a gradual process and can seldom be hurried; even the great revolutions in Russia, China, and Cuba struggled to change their countries’ political culture and even after many decades of trying were not very successful at it. But if you are a radical, a revolutionary, or a social reformer, two or three generations, 50 to 75 years, is way too long. You cannot and do not want to wait that long. You want to get on with the job, to advance your reform program. Political culture, hence, becomes your enemy, something to be opposed to rather than adjusted to, a barrier to your agenda. Hence, political culture, those who study it and those who say it is important, have to be rejected, repudiated, maybe even shouted down—not a very scholarly attitude.

A third possible reason for opposing or rejecting political culture explanations, not unrelated to the previous point, emerges from this discussion. Since World War II and the emergence of the welfare state, more so in Europe than in America, the sense has grown strong that we can adjust and change almost anything—education, health care, housing, etc.—through social policy. Through our institutions and social engineering, the belief is, we can change or reform anything, to do away with poverty, racism, sexism, etc. But that may be true only in rich countries (Norway and Sweden) which have the wealth to do all these things. It may also be true mainly in the Western world and not in the non-West where other values and other cultures prevail. Surely we need to be sensitive to these other cultures and values, and to the level of development of their societies, before we, Westerners, rush in to impose our values and change everything. Once again that “pesky” factor of culture enters in.

Well, there we have it, some of the arguments, at least preliminarily, both for and against political culture. Let us go into these in a bit more depth.

Culture and Politics: The Popular Discourse

Almost everyone at the popular level understands that culture counts, culture matters, culture makes a difference. This is good, plain, old commonsense. This popular, common-sensible approach to culture may be closer to the truth, may be more honest, more accurate, and more valid, than the anti-culture views of some social scientists.

Culture, cultural differences, and culture clashes are with us every day. Almost every school, business, or workplace has its own distinct culture.⁴ It is possible to assess these differences with some accuracy, and social scientists, business gurus, and CEOs are busily doing that on a constant basis. You need to be able to adjust to the prevailing culture of your new school or job; alternatively, as a manager, you may need to introduce changes into the culture of your institution.

Cities have distinct cultures as well. New York (finance) is very different from Washington (politics). Miami (Hispanics) is very different from New Orleans (French). Los Angeles (entertainment) is a quite different city from Seattle (high tech). Chicago (Midwestern) is quite different from the cities on either coast. Detroit (automobiles) is not at all like Pittsburgh (steel) or Philadelphia (the founding fathers). We identify Boston with New England and its great universities, in contrast to Baltimore about which acerbic writer, H.L. Mencken, said, “There is no there there.”

Different regions of the country also have distinct cultures. Of course, in this book we are mainly interested in their political cultures, and recently there has been a spate of innovative books, employing census and other data, on the subject.⁵ New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and the West Coast are all quite liberal—“blue states.” Appalachia, the South, the Central Plains, and the Mountain West tend to be conservative—“red states.” The Midwest is home to most of the swing states, while Louisiana, with its French-Canadian background, is a region unto itself.

Most of us who live there know that there are vast cultural differences within our respective states. We cannot go through all of these here; a few examples will suffice. Thus, New York City is very different from the rest of or “upstate” New York State; Boston is very different from Western Mass.; South Florida (Miami) is very different from North Florida (“cracker”); Eastern Michigan (union), very different from Western Michigan (rock-hard Republican); Southern California (laid-back), not at all like Northern California (entrepreneurial).

In the state where I currently live, Georgia, we have coastal Georgia, piedmont Georgia, mountain Georgia, and then greater Atlanta—each with its own history, sociology, and culture. When I travel from my home in Athens, a liberal academic community (like Ann Arbor, Bloomington, Madison, Austin, Amherst, Berkeley, or others you can name) to my summer retreat in the North Georgia mountains (now considered by census returns to be part of greater Appalachia), it is like going to a different country. The politics, sociology, culture, economy, and even language are all very different.

When it comes to international travel and the culture differences between countries and regions (the main focus of this book), the variation is even more pronounced. For student exchanges as well as tourist travel, we like Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand in part because they speak our language and their culture is similar to our own. When we travel to the European Continent, however, the differences between countries become more pronounced. Just landing at the airport, you know immediately that you are in another country and another culture: the smells, sounds, and sights are all different in Europe North and South and East and West. And yet here you are still within “the West”; when you get to the non-West, it is really, as the saying goes, “another world”—i.e., another culture, another civilization.

It amazes me that even those social scientists who travel abroad for research (a dwindling number) tend not to give seriou...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Preface
• 1 Introduction: The Culture Debate—Political Culture and Comparative Politics
• 2 The Long Debate Over Political Culture
• 3 Cultural Anthropology: A Precursor to Political Culture
• 4 National Character Studies
• 5 “The Civic Culture” and the Revolution in Survey Research
• 6 Criticisms of the Political Culture Approach
• 7 The Renaissance of Political Culture
• 8 Non-Western Theories of Development
• 9 Political Culture in Other Fields: Identity Politics and Constructivism
• 10 Conclusion
• Suggested Readings
• Index