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Vinod C.V., Lovely Professional University Unit 4: Political Culture

Unit 4: Political Culture Notes

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
4.1 Meaning of Political Culture
4.2 Mapping the Three Levels of Political Culture
4.3 Trends in Contemporary Political Cultures
4.4 Summary
4.5 Key-Words
4.6 Review Questions
4.7 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit students will be able to:
• Understand the meaning of Political Culture.
• Explain mapping the three levels of Political Culture.
• Describe the trends in Contemporary Political Cultures.

Introduction
The study of the concept of political culture constitutes an examination of the sociological aspect
of the subject of political development. Ever since this term was popularised by some leading
American writers like Ulam, Beer and Almond, it has come to stand as a very important variable
for a morphological study of the political systems. It has influenced the system-theorists to assert
that one political system is distinguished from another not only in terms of its structure but also
in respect of the political culture in which it lays embedded. It is on account of this very fact that
while a parliamentary system of government could develop and work well in a country like
Britain, it failed to have a similar success in many backward countries of the Third World. The
realisation has, therefore, now come to stay that the attitudes, sentiments and cognitions that
inform and govern political behaviour in any society “are not just random congeries but represent
coherent patterns which fit together and are mutually reinforcing, that in any particular community
there is a limited and distinct political culture which gives meaning, predictability and form to the
political process, that each individual must, in his own historical context, learn and incorporate
into his own personality the knowledge and feelings about the politics of his people and his
community.”
4.1 Meaning of Political Culture

A political culture “is composed of the attitudes, beliefs, emotions and values of society that
relates to the political system and to apolitical issues.” It is defined as “the pattern of individual
attitudes and orientations towards politics among the members of a political system.” The people
of a society share a common human nature like emotional drives, intellectual capacities and moral
perspectives. The common human nature expresses itself in the form of certain values, beliefs and
emotional attitudes which are transmitted from one generation to another, though with greater or
lesser modifications, and thus constitute the general culture of that society. “Certain aspects of the
general culture of a society are especially concerned with how government ought to be conducted
and what it shall try to do. This sector of culture we call political culture.” It is the set of attitudes,

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