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Comparative Politics and Government

Notes beliefs and sentiments that give order and meaning to a political process and that provides the
underlying assumptions and rules that govern behaviour in the political system.”
The political culture, then, may be seen “as the over-all distribution of citizens’ orientations to
political objects.” R.C. Macridis writes of it as “the commonly shared goals and commonly accepted
rules.” Robert A. Dahl has singled out political culture as a factor explaining different patterns of
political opposition whose salient elements are:
1. Orientations to problem-solving; are they pragmatic or rationalistic?
2. Orientations to collective action; are they cooperative or non-cooperative?
3. Orientations to the political system; are they allegiant or alienated?
4. Orientations to other people; are they trustful or mistrustful?
However, Lucian W. Pye has studied the meaning of political culture in the context of his concept
of political development relating to the case of new states of the Third World and, for this reason,
he has included three factors in its study:
1. Scope of politics; how ends and means in politics are related?
2. Standards for the evaluation of political action; and
3. Values that are salient for political action.

What do you mean by Political Culture?

Thus, political culture may be described as “a short-hand expression to denote the emotional and
attitudinal environment within which the political system operates.” Borrowing from Talcott
Parsons, we “can be a little more precise at this point and say that we are concerned with orientations
towards political objects. Orientations are pre-dispositions to political action and are determined by
such factors as traditions, historical memories, motives, norms, emotions and symbols.’
It is obvious that the concept of political culture finds place in the subjective realm. According to
Almond and Powell, “such individual orientations involve three components — (i) cognitive
orientations implying knowledge, accurate or otherwise, of the political system, (ii) affective orientations
implying feelings of attachment, involvement, rejection, and the like about political objects, and
(iii) evaluative orientations implying judgments and opinions about the political objects, which
usually involve applying value standards to political objects and events.”
From the above, one may infer that political culture has certain components having their place in the
world of sociology. They are: values, beliefs and emotional attitudes of the people towards their
political system. We may observe that the people have, in general, certain political values as elections
should be held periodically and also in a free and fair manner; that the ministers should resign if
they forfeit the confidence of the people or their chosen deputies, that no person should be made to
suffer in body or in goods unless a verdict is given by a competent court of law following a procedure
established by the organic law of the country, etc. Closely linked with political values is the component
of political beliefs about the actual behaviour of men and countries. It includes certain norms such as
that adult population of a country has the right to take part in the political discussions. The significant
cause of the beliefs should also be traced in this fact that ideas that “donot appear at first glance to
have relevance to politics may be intimately connected with it through the belief system of the
political culture.” Finally, we come to the component of emotional attitudes, the tone and temper of
the people. While attitudes inherited from a past full of struggles for a constitutional democracy, as
in Britain, may inform that the speakers must behave courteously, the tone of discourse must be
conversational and the whole style of behaviour and speech must conform not only to the rules of
procedure of the Parliament but also to a complex and largely unspoken set of conventions, attitudes
inherited from a long authoritarian past may impede the operation of a democratic system, even
though most of its members sincerely accept the democratic ideal.

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