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Unit 4: Political Culture

A political culture hinging on the fact of people’s attitudes and beliefs towards the political system, Notes
whether homogeneous or heterogeneous, is a product of several inter-related factors—historical,
geographical and socio-economic. Moreover, it is not static, it is dynamic and thus responds to the
needs generated within the political system or imparted or imposed from outside. A pragmatic
orientation, in this direction, is known by the name of ‘secularisation’ of the political culture. Let
us first examine the three factors that constitute the foundations of the political culture.
A study of history offers ample authentic evidence to prove the continuity or discontinuity of a
political system behind which the foundations of a political culture can well be found out. The
importance of political continuity in a country like Britain, for example, lies in the fact that there
older values “have been allowed to merge with modern attitudes undisturbed by violent internal
strife or domination by foreign power.” France offers a sharp contrast in the chain of historical
development. While the revolution of 1789 violently overthrew the existing structures and
subsequent events showed the highly emotional attitudes of the French people, the English leaders
expressed their shock at the events of 1789 and a leading parliamentarian like Edmund Burke
could successfully draw the attention of his countrymen towards the horrors of such a violent
upheaval. Such a political culture had its impact upon the fate of the colonies as well. Thus, while
the Indians learnt from their British masters the values of parliamentary democracy and efficacy
of the constitutional means, the people of Algeria and Vietnam learnt from their French masters
the lessons of an insurrectionary struggle. Burke rightly understood the role of historical
development in the formulation of political culture when he repudiated the logic of French
revolution and thereby laid down his doctrine of the ‘prescriptive constitution.’ For instance,
while criticising rabidly the logic of the French revolution, he said: “Our constitution is a prescriptive
constitution. It is a constitution whose sole authority is that it has existed time out of mind.”
Geography has its own part in laying the foundations of a political culture. The insular character
of the British Isles protected the country from foreign invasion and also from the massive influx of
foreign races that could have created the problem of ethnic differences. Different from this, the
limitless frontiers of a country like India opened the ways for the foreigners to invade and even
stay here with the result that we developed the values of independent egalitarianism in the midst
of sharp ethnic differences. Instances can be gathered to show that in case the ethnic differences
are allowed to develop in the direction of hostile political cultures, national integration suffers
heavily and different people in the name of their different nationalities struggle for their separate
sovereign states. Thus, the Government of Kenya, for instance, has to wage a relentless fight
against its Somali tribesmen demanding their union with Somaliland. The factor of political
geography engages our attention when we find that the rebellious tribesmen very much thrive on
the support of the alien enemy nations as the Nagas of India, or the people of a country like West
Germany were forced to accept the existing political structures of a neighbouring state like that of
East Germany—virtually an integral part of their own—because of the geographical compulsions
and also because of the competing international alliances then led by the United States and the
Soviet Union.
Lastly, we take up the determinant of socio-economic development. “A predominantly urban
industrialised society is a more complex society, putting a premium on rapid communications.
Educational standards are higher, groups proliferate, and participation in the decision-making
process is, by necessity, wider. Rural societies are not geared to change and innovation, and states
with a predominantly peasant population are more conservative. Developments in the field of
science and technology have their impact on the growth of agriculture and industry; they also
have their impact on the process of transportation and communications, migrations and
immigrations, imports and exports, revolutions and warfares.
It all leads to changes in political values and beliefs of the people. Thus, the labour classes become
‘embourgeoisiefied’ in rich countries of the Western world. It contradicts the Marxian law of
increasing misery, degradation and pauperisation of the proletariat in the industrially advanced
countries of the world. The Americans, for instance, abandoned their foreign policy of splendid
isolationism at the time of the first Great War and they adopted the policy of effective intervention
after the Second world War for containing the growth of communism. It is also possible that an

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