Chapter Three

Political Culture and

Political Socialization
 Learning Objectives
• 3.1 Describe the three levels of political culture and the
factors that make them different.
• 3.2 List and describe the different sources of legitimacy
for a political system.
• 3.3 Discuss how cultural norms and political institutions
are interrelated.
• 3.4 Describe the agents of political socialization and their
roles in forming political values.
• 3.5 List and describe three current forces that are
affecting contemporary political cultures.

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 Political Culture and Political
Socialization
• Each nation has own political norms that
influence how people think about politics
• The way political institutions function affects the
public’s attitudes, norms, expectations
• Political Culture: public attitudes toward politics
and its role within political system
• Political Socialization: how individuals form
political attitudes and political culture

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© 2014 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
© 2014 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
© 2014 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
© 2014 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Mapping the Three Levels of Political
Culture
• A nation’s political culture includes its citizens’
orientations at three levels:
• Political System
• Political and Policymaking Process
• Policy Outputs and Outcomes

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 Mapping the Three Levels of Political
Culture
• System Level: how people view values
and organizations that comprise the
political system
• Process Level: expectations of how
politics should function and individuals’
relationship to political process
• Policy Level: public’s policy expectations
for government

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 The System Level
• Difficult for political system to endure lacking support
of citizens
• National pride is effective emotional tie
• Feelings of popular legitimacy are another
foundation for a successful political system. –
Citizens may grant legitimacy to a government for
different reasons. • Tradition, ideology, elections,
or religion
• Legitimacy: basic understanding between citizens
and political officials
• people obey laws, government meets
obligations
• Systems with low legitimacy:
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 • – In systems with low legitimacy, people
often resort to violence or extra-
governmental actions to solve political
disagreements.

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© 2014 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
 The Process Level
• Second level of political culture involves what
public expects from political process:
• Broadly speaking, three different patterns describe
the citizens’ role in the political process.
• – Participants are involved as actual or potential
participants in the political process.
• – Subjects passively obey government officials and
the law, but they do not vote or actively involve
themselves in politics.
• – Parochials are hardly aware of government and
politics.
•

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© 2014 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
 The Policy Level
• What is the appropriate role of government?
• – Policy expectations vary across the globe.
• – Some policy goals such as economic well
being are valued by nearly everyone.
• – Variation in terms of what is expected relates
to a nation’s circumstances and cultural
traditions.
• Government or private sector management of
economy?
• Government intervention in social/moral
issues?
• Big government versus small government?

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 • Basic measure of government
performance is ability to meet policy
expectations of citizens
• Expectations regarding function of
government:
• Outputs: welfare and security
• Process: rule of law and procedural
justice

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© 2014 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Consensual or Conflictual Political
Cultures
• A country deeply divided in its political values
with differences persisting over time, may
develop distinctive political subcultures:
• sharply different points of view on critical
political matters such as the boundaries of the
nation, the nature of the regime, or the correct
ideology.
• Sometimes historical or social factors will
generate different cultural trajectories.
(ethnicity, religion, linguistics)
• groups increase in skills and confidence and
demand equal treatment

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 Why Culture Matters
• Cultural norms change slowly and reflect stable values
• Encapsulate history, traditions, values of society
• Congruence Theory:
• Distribution of cultural patterns typically related to type
of political process citizens expect and support
• Do democracies create participatory democratic
systems, or does a political culture lead to a democratic
political system? – It works both ways.
• Political culture can build common political community
• Political culture can also have the power to divide

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© 2014 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Political Socialization
• Political socialization refers to way political values are
formed and political culture is transmitted from one
generation to next
• Three general points about socialization:
• Socialization can occur in different ways:
• Direct Socialization
• Indirect Socialization
• Socialization is a lifelong process
• Patterns of socialization can be unifying or divisive

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 • Political cultures are sustained or
changed as people acquire their
attitudes and values. •
• – Most children acquire their basic
political values and behavior patters
at a relatively early age. – Some
attitudes will evolve and change
throughout life.

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 Agents of Political Socialization
• Individuals, organizations, institutions that influence political
attitudes:
• Family
• Social Groups and Identities
• Schools
• Peer Groups
• Interest Groups
• Political Parties
• Mass Media
• Direct Contact with the Government
• Sources of political socialization determine content of what is
learned about politics
• Ability of a nation to recreate political culture in successive
generations is important factor in perpetuating political system

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 Trends Shaping Contemporary Political
Cultures
• Democratization: modernization eroded
legitimacy of nondemocratic ideologies;
increased citizens’ claims for equal participation
in policymaking
• Marketization: increased acceptance of free-
market rather than agovernment control of
economy
• Globalization: increasing international
interactions expose people to norms of other
nations

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 Trends Shaping Contemporary Political
Cultures (2)
• Political culture is not a static
phenomenon. – Encompasses how the
agents of political socialization
communicate and interpret historic events
and traditional values
• Important to understand
• – Influences how citizens act, how the
political process functions, and what policy
goals the government pursues
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