Our discussions with respect to political culture and civic culture, in particular and political development above, suggest that the study of political culture and political socialization is related to the understanding of conditions of successful democratic experiment. How does political culture contribute to the stability of a particular political system and what are the features and elements of a political culture that provide conditions of democratic stability? Almond and Verba’s The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (1963) is an attempt to create an ideal typical political culture that is ‘appropriate for a democratic political system. Their conclusion is that what they characterize ‘civic culture’ approximates an ideal political culture suitable for a stable democracy. We have discussed the characteristics and features of the civic culture which Almond and Verba feel is congruent for a democratic political system.
They feel that political socialization in civic culture takes place ‘by a complex process and that includes training in many social institutions—family, peer group, school, work place, as well as in the political system itself.’39 It is also required that political socialization takes place in a broad manner and along with explicit and political socialization, implicit and non-political socialization also takes place. According to Almond and Verba, broad political socialization is suitable for civic culture. However, they mention that ‘a major part of political socialization, then, involves direct exposure to civic culture and democratic polity themselves.’40 This means political socialization and inculcating values, attitudes and feelings of a civic culture and democratic polity require their prior presence and this is possible where they already are—e.g., America and England. Reproducing civic culture in these polities would provide a condition of democratic stability.
However, what happens in countries where democratic experiment is nascent and political culture diffuse—a mix of all orientations, parochial, subject and participant. According to Almond and Verba, gradual political development and fusion of new orientation with old ones would be the basis for emergence of civic culture in newly emerged and developing countries. While the operation of the democratic political process would bring participant orientation, this needs to be blended with parochial and subject orientation. As civic culture is a mix culture, participant orientation may co-exist with other orientations. This way of looking at civic culture finds an echo when we talk about caste being part of the democratic process and ‘modernization of tradition’.
Almond and Verba, however, feel that for democratic stability a balance between a participant role and a passive-non-involvement orientation is essential. In civic culture, active participation merged with passive participation implying a mix of those who feel their participation is required in the input and output process and those who are satisfied to limit their participation to output is necessary for democratic stability. Almond and Verba’s study of five nations—Britain, France, Germany, Mexico and USA, suggests that civic culture is ‘most congruent with stable, democratic system’.
It has also been mentioned that interaction between the multi-party requirement of democratic polity and fragmented nature of political culture can be at times reason for democratic instability. For example, a fragmented political culture with sub-cultures on ethnic, tribal and other parochial lines which interacts with a multi-party democratic structure, may feed each other. Multi-partyism may reinforce and aggravate the already existing divisions and the political process will reflect the ethnic, tribal and parochial divisions. In India also, many political parties draw their social support base from certain caste groups and linguistic groups. This is more true of political parties at the state and regional levels.
It may be mentioned that their conclusion is set in the context of a liberal democratic political system and capitalist economic order and does not take cognizance of class division into account. Ideologies, values, attitudes, feelings and orientations are not devoid of class position. According to the Marxian framework, these orientations fall in the realm of the superstructure. Political culture can only reflect a class-determined behaviour and attitudes. In the political culture or civic culture framework of analysis, the issues of consensus versus cleavage or homogeneous versus fragmented political culture is treated without any reference to class division in the society. Framework of political culture or civic culture does not deal with economic relations and class division as relevant factors for determining political orientation. In fact, civic culture is considered as an open door for the working class for making their demands felt. Almond and Verba declares ‘With this civic culture already consolidated, the working classes could enter into politics and, in a process of trial and error, find the language in which to couch their demands and the means to make them effective.’41 Is the message that the working classes must wait until the civic culture is consolidated? Working classes are told to become active participants and influence the inputs and outputs and forget about any change of the political system.
The Marxian framework maintains that ideas of the ruling class are ruling ideas and that civil society reflects the values, ideas and attitudes of the dominant class. This means political culture will reflect primacy of those values and attitudes that are relevant for maintaining order, stability and continuity. Achieving stability, continuity and order through political recruitment and political socialization is meant to gain and ensure legitimacy for the existing system. This would be what Pierre Bourdieu calls, ‘cultural reproduction’ and what Gramsci says, ‘hegemony’. In both the cases, values, attitudes and behaviours of the dominant class ares treated as the general value and imparted to the people as values of the society. The political cultural approach accepts possibility of heterogeneity of orientations and attitudes but does not ascribe any causal relationship to the issue of economic ownership.
Leave a Reply