Political Culture as ‘Civic Culture’

Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba’s The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (1963) presented a study of political cultures of five democracies—Britain, Germany, Italy, Mexico and the United States. The study seeks to locate the attitudinal and behavioural aspects of the people, their orientation towards authority, political objects and political system, reconciliation of their differences and consensus building as suitable to democratic polity. The hypothesis that ‘the civic culture appears to be particularly appropriate for democratic political system’⁷ is a reflection of this attempt. It is an attempt to explain or understand the ‘characteristics and preconditions of culture of democracy’. In their study of civic culture, as Almond and Verba says, ‘rather than deriving the social-psychological preconditions of democracy from psychological theory, we have sought to determine whether and to what extent these relations actually exist in functioning democratic systems.’⁸ In studying five democracies, they have sought to find out how stability and successful functioning of democracy is correlated with social and psychological preconditions.

Based on this correlation, they have asked as to what are the specific characteristics that political culture must possess to be called civic culture and be suitable for successful democratic experience? ‘An Approach to Political Culture’, Almond and Verba have characterized ‘civic culture’ as ‘third culture, neither traditional nor modern, but partaking of both; pluralistic culture based on communication and persuasion, a culture of consensus and diversity, a culture that permitted change but moderated it. This was civic culture.’⁹ It appears that ‘civic culture’ is characterized as a particular type of political culture, which is considered suitable for democratic functioning. Logically, for Almond and Verba, political culture becomes ‘civic culture’ and civic culture is ‘democratic culture. It includes characteristics of:

• Pluralistic culture that entertains diversity
• Consensus and persuasion
• Change with moderation
• A mixed political culture—mix of traditional and rational elements
• Parliamentary representation
• Political party that co-ordinates and convert demands and interests into policy perspectives and realizable programmes
• Neutral and responsible bureaucracy
• Bargaining interest groups
• Autonomous and neutral media of communication
• Allegiant participant culture in which political culture and political structure are congruent

A political culture with the characteristics mentioned at (i) to (x) is considered appropriate for stability of democracy and its proper functioning. Civic culture is not considered as ‘a modern culture, but a mixed modernizing traditional one’. According to Almond and Verba, in England, which they consider as one of the important examples of civic culture, secularization took place due to separation of church and toleration of religious diversity, but on the other hand, the traditional aristocratic and monarchic forces also were assimilated.¹⁰ A mix of rationalism and traditionalism characterizes civic culture.

Civic culture focuses on the psychological insights of individual orientation to political objects. What factors influence the way people participate in the political process. Active citizens participation in the civic affairs and sense of civic responsibility were celebrated by the Greeks as reflected in Athenian democracy; it was cherished and insisted by John Stuart Mill as required for individual intellectual and moral self-development and was found to be one of the favourable conditions for democracy by James Bryce. Rational and active participation is considered as an important factor in classical democratic theory. With its emphasis on rational participation, Almond and Verba calls the classical model, as ‘rationality-activist’ model of political culture. They explain civic culture as rationality—activist plus something else.¹¹ ‘Something else’ comes from the fact that people are not only oriented towards inputs, structures and process but are positively oriented. In other words, the political structure and orientation of the people match with each other or they are congruent. As such, ‘the civic culture is a participant political culture in which the political culture and political structure are congruent’.¹² Aspects of congruency and incongruency between political culture and political structure have been dealt with later in this chapter. The way people participate in the political process reflects their orientation towards the political objects. Further, nature of orientation towards political objects determines the types of political culture that obtains. Almond and Verba define political culture as referring to ‘specifically political orientations—attitudes towards political the system and its various parts and attitudes toward the role of the self in the system’. To appreciate the orientation of citizens to the political system, we may have to understand some concepts such as ‘political orientation’ and its dimensions, and ‘political objects’. Almond and Verba deal with them to classify the types of political culture that can prevail based on orientation of the people.

‘Orientation’ has been explained as ‘the internalized aspects of objects and relationships’. In other words, it is inclination towards certain things or certain relationships that emerges not from temporary reaction or opinion but as a matter of socialization and value-based attachment. For example, we respect our national flag not merely because it has three beautiful colours, or that it is unfurled by the President and the Prime Minister, but primarily because it is a symbol of national collective unity, sovereignty and pledge of national freedom. Unfurling of the national flag reconfirms the values of the Constitution of India. In a different way, this orientation has been beautifully captured in a popular promotional snippet where an old cobbler sitting on the roadside along with young cobblers amidst rain, unfortunate to have lost his one leg, stands up on the playing of the national anthem of India on radio. His instant standing and paying respect is a reflection of internalized values towards the national anthem.

Almond and Verba, following Talcott Parsons and Edward Shills who have suggested three classes of orientation in individual’s actions, classify political orientations¹³ as: (i) cognitive orientation, (ii) affective orientation, and (iii) evaluative orientation. Cognitive orientation, coming from cognition, refers to knowledge of and belief about the political system, roles and those who play the role, inputs and outputs, etc. Affective orientation implies emotional and sentimental aspects of individuals towards political objects. It refers to the feeling of attachment, involvement or rejection. Evaluative orientation is related to judgmental aspect and refers to judgements and opinions about political objects. Evaluative orientation combines value standards and criteria with feeling and information. It means evaluative orientation is based on cognitive and affective orientation. The significance of the three classes of orientation is that to be an active participant in the political process, a citizen needs to be aware of the political system and its various aspects, must feel related to the political objects and must evaluate its performance and functioning.

Political objects are the political system and its component parts such as roles and structures such as legislature, executives, bureaucracy, etc. incumbents of roles such as legislators and administrators, etc., and policies, decisions or enforcements towards which political orientation is related. Political orientation is also related to ‘self’ as political actor in terms of political obligation and personal competence. Orientation towards the political system (roles, structures, incumbents and policies, decisions etc.) can also be in terms of inputs and outputs.

As Almond and Powell¹⁴ say, an individual may have a high degree of knowledge about the working of the political system, the leading figures and current problems and policies. Alternatively, one may have very low knowledge of the same. This relates to cognitive dimension. On the affective dimension side, one may be supportive of the system and its policies and have a feeling of attachment. Alternatively, one may have a feeling of alienation and apathy towards the system and may not respond with support when the system demands. Thirdly, one’s democratic norms may make him/her evaluate the responsiveness of the system to the democratic demands or may make him/her evaluate ethically the level of corruption or nepotism in the system. This relates to evaluative orientation. The implication of nature of orientations is that it will influence the working of the political system.

It appears that Almond and Verba’s study, The Civic Culture, provides two parallels, one of Weber’s ideal type and the other of Bryce’s Modern Democracies. Almond and Verba have sought to create an ideal type of such a political culture that provides a ‘fit’ between democracy and socio-psychological orientation of people. In other words, the socio-cultural orientations of the people should be congruent to the requirements of the political structures and roles. This study also reminds us of the study of James Bryce’s Modern Democracies (1921) in which he compared six democratic governments—Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United States. While Bryce focuses on formal-institutional aspects of these democracies, Almond and Verba look into the socio-psychological environment and informal aspects of the functioning of democracies. Bryce in Chapter 67 ‘Comparison of the Six Democratic Governments Examined’ of his book, while discussing the presence or absence of conditions favouring democracy, mentions about ‘sense of civic duty’, ‘sentiment of national unity’, etc., as requisite conditions. They are behavioural orientations and Bryce treats their presence or absence as credit or discredit to democratic institutions.¹⁵ On the other hand, Almond and Verba’s study adopts the behavioural approach. Compared with each other, both Modern Democracies and The Civic Culture are studies of democratic systems. The former focuses on formal-institutional aspects, the latter studies behavioural aspects. Comparison of the two studies shows a shift in political studies from the formal-institutional approach in the first quarter of the twentieth century to the behavioural approach in second-half of the twentieth century.

At times, it appears that civic culture is a product of historical factors including secularization and a democratic government, on the other hand it appears to be an ideal typical goal to be followed if countries of the third world were to achieve democratic stability. Either way, evolution of the concept of political culture as civic culture has its euro-centric or Anglo-American bias. Almond and Verba evolve ‘civic culture’ as an ideal type based on the characteristics of evolution of democracies in five countries—Britain, Germany, Italy, Mexico and the United States. The ideal type tends to become prescriptive for democratic stability in developing countries as civic culture is taken as an ideal typical creation from the experience of political culture of ‘stable and successful democracies (of) Great Britain and the United States.¹⁶

Almond and Verba revisited the political systems in Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Mexico and the United States to study and compare their political cultures and have presented their conclusions in The Civic Culture Revisited (1980).