What, if any thing, does political culture explain?

COMPARATIVE POLITICS ESSAY.

ESSAY TITLE:

What, if any thing, does political culture explain?

Political culture is the set of attitudes, beliefs and feelings about politics current in a nation at a given time. For someone whose has absolute no knowledge or interest in politics it simply means individual attitudes and what people think. This political culture has been shaped by the nation’s history and by the on going processes of social, economic and political activity. Political culture is passed on through socialisation. This socialisation is to do with the acquiring of knowledge and awareness of political life. It could just as well be acquired by social life or even religious life depending on which country you come from. Other forms of social behaviour can be acquired in different ways. An example of this would be the acquiring of knowledge from family. This sort of knowledge is referred to as liberal perspective.

The main reason to what political culture explains is how it affects the conduct of individuals in their political roles, the content of their political demands and their responses to laws. There are many other ways in which political culture can be changed, and the media is one of them, which affect this. This is also known as indoctrination. There are two ways of seeing this. One of which is known as passive and the other as latent. Indoctrination simply means making people think something. The media often portray such actions to deliberately make people think in one direction, focussing them on one particular subject or idea. These objects are ones, which may affect political culture. There are four main political objects, first of which is known as political systems. The political system used by first world countries. The countries associated with first world are countries such as the USA, Japan and Britain. Their political culture does not rely on possessions anymore but are now concerned on aspects such as the environment and pollution. 2nd world countries are fastly falling apart. These used to be soviet but fell apart. Third world counties such as India, Ghana and Nigeria have no political knowledge whatsoever. There is also no awareness of a central government. This has a profound affect on political culture.

Input factors are the next object that may affect political culture. This is known as the structures and roles. Can we vote? Express our views? Etc. many question can be asked like are we restricted. Well the answer can vary we elect our own leaders, so it is them who affect our life.

The output factors are all to do with what the state does. What our expectations are? This simply means what we expect from the government.

Finally I will look at the individual and how he/she may affect political culture. This simply refers to the role ...

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The output factors are all to do with what the state does. What our expectations are? This simply means what we expect from the government.

Finally I will look at the individual and how he/she may affect political culture. This simply refers to the role of socialisation again. Is it compulsory to know our right? Well that may be argued. Knowing our rights may affect how we think about our politics. Not knowing certain right may affect certain decisions and influence in the wrong direction.

A second major aspect of political culture is the types of culture and its set of orientation towards the political process. There are three main types of culture that a character has Parochial, Subject and Participant. Parochials are those citizens who have little or no awareness of political system. They have no perception of their possible influence or obligation regarding it. This definition can however vary; for example a farmer may take no interest in national politics regarding his country, but may have keen village decisions. The general concept however, draws attention to those citizens whose lives are concerned with non-political events. Parochials are however very rare in economically developed countries. They do however remain a common feature of traditional and transitional societies.

Subjects are those who become part of the national political system and perceive its impact on their lives. However their view of their own role in politics remains that of subjects, affected by governmental action, but not active in shaping it. They may have their own policy preferences as well as their own positive or negative expectations about their treatment by police and administrators. They may even develop a sense of legitimacy toward the regime and the authorities. They do however remain passive in their orientation towards political participation. There is only one problem with this sort of culture, they have no influence on the government.

Finally Participants, on the other hand these citizens develop an awareness of the input process of the society, those which facilitate their own involvement in politics. They also develop attitudes, which encourage their use of opportunities for participation. An example of this would be a sense of confidence that they can affect national political events if they try to do so. In more brief terms they can pass judgement on political systems and are able to influence the government. This is sometimes acquitted with liberal democracy.

Although Parochials, subjects and participants can be found in varying degrees in all nations, obviosouly there are many more that are participant orientated.

There are also many other ways of classifying political culture. This is in the form of class structure and being respectful to the police and the monarchy. A very good example of this would be that in the USA when a former President looses his/her post that does not mean that they have lost their status. They are still addressed as “Mr President”.

In other continental European countries they refuse to use English. They are very isolated and their attitudes are very inwards towards learning. And finally another term known as totalitarian means a single leader running the country or state. Ann example of this would be Iran. Sadam Hussian has a 99.9% backing from the public in that country. These sorts of people have a strong emphasis upon ideology particularly on how the people should live their life. The idea of freedom of speech, well all that can be said to that is NO CHANCE!

To conclude this essay all I can say that political culture simply explains how a country is ran and what people think about it. Other things it explains is how involved people get into their country politics. As explained earlier on in the essay I feel and the theory is that the more participant orientated cultures there are in a country the higher levels of education and organisation in these nations and in part reflected specific historical and political experiences in these cultures. In most political cultures, naturally, citizen’s feel more confidant of their ability to deal with local politics than with national politics.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

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