Political Culture, Identity and Legitimacy

Chapter 10

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What is Political Culture?

• Why do you think people’s beliefs, perceptions and values are important for the students of political science?– Shared values and beliefs promotes stability and

survival of a political regime. • How to define culture?– Culture is the way of life. – Culture is acquired/learnt attitudes, beliefs, symbols

and values of a given community which help individuals to make decisions or to act in a certain way.

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• What is socialization?– Socialization is a process of inducting actors into the norms

and rules of a given community. • Political Culture: Political culture refers to people’s

political values, perceptions and orientation to daily politics.

• Academic interest in political culture emerged in the 1950s and 1960s with the rise of behavioural approach.

• The first comprehensive study is Almond and Verba’s “The Civic Culture” (1963).

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The Civic Culture• Almond and Verba aimed to identify the political culture

that uphold democratic politics. • According to Almond and Verba, there are three types of

political culture:– 1) Participant political culture: Political participation is

considered both desirable and effective. – 2) Subject political culture: People believe that they have

limited capacity to influence politics. – 3) Parochial political culture: People do not identify themselves

with nation-wide ideologies, values, beliefs. Moreover, they have neither ability nor willingness to participate in politics.

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Marxist view on political culture• For Marx, “the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling intellectual

force.” • Ideas and culture are conditioned by economic modes of

production. • Therefore, for Marxists, political culture is class-based and varies

accordingly with class divisions in society. Social classes determine political culture.

• Secondly, Marxists argue that political/civic culture in Western democracies is the culture of the ruling class, i.e. bourgeois ideology.

• According to Antonio Gramsci, the ruling class exercises its power by winning the consent of the ruled through promoting myths, values and beliefs of bourgeoisie that help the ruling class to subordinate other classes within a society.

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Civic Engagement and Civil Society• Civil Society is the realm of private associations, autonomous groups

different from public institutions. (Charities, Voluntary clubs, associations, foundations)

• Declining social capital:– Social capital refers to social connectiveness, interactions, cooperation and

trust among the members of a society. – According to Robert Putnam, social capital creates a we-ness and willingness

to cooperate and do business together. This contributes to high levels of productivity and wealth creation.

– Declining civic engagement is highly related to declining political participation.

– Why is social capital declining?• Rise of individualism and spread of materialist values• Suburbanization, living in suburban areas, commuting long distances from home to

work• Television-centred leisure time activities

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Postmaterialism v. Materialism• Postmaterialist values:

– Gender equality– Freedom of speech – Environmental protection– Animal rights– Racial harmony– Multicultural societies

• Materialist values:– Economic growth– Material security and economic needs– Maintaining order and stability– Authoritative approach– Traditional moral beliefs and values

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Identity Politics• Identity politics refers to the significance of cultural differences

within society. It is the politics of differences. • Identity refers to a sense of separate and unique selfhood. Identity

is also developed within/through social interactions between individuals.

• Personal identity is based on gender, ethnicity, religion, nationality. Therefore, individuals have multiple identity and they choose one of them depending on their social and political activities.

• Identity politics recognizes differences and it therefore implies particularism rather than universalism.– Universalism refers to the notion that there are common/shared values

and beliefs among humans. – Particularism refers to the idea that local, cultural, religious and ethnic

differences shape our identity.

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History of Identity Politics– National movements – Decolonialization: Rise of anti-western and anti-colonial ideas. – Orientalism:

• Said’s idea of Orientalism highlights that Western domination and hegemony on other cultures maintained through stereotypical view of and distorted perceptions about the East. These stereotypical representations and depictions of the East facilitated colonialism.

– Black Movement in the USA: Against racism, rising black consciousness

– Immigration • Cross-border migration such as from Mexico to USA• Refugees and displaced people such as Syrian refugees in Turkey• International migrants legal or illegal immigrants from

underdeveloped countries to developed countries.

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Multiculturalism

• Transnational community is a community whose cultural identity, political allegiances and psychological orientations cut across national borders. (i.e. Diaspora)

• Diaspora refers to people who are dispersed to and settled in foreign countries.

• Transnational communities have multiple attachments to a country of their origin and to a country of settlement.

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Three Models of Multiculturalism • The central theme for all forms of multiculturalism is that people derive

their understanding of the world from their distinctive cultures and moral beliefs.

• Liberal Multiculturalism– Freedom to choose one’s own beliefs and culture– Toleration: Toleration extends to views, values that are themselves tolerant to

other views and ideas. – For instance, liberal multiculturalism do not accept/endorse forced marriages,

honour killings even if these practices are accepted by some cultures. – There is distinction between private and public life and liberal multiculturalism

emphasizes on freedom to practice one’s own culture in private life. Some cultural practices are banned in public life even though they are allowed in private life.

– For liberal multiculturalists, liberal democracy and liberal democratic values are the only political regime and thus we cannot allow any cultural view, beliefs that aim to replace liberal democracy with other ideas.

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• Pluralist Multiculturalism:– According to pluralist multiculturalism, liberal and

western beliefs have no greater moral authority than other beliefs. There is no hierarchy among values and no single conception of the good life.

– Western values and culture are seen as oppressive, imperial and racist.

– Preserving cultural differences.

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• Cosmopolitan multiculturalism:– Cultures can learn from other cultures– Diversity does not necessarily mean conflict, separation and

division. Learning from other cultures and interaction between different cultures creates a new cosmopolitan culture.

– Here cosmopolitan multiculturalism portrays society as a melting pot as opposed to a cultural mosaic.

– Here culture are not fixed and static, they can chage by learning from other cultures.

– Cosmopolitanism refers to a common political cultural ideas, values that unite all human beings.

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Drawbacks of multiculturalism• For liberals, identity politics and emphasis on multiculturalism is an

attack to individual freedoms, because individuals are treated in accordance with their cultural values rather than their individual needs and rights.

• Multiculturalism can lead to the emergence of anti-democratic and oppressive values.

• For conservatives and nationalists, multiculturalism threatens social stability and cohesion. It threatens traditional or national values. For them, multicultural societies are conflict-ridden and fractured. They don’t believe in the motto of “unity in diversity”

• Lastly, for some others, multiculturalism fails to address poverty and economic discrimination or lack of economic power of ethnic and religious minorities.

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Legitimacy

• Legitimacy means rightfulness to act, to do, to rule.

• A legitimate government can only demand obedience from its citizens.

• Max Weber’s three ideal types of authority:– Traditional authority– Charismatic authority– Legal-rational authority

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• Traditional authority:– Based on long-established customs and traditions.– Traditions encompass anything passed from the

past to the present. – Authority is regarded legitimate as long as it is

based on traditions and customs. – Authority comes from history. Authority at the

present stems from factors that have existed before.

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• Charismatic authority:– Based on power of an individual’s personality. – The capacity of a leader to appeal people to follow him

or her. (Charisma=charm and personal power)– Authority through personal qualities and capacity to

gain the loyalty of people. – Shortcomings of charismatic authority:

• Not based on formal rules and thus no limits to the power of the leader.

• Since the political system is built around a charismatic leader, the system collapses when the leader dies.

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• Legal-rational authority:– Based on clearly defined rules– Authority of any political figure derives from

constitutional and formal rules. – Those rules constrain authority as much as they

provided rightful basis for action. – According to Weber, this is the most rational and

efficient model of authority. However, the shortcoming of this model of authority is that it creates a bureaucratic form of organization.

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Legitimation Crises• Two key features of the legitimation process:

– Existence of elections and party competition– Existence of constitutional rules

Reasons behind the loss of legitimacy1) According to Habermas, capitalist societies contains a tendency towards legitimation crisis. Because of the clash between the pursuit of profit and democratic demands for social welfare and social equality. For Habermas, capitalist democracies cannot permanently satisfy both popular demands for social security and welfare rights and the requirements of a market economy.

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• 2) Government over-load: Governments are failing to satisfy the demands of the people. – Political parties are under the pressure of popular

demands in order to win the political competition against other political parties.

– Politicians promise more than they can deliver.

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Why do revolutions occur?

• Revolution means the dramatic and abrupt replacement of the old political system with the new one.

• Revolution brings a fundamental/entire change in the political system.

• Give an example!

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Marxist theories of revolution• For Marxists, the revolution involves a fundamental social/economic

change. The replacement of one mode of production with another mode of production.

• Revolution is the result/inevitable outcome of class divisions and oppression of working class by bourgeiose.

• Revolution can only happen if class consciousness propagated. Class consciousness is the awareness of a class’s situation and interests. Aligning your own interests with your class interests.

• For Marx, revolution is inevitable in order to eliminate the capitalist system and establish a classless society.

• Marx believed that revolutions would happen naturally in industrialized/capitalist societies such as Germany, Great Britain and United States.

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The 1917 Bolshevik Russian Revolution

Proletariat revolutionMensheviks v. Bolsheviks Lenin’s ideas:1) A revolution has to be initiated/made2) A revolution has to be led by the vanguard

party 3) A revolution has to be based on a coalition of

peasants and workers.

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Non-Marxists theories of revolution• A revolution replaces only the old political system with a new

one. It is not wholesale social change. • A revolution only happens under particular social and economic

circumstances. 1) Pressure of internal and external demands (Inputs)– Failure to address demands and respond to changing circumstances

(Outputs) (Gap between political demands and performance of governments)

2) Rising expectations and belief in that things can change. (Tocqueville) Relative deprivation is the reason behind revolutions. People compare their situation with others and are keen to change things if they feel discontent with the political system.3) Lack of coercive capabilities or willingness to use brute forces to maintain the political system. (Ability to resist/crush internal opposition)