political cultures found in Third World societies. A landmark in this line of
analysis was an attitude survey carried out in the early 1960s by Almond
and Verba, the results of which were published as The Civic Culturein
- Samples of people from different societies held to be at different
stages of political development were interviewed to test how strong their
commitment to their political system was.
The political culture is usually defined as the way people evaluate and
judge political acts and institutions (Pye and Verba, 1965; Kavanagh, 1972;
Rosenbaum, 1975). It is a system of beliefs, values and ideals about the way
a system of government should function. Subject to some variations, ‘polit-
ical culture’ refers to standards of evaluation about the rules of the political
game. Some political scientists have limited the concept to values concern-
ing the procedures of politics, and how political leaders should be selected,
how they ought to behave, and how authoritative decisions ought to be
made. Others, such as Almond, add to this the scope of government action
and the legitimacy of government intervention in certain areas of social and
economic activity.
Cultural values will include the means for transferring power and the
legitimate boundaries of the state. Nationalism and secession are the conse-
quence of values about territorial boundaries and where they ought to be
drawn. Ideas about personal political involvement, about who is entitled to
participate and about whether political action is likely to be effective within
a given political system also form part of the political culture. Included too
are attitudes towards other participants and their roles as political actors.
A political culture may not endorse the involvement and participation of all
sections of society. For example, women may be excluded.
The idea of shared values in the context of cultural heterogeneity as being
a major problem for Third World states is closely related to the importance
attached to the political culture as a source of either consensus or conflict.
Stability is seen as a consequence of a widely accepted set of values and
orientations towards the political system (Diamond, 1993a, pp. 427–8).
Reservations have been expressed about the concept of political culture
and explanations of change in terms of it. First there is a problem of causal-
ity in assuming that certain types of political culture are conducive to the
maintenance of certain sorts of political system, and that if there is no con-
gruence between culture and system the system will change as a result of
being undermined by a lack of consensus and legitimacy. Political culture
must not be viewed too deterministically (Diamond, 1993b, pp. 9–10).
There is a presupposition in much of the literature that the line of causality
runs in this direction.
Instability and Revolution 233