Philosophical and constitutional framework of government

Political culture

a. Almond and Verba

Almond and Verba have given a 3 dimensional view of Political culture :

i) Parochial political culture – Is present in those societies where specialisation does not exist and only one  or two institutions are authoritative regarding all functions of that society and only one arch ruler is there who heads that institution thus having hegemony and unfettered power. People in such a society are not educated and informed about the mechanism and even if they have it is insufficient to form any opinion. And so the rule or dictatorship of the one ruler continues unopposed.

ii) Subject political Culture – Is present in such societies that were under colonial power at some point in time. Here two types of people’s attitudes towards political system prevails, one of absolute subordination and one of absolute revolt at different points in time.

iii) Participant Political culture – Is present in such societies having a high level of development and people in it have sufficient awareness and knowledge regarding their rights and duties and thus, play an active role in the discharge of functions. This type of a culture is practiced in India to quite an extent.

b. Robert Dahl

Robert Dahl has bestowed upon Political culture the title of the single most important factor that explains different patterns of political opposition:

i) Orientation of problem solving – Whether the opposition is interested in being rational and pragmatic in solving the issues raised.
ii) Orientation to collective actions – Whether the opposition is cooperative or not in discharge of functions of itself or others.
iii) Orientation to political system – Whether the opposition is active/passive or alienates itself.
iv) Orientation towards other people – Whether the opposition is full of tests or not.

C. Talcott Parsons

Talcott Parsons two traditional approaches for political culture.

Talcott Parsons look to find out the role of predispositions of people like historical memories, norms, emotions, symbols,etc. towards political actions . Their studies in Political culture have been done using two traditional approaches:

i) Individualistic Approach – It examines the values and attitudes of individuals through some technique of survey or feedback obtained from respondents(people). It is a direct method but limitations are that the respondents may not be able to express their feelings at many times. Further, the questionnaire itself may be so designed as to eliminate the political view of the people. The feelings mentioned by the people also may lead to all sorts of understandings and be very subjective.

ii) Institutional Approach – Involves documents analysis to discern collective behavior of political institutions. It pursues the following three dimensions:
a) Academic deliberation to surface features of constitution, political structure and legislative framework.
b) Analysis of the Geographical and social operators in the State.
c) Analysis of historical events that have shaped political views.

 

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