Authors: Lipset
Summary: In about 2500 words, this entry defines political culture, discusses its intellectual roots, analyzes its significance for political scholarship, and explores the relationship between political culture and democracy.
Political culture is defined as the underlying values and knowledge that shape politics in a particular society. The concept's intellectual history is intertwined with that of democratic theory, and it was established in political science by Almond and Verba's seminal work, Civic Culture. Even before Almond and Verba coined the term, the concept of political culture was investigated by political theorists. Aristotle wrote about it as early as the fourth century B.C., and De Toqueville's famous nineteenth century study, Democracy in America, presents a theory of democratic political culture. The entry details all of these, and also provides examples of other twentieth century works on the subject.
Scholarly interest in political culture and its relationship to democracy was reinvigorated during the 1980s and 1990s. Samuel Huntington led this resurgence with the help of works by Aaron Wildavsky, Ronald Inglehart and Robert Putnam. The entry details Putnam's analysis of Italian civic tradition in Making Democracy Work, and emphasizes his conclusion--political culture is the key to stable, efficacious democracy. The entry identifies tolerance and trust as the most essential elements of political culture necessary for successful democracy. Also offered for thought are some remarks about the implications of studying political culture as a political science subfield.
In conclusion, the entry considers political culture's ability to measure change, and offers three suggestions for future political culture scholarship: hypotheses should have practical applications, they should build on preexisting theories, and studies should be as sensitive as possible to differing cultural nuances within and across political regions.