Political Culture

  • Culture:
    • ‘patterns of beliefs and behaviour’
    • Institutional arrangements
    • Social traits
  • Political culture = cultural attitudes towards politics & government
    • Attitudes, beliefs, values, norms about political issues and ideas
    • Cultural differences among different groups and states
    • Ideology
  • Three categories of political culture:
    • Parochial = negative + low
    • Subject = positive + low
    • Participatory = positive + high
    • Civic = combo
  • Three typologies of political culture viz social values & engagement activity:
    • Polyarchal =
    • Fragmented
    • Collectivist
  • Inglehart
    • Materialist culture
    • Post-materialist culture
  • Social Capital
    • Putnam
    • De Tocqueville
  • Some Values:
    • Multiculturalism
    • Assimilation
    • Secularization

Political Socialization

  • Relationship with political culture > intergenerational transmission
  • Macro level = political system agents & ideas
  • Individual level = human relationships & non-state actors

Law

  • Rule + enforcement + coercion/violence
  • Usually codify:
    • Habit
    • Custom
    • Regularity
  • Enforcement:
    • Retribution
    • Restitution
    • Rehabilitation
    • Restraint
  • Laws may be followed without knowing the rule
  • Laws may develop over time, and be entrenched, without deliberate creation
  • Types of law:
    • Customary:
      • Experience, habits, regularities
      • Tacit reason < no command, not written
    • Legislation:
      • Deliberative & conscious law
      • Spoken by an authority
      • Written down
  • Common law
    • England’s system, exported around the world
    • Combination of customary law & legislation
    • Precedents
    • Statutes = legislation
    • Law code = set of interrelated rules < not Common law
  • Sources of law:
    • Natural law
    • Positive law

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