Chapter 16: Political Culture

Christian Welzel

Political culture A stable and effective democratic government … depends upon the orientations that people have to the political process – upon the political culture. This chapter describes the place of the political culture paradigm in comparative politics. It outlines the paradigm's fundamental premises and assumptions and sketches how research in this field has developed. Special emphasis will be placed on where I see the greatest contribution of the political culture approach: understanding the societal fundaments of democracy and how these are transforming in the process of cultural change. In thinking about the driving forces behind democracy, the most basic assumptions of the political culture approach will be juxtaposed to those of the political economy approach. The chapter closes with some thoughts about the future research agenda of the political culture paradigm. Going back to Almond and Verba (1963: 13) the term political culture is usually understood ‘as the To ...

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