Civic Culture

José Álvaro Moisés

Civic culture is a subtype of political culture, that is, a set of political attitudes, habits, sentiments, and behavior, related to the functioning of a democratic regime. It implies that although citizens are not necessarily involved in politics all the time, they are aware to a certain extent of their political rights and also of the implications of the decision-making processes that affect their life and society. Both political awareness and participation are supposed to be relevant to the stability of a political regime. By contrast, citizens' withdrawal from political life has consequences not only for their ability to get what they want from the political community but also for the quality of democracy. Civic culture involves, therefore, some level of perception of the republican character of modern politics and adds a psychological dimension to the concept of citizenship. In the following, the evolution of this concept, its criticism and ...

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