Political Culutre and Political Socialization : Meaning, Nature, Types, Signifance and Concepts

 

Political Culture and Political Socialization

Political Culture:

Meaning, Nature and Agencies.

Introduction:

Political consensus on values is a must for political system to survive and confront pressures, conflict and crisis emerging from time to time. It relates to political culture which is a sub-structural of each political system. Political culture is thus the manifestation in aggregate form of the psychological and subjective dimension of politics.

Definition

‘Political culture according to international encyclopedia of social science “is the set of attitudes, belief, and sentiment which give order and meaning to pol. process and which provide the underlying assumptions and rules that govern behavior in the pol. process.”

According to Almond and Powell, “A Political culture is a distribution of political attitudes, values, feelings, information and skills.”

According to A.R Ball, “Political culture is composed of attitude belief and values of society that relates to the pol. system and the political issues.”

 

Nature of Political Culture

 

The nature of the political culture depends on belief and orientation of the mass towards the pol.system and the response of the authority and the process of the orientations. Sometimes the process is participatory when the member of the society takes active part in the political process and seeks benefit from the process.

Political culture is not static, it is dynamic and changing. It changes as a result of new ideas, structural changes in the system, new innovations, demographic change and changes in the international pol. environment.

Type of Political Culture

Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba in their classic the Civil culture, have done a behavioral study of political culture and their identified Three Types of political culture.

1.    Parochial political culture

2.    Subject political culture

3.    Participants political culture

 

1.    Parochial political culture:  Parochial political culture citizens are not politically aware about the system. there is patron-client relationship among the ruler and ruled.they  have no participations in the decision making. in a parochial culture citizen are only indistinctly aware of the existence of Central Government as with remote tribes whose existence is seemingly unaffected by National decisions made by the central government.

2.    Subject political culture: In a subject political culture citizen see themselves not as participants in the political process but as subjects of the government, as with people living under a dictatorship. However individuals stills do not think that their participation would matter much or effect politics.They think that political are made by the elite not by masses.

3.    Participants political culture:  Third and most familiar type of the participant political culture. Here citizens believe that they can contribute to the system and that they are affected by it. It would be natural to assume that people with participate and attitudes are the model citizen of a stable democracy.

 

Determinant for factors

 

The political culture is determinant by several historical and Socio economic factor which are referred to as its determinant or the elements. The following can be described as the key determinant of factors of political culture:

 

1.    The historical factor; History plays an important role in the making and evolution of political culture. Historical events always influence the shaping of political culture in a big way. French political culture bears a deep impact on the French Revolution and the Declaration of Rights of Man and of Citizens.

2.    Political continuity or discontinuity; The continuity or discontinuity of a political system determine the nature of its political culture. Continuity of political process helps the evolution of a participant political culture and secures the linkage between the past and the present.

3.    Geography plays a big role in determining the political culture of the society.: Favourable location has helped Britain to meet successful foreign invasion. Geography did play a role in the spread of socialism to Eastern European Geography: countries.

4.    Socio economic factor : Socio economic factor always plays a deterministic rule in laying down the foundations of the political culture and in securing a change in the orientations of the people towards political object and action.

5.    Ethnic factor: the existence of ethnic differences and ethnic conflict among several ethnic group or minorities which lives in the society always determined the nature of political culture.

6.    Ideological factor the concept of political refers to orientation : Cognitive, affective and evaluative towards political object and action. These orientations are greatly influenced by the ideology and ideologies that are popular with the people.

All these factors are in the main determinant of political culture.

 

 

Political socialization meaning nature type and agencies

 

Intro:

Political socialization is the process by which the people of a political system learn their values, beliefs and orientation towards politics and political object that is their political culture.

 

MEANING

The process by which people get the orientation towards political object that is their political culture is called political socialization. Political socialization acts as a means for securing the desired change.

 

According to Robert Lenin: " Political socialization is the means by which individual acquire motives, habits and values relevant to participation in a political system."

 

According to David Easton "Political socialization as those development process through which persons acquire political orientation and patterns of behaviour. "

 

According to almond and Powell "Political socialization is the process by which political cultures are maintained and changed."

 

Nature's

 

Political socialization is the process of learning through which people of political system learns their values, believes orientations and attitudes towards politics. The following can be described as the nature of political socialization.

1.    Political socialization is a process of learning.

2.    It involves both formal as well as informal and deliberate and unplanned learning

3.    It involves the translations of values and beliefs of the political Culture by one generation to the next.

4.    Political socialization is a lifelong learning process but it's pace  and role keeps on changing from time to time.

5.    Political socialization is a source, both of stability and change.

 

 

 

Types of political socialization

 

The types of political socialization can be discussed as follows.

1.    Manifest political socialization; manifest political socialization in the explicit communication of information, values, feeling towards political object we can also call it direct political socialization.

2.    Latent political socialization: Latent political socialization is the transmission of a non political attitudes to which affect attitudes towards political roles, objects in the political system.

3.    Homogeneous political socialization; the process of political socialization is continuous and consistent it is called homogeneous political socialization. In such process, all the agents provide and maintain a give type of political orientations. People support one another in their political institutions and values.

4.    Heterogenous political socialization; it is the opposite of Homogeneous political socialization. Here,   the process is discontinuous. The people are subjected to different political orientation at different times. Such discontinuity create an important potential for dissatisfaction and conflict and high political for system change.

 

 

Agencies of political socialization

 

 The roles of the following six main agencies of political socialization deserve a special description.

1.    Family

2.    Educational structures

3.     Reference group or peer group

4.    Means of mass media

5.     Direct contact with political system.

 

1.    The family as a primary agency of political socialization; the family has been considered by Almond and Powell as the first socialization structure counted by an individual. According to Davies and Lewis" the family provides the major means of transforming the mentally naked infant organism into adult fully clothed in its own personality.

2.    Educational structure; the educational structure consists constituted the second powerful agent of political socialization. Allen R. Barce says that the educational system has important effect on the process of socialization. Almond  and Powell says School can also play an important role in shaping attitudes about the unwritten rules of the political game.

3.    Reference group or peer group: reference group or peer group like family and educational structures act as important sources of attitude formation. the relatively decreased the role of family in the contemporary  industrial societies has tended to increase the role of peer group, friendship associations and the like, in the process of political socialization.

4.    Mass media: A controlled system of mass media is a powerful force in setting political beliefs of the people.  it is particularly so used in authoritarian, totalitarian and  dictatorial system.

5.    Direct contact with the political system; the direct contact between the individual and government as well as political parties plays a significant role political parties are the most important agent political socialization. Through political propaganda; electioneering; by recruiting people and by articulating and aggregating political interests. Political parties become the direct agent of political socialization.

 

 

 

Importance of concept of political socialization

 

Almond and Powell have rightly observed that "the study of political socialization seems to be one of the most promising approaches to understand political stability and development."

1.    The fruit of political socialization are aggregative and interactive it is continuous learning process.

2.     It is an ongoing process. Every individual represents more or less unique combinations of socializing experience.

3.    It is political socialization that political cultures are maintained and changed.

4.     The concept of political socialization is very useful in the study of political change or development.

5.    Changes in political socialization always act as a source of change in the political behavior of the people.