Political Science For Dummies. Marcus A. Stadelmann
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as soon as government is unable to deliver the goods anymore, they can easily turn against it and demand a change of government or the political system itself.
Good examples of countries where the majority of the population are/were subjects are the Soviet Union or present-day China. Citizens in both countries are/were well informed and expected the political structure to deliver benefits to them.
Participant political culture
In a participant political culture, political scientists find the true democratic citizens. They understand how the political process works and they’re interested in the issues of the day. When they vote, they base their vote on knowledge of issues and candidate stances on issues. For this reason, they can hold their government accountable, and if they dislike what they see, they can replace it. Participants are further proud and supportive of their political system. They believe that they hold political power and can influence policy making. In other words, they believe that they have political efficacy. Finally, participants are active at all levels of politics; they don’t just vote but also volunteer for civic organizations. They’re not afraid to discuss politics at the dinner table and with friends. Participants are truly the backbone of a democracy.
Needing three political cultures to sustain democracy
Instead of picking one of three political cultures discussed in the previous section, Almond and Verba claim that a country needs a mix of all three cultures to sustain democracy. A pure parochial society wouldn’t exist very long. Keep in mind that parochials feel no love or loyalty to a national government, instead focusing purely on the local level. If a whole nation consisted of people who don’t like the nation or the government in charge, it would collapse.
At the same time, a nation full of subjects would result in the collapse of democracy, too. If every citizen was just a follower who would obediently abide by government rules, government could soon turn authoritarian. The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, for example, consisted of pure subject cultures, with citizens blindly obeying government decisions.
Now what about a pure participant society? Could you imagine if every American citizen was a pure political animal? What would happen to the system if more than 150 million people were active in politics and demanded benefits from government? According to Almond and Verba, this would result in a system overload. Government couldn’t deal with that many demands, and people in turn would take action against government if they didn’t get what they asked for.
For this reason, Almond and Verba advocate for a mix of the three cultures. Every democracy has to have all three cultures to survive in the long run. A democracy needs people who just don’t care about politics, have no knowledge of what’s going on, and don’t participate (parochials). At the same time, government often has to make controversial decisions for the good of the country, such as increasing taxes to pay off government debt or fund new programs. In this scenario, a democracy needs subjects who will complain bitterly about these decisions but won’t take any action against government.
Finally, participants are needed to hold the government accountable. Whenever government makes a decision, it needs to know that its citizens will hold it accountable for these decisions. Almond and Verba refer to this as anticipated reaction. Government and its leaders make decisions based on how they believe people will react to their decisions. Often no reaction will come, but a rational leader believes that it will, and so policy is made, which is acceptable to most people.
Working on Political Socialization
Political Socialization is the process of how people acquire their political values. The political values people possess in turn will shape their political behavior within the state. Political socialization teaches children political values and norms that will later impact their political behavior. The objective of political socialization is the same for every government: to create a populace that is well socialized and supports the current form of government. For this reason, many governments directly intervene in the socialization process. This can be done through educational structures and even religion.
Goals of political socialization
Studies have shown that successful political socialization has to create loyalty to the political system in the following areas:
Loyalty to the state: This is the most important because, without it, states will collapse at some point. If a majority of the people opposes the existence of the state they live in, there’s no future for the state.Recent examples include Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, both states that collapsed because a majority of the people opposed the state itself. Loyalty toward the state is created through nationalism and patriotism. The goal is to instill pride into a people through patriotic activities, such as singing the national anthem before sports events and pledging allegiance to the flag of a country.
Loyalty to the political structure: Loyalty toward the state is important but not sufficient for the survival of a government. Besides supporting the country, the populace also has to support the current government structures and the ideas they’re based on.In the U.S., the government is based on democracy and capitalism. For this reason, the government has to artificially create loyalty toward these two. In civic education classes, mandatory in most states, children are taught about the virtues of democracy and how great capitalism works for the well-being of most Americans. At the same time, the evils of authoritarianism and communism are imprinted into children’s minds. Polls show that a vast majority of all Americans support and are very proud of their form of democracy, while a smaller majority also supports various forms of capitalism.
Loyalty toward the current government: Loyalty toward the current government in power is a necessity. A populace has to be socialized to accept their favorite candidate losing and still supporting the new government elected. Even though a favorite candidate may have lost, people still have to consider the new government legitimate. If they don’t, they could turn against government and political violence can result.When Hillary Clinton lost the presidency to Donald Trump in 2016, many American were shocked and dismayed. However, nobody took up arms and initiated political violence to overthrow the newly elected Trump administration. This signals that Americans are well socialized into accepting losing elections and living with a president they didn’t support. In other countries, such as Kenya, this wouldn’t have happened. The losing side would have initiated political violence, and civil war would have broken out.
Agents of political socialization
How do citizens of a nation become socialized? In other words, what and who are the institutions that transmit political