Transcript No Slide Title

CHAPTER FOUR
AMERICAN POLITICAL
CULTURE
Rights and Responsiblities
Please write a short list of five rights
and responsibilities we have as
citizens or legal aliens of the United
States. For each right discuss what
responsibilities are associated with
that right. Don’t list a right if you
can’t list a corresponding
responsibility.
This chapter concentrates on
the notion of "political
culture," or the inherited set of
beliefs, attitudes, and opinions
people (in this case,
Americans) have about how
their government ought to
operate.
THEME A
THE MEANING AND
UNIQUE QUALITIES
OF THE AMERICAN
POLITICAL CULTURE
Liberty
Freedom from
government restraints
and protection of rights
Individualism
Based on personal
achievement
Equality of opportunity
The idea that each
American should have
an equal chance to
success, but some will
do better than others
Civic Duty
The obligation to take
part in community
affairs
Swedes:
more deferential than participatory
– Defer to government experts and
specialists
– Rarely challenge governmental decisions
– Believe in what is best more than what
people want
– Value equality over liberty
– Value harmony and observe obligations
Japanese
– Value good relations
with colleagues
– Emphasize group
decisions and social
harmony
– Respect authority
Americans
– Tend to assert rights
– Emphasize individualism,
competition, equality,
following rules, treating
others fairly (compare with
the Japanese)
THEME B
POLITICAL CULTURE:
SOURCES, EFFICACY,
TOLERANCE
American
Revolution had
liberty as its object
.
Historical roots
Revolution essentially over liberty;
preoccupied with asserting rights
Adversarial culture the result of
distrust of authority and a belief that
human nature is depraved
Federalist-Jeffersonian transition in
1800 legitimated the role of the
opposition party; liberty and political
change can coexist
Absence of an official
religion encouraged
religious pluralism
and ultimate political
pluralism.
Religion and Politics
Religious movements transformed
American politics and fueled the break with
England.
Both liberals and conservatives use the
pulpit to promote political change.
Bush, Gore and public support for faith
based approaches to social ills
Dominance of
Protestantism promoted a
participant culture Protestant Ethic and
Puritan heritage
emphasized the following:
A. Work
B. Save money
C. Obey secular law
D. Do good works
Child-rearing practices
stressing equality
among family members
and freedom for child
producing similar
political values.
Family instills the ways we think
about world and politics
– Great freedom of children
– Equality among family
members
– Rights accorded each
person
– Varied interests considered
Culture war about what kind of
country we ought to live in
Two camps:
– Orthodox: morality, with rules
from God, more important than
self-expression
– Progressive: personal freedom,
with rules based on circumstances,
more important than tradition
Culture War
Orthodox associated with
fundamentalist Protestants
Progressives with mainline
Protestants (Congregationalists,
Unitarian, Episcopal – churches
around at the time of the
Revloution) and those with no
strong religious beliefs
Political Efficacy
The sense that citizens
have the capacity to
understand and influence
political events.
External Efficacy
The belief that the
political system will
respond to citizens.
Internal Efficacy
Confidence in one’s
ability to understand
and take part in
political affairs.
Mistrust of government
– What the polls say
Since the 1950s, a steady
decline in percentage who say
they trust the government in
Washington
Increase in percentage who
think public officials do not care
about what we think
Figure 4.1: Trust in the Federal
Government, 1958-1998
Source: University of Michigan, The National Election Studies (September 1999), table 5A. 1.
Gallup 2003
Figure 4.4: Views of Toleration and Morality
Source: The
American
Enterprise
(January/February
1999): 37, reporting
data from Roper,
Washington Post,
Harvard, and Kaiser
Family Foundation
polls.
Figure 4.5: Changes in Levels of
Political Tolerance, 1930-1999
Source: Gallup poll data, various years, as compiled by Professor John Zaller, Department of Political Science, UCLA; The Gallup Organization, Poll Releases
(March 29, 1999), 2-6.
Political tolerance
–
Crucial to democratic politics
–
Levels of American political
tolerance
Citizens must be reasonably
tolerant
But not necessarily perfectly
tolerant
Most Americans assent in abstract
But would deny rights in concrete
cases
Self-Test
For more information about this
topic, link to the Metropolitan
Community College Political
Science Web Site
http://socsci.mccneb.edu/pos/polsc
main.htm