Political culture and social capital Flashcards
Almond and Verba 1963
‘Civic culture emerged as a mode of “economic” and humane culture change’, seeking the slow course and mediating modernist and traditionalist elements. It is based on communication and persuasion, a culture of consensus and diversity, and the principle of allowing change but moderating it.
It is primarily allegiant (positive orientations to input structures and processes)- this makes it congruent with a democratic regime.
Scope: surveys in Germany, Italy, Mexico, UK, and the US.
Modern participatory state, resulting from Western ideals of democracy, enlightenment rationality and liberty, econ modernisation and national unification (thus requiring an efficient bureaucracy). Hinges on the idea that the ordinary man is politically relevant. The participatory state can either be democratic or totalitarian.
Civic culture involves how elites and citizens make decisions and their norms and attitudes- this is subtler and more diffuse than the ideas of democracy itself.
The UK already had the civic culture in place among elites, so that it was in place when the working class were enfranchised. They then needed to use trial and error to phrase their demands within this culture.
The US developed the culture more rapidly, as many of the necessary battles had been won by its founding (e.g. traditional institutions had already been broken down). The other three countries have the civic culture more infrequently.
Three types of orientation: Cognitive, affective, and evaluational. Three types of object: institutions, incumbents, and particular policies
Most political cultures are heterogeneous. Moreover, elites are often recruited from subcultures and may be inculcated with different values, skills, loyalties etc. through the recruitment process.
Education, high socioeconomic status are both key drivers of having the civic culture. Education teaches people relevant skills, places people in social situations where they meet others who reinforce its effect, and therefore increase political engagement.
Claassen 2019
Public support helps democracy survive. But it doesn’t drive D. in autocracies.
Scope: 135 countries over 29 years
Evidence: a shock to the level of support for D. will cause a continuing increase in the level of D..
Controls for causal direction issues by using lagged controls for support for D. and level of D..
No comment on mechanisms- it may be that lack of support allows populist and undemocratic leaders to emerge, or that strong public support means that when such leaders do emerge an outraged public engages in collective action
Dahlum and Knutsen 2017
No significant effect of ‘liberal or freedom-orientated’ values (which takes into the self-expression values that seek individual choice and freedom that were a central part of Dalton and Welzel’s argument) on democratisation
They control for previous levels of democratisation (in most models) and the effect of having a strong democratic tradition
[CA’s:
- Bad operationalisation of democracy. They use freedom-House and Effective Democracy indices, both of which are highly substantive and answer a different question to the one Claassen and Muller and Seligson ask. They are in effect investigating the effect of having liberal values in the population on whether those liberal values will be reflected in the political system
- Bad operationalisation of political culture. The indicators they use for self-expression values include such things as generalised trust (which is more indicative of social capital than political culture), willingness to sign a petition (which would be fairly unlikely in an autocracy anyway), and feelings of happiness. They do not evaluate the effect of support for democracy or adherence to the pluralistic ideas mentioned above in their analysis, and so can’t really be said to be investigating the effect of ‘political culture’ as here understood
- Reliance on imputed values and poor controls. They very much depend on using imputed values for their argument to work- the coefficients associated with self-expression values drop significantly and stop being statistically significant when imputed countries are added. When they add these values to their analysis they stop controlling for the previous level of (FHI) democracy, which may be because the imputed countries included previously autocratic countries for which data could not have been collected
Muller and Seligson 1994
Public support helps D. survive, but inequality has a much larger effect on democratisation than support for democratic institutions- inequality impedes D..
Issues: small sample size (all countries in the sample are now advanced D.’s), improper time lagging (see below), poorer culture operationalisation (they just use support for gradual reform)
they fail to control for past support for democracy as well as present support (which is important to avoid endogeneity issues arising from the long-term positive effect of democratisation on indicators of support for democracy and interpersonal trust),
they don’t differentiate democracies’ prospects for further democratisation from autocracies’, as Claasen does
But inequality seemed to be a huge effect, and suggests that elites’ actions matter. Proposed mechanisms: high levels of income inequality are likely to produce either a high level of rebellious political conflict or elite’s perception that such is likely, and so encourage coup d’etats and crackdowns to quell mass rebellion and preserve elite privilege in the face of calls for greater democratisation
Reinforced by Higley and Burton 1989 and Gibson 1988, that elite consensus and elite non-intolerance matters for D.. Elite support may partly be what matters for D..
Reher 2014
Priority congruence and satisfaction with democracy
Thesis: citizens are more satisfied with democracy if elites share their concerns, and the effect increases with democratic experience.
This isn’t just policy congruence but priority congruence- whether elites are talking about one’s interests.
Age of democracy and quality of democracy increase the effect.
Citizens in less democratic countries are likely to place more weight on basic aspects of democracy when evaluating it,
CA: only looks at Europe
Norris 2011
Democratic deficit: critical citizens revisited
Challenges the claim that most established D.’s have experienced a steadily rising tide of public disaffection. ‘Public support for the political system has not eroded consistently across a wide range of countries around the world – including in established democracies. Nationalism maintains identification with the nation-state, confidence in government does not decline uniformly, and popular support for authorities fluctuates among states.
But satisfaction with performance has diverged from public aspirations, due to growing expectations, negative news, and/or poor govt performance.
Democratic deficit determined by demand (rising public aspirations for democracy), information (negative news about government) and supply (the performance and structure of democratic regimes).
Consequences of the deficit: for political activism (positively), compliance with govt (positive effect of aspirations), and democratisation (positively).
Democratic aspirations (and so the support for a democratic system of government) were found to be significantly correlated with both political engagement and activism and different forms of obedience to the law (i.e. opposition to cheating on taxes or government benefits)
The shortfall of democratic structures to meet the expectations that citizens had for them in terms of performance (i.e. the ‘democratic deficit’) was shown to engender those forms of peaceful protest and engagement that were just argued to be important for the health of the democratic process.
CA: analysis of effects on level of democracy doesn’t control for past level of democracy
Dalton and Welzel 2014
The civic culture transformed
Almond and Verba’s thesis underplayed the coincidence of an allegiant outlook with an ‘assertive’ desire to hold elites to account and engage actively and personally in political activism
Critical citizenship occurred post-60s and includes post-materialist and self-expressive values (i.e. a commitment to democratic ideas such as citizen participation, freedom of expression, and the elites’ obligation to be responsive to public demands)
CA: they focus on non-violent rather than lawful protest, in such a way as to frame the allegiant and assertive models of citizenship as in tension- this does not appear to be necessary in normal political circumstances. In circumstances of a well-functioning liberal democracy in which representatives are responsive enough to the preferences of the populace, the allegiant model as Almond and Verba present it is very much capable of including a large and effective degree of lawful protest and criticism (e.g. lawful demonstrations, boycotts, and petitions/other forms of lobbying).
In extreme cases critical citizens can halt a country’s growth, e.g. Gilets Jaunes. More empirical analysis needed.
CA: Dalton and Welzel’s own empirical analysis of the effects of each model on accountable and effective governance seems to be flawed insofar as they don’t control for the state of the economy in any models which also include lagged controls for accountable and effective governance- so the proposition that such has an effect on accountable effective governance is dubious.
CA from Dahlum and Knutsen 2017, but unsuccessful
Dalton (Citizen politics- 2020)
Easton: political support applies to three types of objects: political authorities, the regime (institutions of govt, e.g. the office of the presidency, and procedures, e.g. pluralist democracy), and the political community. Dissatisfaction w authorities doesn’t really matter, with the regime has more consequences. With the community can lead to eventual rev, civil war, or illegitimacy.
Diffuse support: a state of mind, or deeply ingrained set of attitudes. specific support: more closely related to the actions of the object. Diffuse support is needed to weather periods of public disaffection (e.g. Weimar post-WW1)
Long term decline in confidence in authorities in the US, UK, France, Germany (70% in 70s, 20% today thought that US officials care what people think). Even though govts were making real advances in addressing their constituents’ needs. This points to raised expectations, a more critical media, political scandals, postmaterialism (leads to dissatisfaction with institutions and incumbents but support for D.).
Support for democratic regime type is near-universal, and support for liberal and democratic values (minority rights) has increased, though.
Dissatisfaction leading to a decline in turnout. People are more likely to think: what have you done for me lately?
Besley and Persson 2016
Political cultures will become more supportive of democracy when protest succeeds, as children of parents who differ in their support for democracy are likely to adopt the ideology of the parent who is happier, and democracy-supporting parents will be happier when protests succeed.
Citrin and Stoker 2018
Review (causes of long term decline in trust)
mistrust vs distrust.
Components that predict trust:
Persona: political trust has a genetic component, is interrelated with social trust, and may or may not be affected by socialisation
Policy dissatisfaction: trust falls when parties move away from the electorate (e.g. by polarising)
Performance: poor economic performance and other govt failures decrease trust. External threats such as pandemics increase trust as people turn to govt for succour.
Partisanship and polarisation: polarisation in congress amplifies conflict, name-calling, and a failure to give credit while credit is due, while encouraging gridlock and brinkmanship.
Process and probity: Scandals and exposed corruption reduce trust
Press: inconsistent findings here. alleged increase in negative campaign ads, focus on strategy and polling, reduced civility in the news coverage, focus on soft rather than hard news, and more coverage of polarisation. All of these have allegedly reduced trust (but some inconsistent findings e.g. on whether negative ads reduce trust)
Bloom and Arikan 2012
Religion and support for democracy
Thesis: The private aspect of religious belief is associated with traditional and survival values, which in turn decrease both overt and intrinsic support for democracy. The communal aspect of religious social behaviour increases political interest and trust in institutions, which in turn typically lead to more support for democracy.
belief, behaviour, and belonging.
Distinction should be made between overt support for democratic institutions and intrinsic support for democratic values- the former might be a more volatile attitude as support for democracy may be rooted in the thought that democracy would instrumentally provide material benefit. Overt is a necessary but insufficient condition for the thriving of a democratic culture and the legitimacy of democratic regimes.
It should be noted that trust in institutions is often actually negatively associated with support for democratic principles and values, as citizens of consolidated democracies might be more critical towards the functioning of institutions.
Fukayama 2014
Thesis: low trust equilibrium in Italy, whereby a lack of trust gives rise to the mafia (so private enforcement is needed) which in turn prevents good institutions from performing and lowers trust.
Disparity in govt quality between northern and southern Italy- this isn’t due to development (the disparity existed even when the North was poorer, and when resources were transferred to the south).
CAs to Putnam who put it down to social capital differences- dating from the Middle Ages, self-governing city states vs Norman Kings. Clientelism didn’t arise in other countries that had Norman kings, and the Kings didn’t have all that much power to control citizens lives.
We should look to post-unification, when Garibaldi allowed local oligarchs in the south to have patronage and freedom in local administration in exchange for political support. Clientelism emerged, and officials looked after their own supporters specifically. Result: middle class wasn’t incentivised to become entrepreneurs (thus driving modernisation), but to buy land and join the oligarchy. The peasantry was squeezed with no middle class to ally with.
The mafia arose post-1860, due to the state failing to enforce property rights and the rule of law. protection rackets can easily become exploitative- they become competitive and they evolve into other rackets like prostitution and drug trafficking.
Democracy reemerged post-fascism, and parties used clientelistic methods again to gain votes. This was reinforced by the economic policies, where the South had ‘modernisation without development’.
Trust is itself something neutral- it is a character trait that is only beneficial when other citizens are socially responsible. In high trust societies, abusing another’s trust leads quickly to ostracism- and thus many transaction costs are saved (e.g. thick contracts, litigation, police enforcement, leaving someone at home at all times). In low-trust societies businesses often don’t form, neighbours don’t help each other, the law isn’t followed, etc..
Schwadel and Stout 2012
Trends in social capital: age, period, and cohort effects
Thesis: a complex pattern in social capital over time, and not the systematic decline across cohorts suggested by Putnam. Nonetheless still some worrying trends for social capital theorists
- ‘First, the findings confirm that trust, but not formal or informal association, has declined, both across cohorts and across periods.’
- ‘Second, the low [high?] levels of trust among cohorts born before the pre-boom generation, and the low levels of trust observed in subsequent cohorts, suggest that the generation that matured in the years leading up to, during and shortly after World War II is unique in its ability to promote social capital.’
- ‘Third, though we have relatively little data on “millennials,” the results support recent research that suggests that Americans born since 1980 do not exhibit the same decline in social capital as do previous birth cohorts’
Paxton 1999
Is social capital declining in the US?
Finding: The results do not consistently support Putnam’s claim of a decline in social capital, showing instead some decline in a general measure of social capital, a decline in trust in individuals, no general decline in trust in institutions, and no decline in associations.
Note: old era study
Paper suggests declining trust in individuals and institutions- negative trend. But no general trend in trust in institutions once particular scandals are controlled for.
But no significant relationship between year and associational membership
Li et. al. 2018
Social trust in Britain
Findings:
- ‘No sign that social trust in Britain is in decline
- ‘Doing things ‘with’ people engenders trust. Participation in social activities is linked to trust, but this is less the case for political activities and voluntary work.
- Those with the highest level of education (degree or another higher education qualification) have levels of trust around 20 percentage points higher than those with qualifications that are lower than GCSE or who have no qualifications.
- Social class also is very significant
Strategic trust/bonding social capital vs moralistic trust/trust in strangers/linking social capital. The former depends on a common sense of identity, the latter is more stable and grounded in an optimistic disposition and firm sense of control.
Effect of education could be because education empowers people to be secure and so optimistic in their worldview. But it may also be possible that it provides social opportunities that promote trust.
Those in higher classes are 20% more likely to have participated in social and civic groups, but not for political groups. Education also promotes all three.
Older people are less likely to be involved in such groups, likely due to limiting age problems.
Black people have lower levels of trust, perhaps due to socio-economic setbacks, such as higher unemployment and greater discrimination.
