Culture and Politics: A Comparative Approach

A Comparative Approach

Lane Jan-Erik, Svante O. Ersson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351737029
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política comparada

This title was first published in 2002: Examining problems that have caused much debate within political science, this book seeks to identify a proper place for the analysis of culture and values within political science. It goes on to explore the impact of globalization upon society.

Part I
Culture and Outcomes

Introduction

Our book is an inquiry into cultural identity and its political and social consequences. When people orientate in terms of a culture, then they may identify with an ethnic group, or they may search for a religious identity and adhere to a world religion or some subsection of such a civilization, or they may adopt universal values that could be present in any nation or within any religion – this is our starting point. Since the fall of communism, the search for belief systems and values has taken on a distinctly cultural tone. Which cultures, then, are relevant for people to adhere to at the beginning of the twenty-first century, when the traditional political ideologies give less and less guidance? And how important are these forms of cultural identity for political affairs?

People search for identity by means of group membership not only with political parties expressing the political ideologies from the Right to the Left, but also increasingly with communities. Communal identities result in ethnic groups, nations, religious sects or world religions when people act on the basis of joining these groups. Other types of community include, for example, new social movements as well as gays, lesbians, environmentalists and vegetarians.

The strong increase in the relevance of communities, together with migration, has created multi-cultural societies almost everywhere. As we enter the twenty-first century it seems as if communities could become just as important as associations, using Ferdinand Tönnies’ 1887 classical distinction between culture-based and interest-based groups. Different communities along ethnic and religious lines now exist in most countries, which – we hypothesize – changes the nature of politics. Communal politics is becoming legitimate in rich and poor countries, as communities are increasingly recognized as valid groups.

Culture has always had a connection with civilization. While it is claimed by some that we are heading for a clash of civilizations carried out by a few powerful nations (Huntington, 1996), many others still speak of the peaceful global marketplace with universal cultural attitudes fostered by immigration and the bringing down of borders, national as well as civilizational. Civilization is the broader cultural concept linked especially to the world religions, whereas nation is the more narrow cultural concept. Thus, a civilization could comprise several nations, which in turn could consist of various ethnic groups. In the period of globalization civilizations confront each other, but they need not remain hostile to each other.

The aim of the two chapters making up Part I is to discuss various concepts relating to cultures and outcomes. Here we have a new field in political science in which research is growing at a rapid pace. This makes it an urgent necessity to discuss, and hopefully clarify, key concepts in order to avoid confusion when the basic ideas about cultural effects are put to the necessary empirical tests.

1
‘Culture’ and the Concepts of Culture

Introduction

The study of culture and cultural variations around the world attracted the interest of the social sciences, as well as anthropology and history, throughout the twentieth century. Only economics has not displayed a major interest in culture, due to its firm adherence to the self-interest axiom of neoclassical economics (Blaug, 1992). Self-interest or egoism is a general and universal motivation among men and women. Cultural identities, on the other hand, vary. But, what is culture, if it is everything that is not materialism or egoism? Consider the following three definitions from major scholars in this field of inquiry:

Culture is an integral composed of partly autonomous, partly coordinated institutions. It is integrated on a series of principles such as the community of blood through procreation; the specialisation in activities; and last but not least, the use of power in political organisation. Each culture owes its completeness and self-sufficiency to the fact that it satisfies the whole range of basic, instrumental and integrative needs. (Malinowski, 1969, p. 40)

[Culture] denotes an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes towards life. (Geertz, 1973, p. 89)

Political culture is thus the manifestation in aggregate form of the psychological and subjective dimensions of politics. A political culture is the product of both the collective history of a political system and the life histories of the members of that system, and thus it is rooted equally in public events and private experiences. (Pye, 1968, p. 218)

From these three authorities on culture we immediately get a first impression of the immense variety of connotations connected with the term ‘culture’. Malinowski relates culture in general to institutions, whereas Geertz links it with symbols. With Pye we have the idea of a special kind of culture – namely, political culture – which comes in addition to general cultures or the cultures of societies.

The more one reflects upon the concepts of culture, the more one realizes that it is a most debated and complex conception. The meaning (connotation) and reference (denotation) of ‘culture’ are not only essentially contested among scholars, but they also cover a number of factors, which makes it a complicated concept. Before one sets out to carry out empirical research on the occurrence of cultures, one needs to take a stand on some difficult methodological issues concerning the concept of culture. In the conception of cultural identity, there is, besides the difficult notion of culture, also the idea of identity. When cultures or cultural factors create the identity of people – their raison d’etre – then how strongly is this identity creating elements with regard to their personality? The concept of identity or sameness has provoked much philosophical debate and controversy.

Thus, if culture is a problematic concept, then the same applies to the conception of cultural identity. When people today search for personal identity, do they resort to cultural identity as national or ethnic identity, religious identity or identity in the form of universal values? How cultural identities – communal or universal values – occur is a question for empirical research, which has become highly relevant as the traditional political ideologies seem to offer less and less to ordinary people in terms of an identification mechanism.

Below we approach a few key concepts or definitions in cultural theory by means of the classical semantic distinction between connotation (characteristics) and denotation (reference or the set of real objects). In particular, we aim to go beyond the many and often confusing connotations rendered in order to find the denotation – if, indeed, there is only one. Before we inquire into how cultures vary, we must pin down this elusive concept of culture, or at least become aware of its many different guises.

The Early Meanings of Culture

The history of the usage of a term is often illuminating for an analysis of its present semantics. While it is true that key social science terms change their meanings along with theoretical developments (Sartori, 1984), finding the origin of concepts does allow a certain perspective on the use of the word in question.

The word ‘culture’ is an English version of the German word Kultur, which in turn derives from the Latin word cultura, from the verb colere, meaning to cultivate. To cultivate something is to handle it or work upon it in such a way that something valuable results. Thus, ‘culture’ stands for something that has been worked upon, as in agriculture or horticulture. One can immediately see that the word ‘culture’ and its synonyms in other languages was connected very early on with the term ‘civilization’ and its synonyms, both meaning attainments by people in the form of positive results or true accomplishments.

The term ‘culture’ entered into English usage with the publication of E.B. Tylor’s text Primitive Culture in 1871. The following definition was given in this classic text:

Culture, or civilisation … is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. (Tylor, 1871, p. 1; cited in Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1963, p. 81)

If ‘culture’ denotes all the capabilities and habits of men and women, then ‘culture’ becomes almost synonymous with ‘civilization’. Also ‘civilization’ has a Latin background, originating in the word civis denoting a citizen – that is a civilized person. Thus, having a culture and being civilized was basically the same thing.

The principal German source of inspiration for studies into the culture and civilization of mankind was G.E. Klemm’s work, Allgemeine Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit, completed in ten volumes in 1852. Some scholars attempted to distinguish between the two concepts of culture and civilization, but with little success. Examining the development of these concepts, Kroeber and Kluckhohn state:

‘Culture’ is said to be a particular state or stage of advancement in civilization. ‘Civilization’ is called an advancement or a state of social culture. In both popular and literary E...