Political Cultures in Asia and Europe

Citizens, States and Societal Values

Jean Blondel, Takashi Inoguchi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134138845
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book is a study of the attitudes to political and social life among the citizens of eighteen countries in Western Europe, East and Southeast Asia. Drawing on data from the largest cross-national survey on political culture for the last half a century, this book assesses how political culture differs across the two regions and whether this can be drawn back to a profound difference in basic societal values, or 'Asian values'. Examining geographical, religious and socio-economic factors, the authors discuss whether there genuinely is a common political value in the two regions or a profound difference as these countries move towards modernity.

This original and comprehensive study of the values, norms and beliefs held by citizens of the East and West will appeal to students and scholars of political culture and comparative politics, as well as Asian and European politics.

1 Introduction

This is a study of the political culture of citizens in eighteen countries of Western Europe and East and Southeast Asia; it is based on the answers to surveys undertaken at the end of 2000 in both areas with an identical questionnaire. Another volume is inquiring about the extent to which the citizens of the two regions react to the state (forthcoming), while a third examined how far these citizens were aware of and, if so, felt affected positively or negatively by the processes which have come under the general label of globalisation (forthcoming). The present volume aims at delving more deeply into the political culture itself. It is designed to elicit how far the political culture, at the level of the citizens, differs across two regions of the globe and within these regions in terms of basic attitudes to politics and society. The key question with respect to this objective can be summarised in the following way: is there convergence of citizens’ values across the world and in particular in the regions which have moved towards what used to be called ‘modernity’ and may be labelled, according to some, ‘post-modernity’?¹

This work follows the example of the pioneering study of Gabriel Almond and Sydney Verba, The Civic Culture. That study, which was published in 1963, opened a line of systematic empirical inquiry into the social and political universe of the ‘common man’. It did so by using the survey method, not just in the context of the electoral process, as had primarily been the case up to then, but in order to discover broader sets of attitudes and of judgements of populations about politics and society. It did so also by undertaking the analysis with the help of techniques which made it possible to go beyond impressionistic statements backed by little evidence.

The socio-political values of citizens: The Civic Culture and beyond

Naturally enough, as Verba stated in The Civic Culture Revisited, edited by Almond and Verba and published in 1990, ‘the concerns expressed in The Civic Culture were products of their times. This, as I have pointed out, was reflected in the use of survey techniques and the focus on democratic stability’ (1990, 408). However, The Civic Culture provides lessons which go beyond ‘the concerns of the times’ as these can guide efforts made, half a century later, to understand political culture in a truly general manner. The profound intellectual contribution of The Civic Culture results from the fact that the work develops an approach which places the political attitudes of citizens within a framework which is neither time- nor spacebound. First, the model is not time-bound because it propounds a tripartite distinction into parochial, subject and participant culture (as well as mixed types), these types being regarded as covering variations among all states. Admittedly, the distinction emerged in the context of ‘modernisation theory’: it is based on the notion that the ‘participation state’ ‘should’ characterise all nations. However, it does not consider such a move as ‘inevitable’. In the very first paragraph of the volume, the authors note that there are ‘serious doubts about the inevitability of democracy in the West’ (1963, 3), let alone elsewhere. Indeed, as far as the ‘new nations’ are concerned, there are two major worries. One is that the ‘participation explosion’ can take two forms, totalitarian and democratic; the other is that there are special ‘difficulties among the new nations [with respect to] the objective problems confronting these nations’ (1963, 6). While the authors clearly hope that democracy in the Western sense will prevail, they propose a model which, precisely because of the doubts they have about the future, has to be independent from the question of the success or otherwise of democracy. Thus the model does not postulate that there will necessarily be a move from one of the types to the other. Moreover, and this is the second fundamental contribution of The Civic Culture, the work does not postulate either that the four Western countries to which it is devoted together with Mexico, albeit located in a common geographical universe, have to be part of a common culture. The Civic Culture does not imply that there will be ‘convergence’; nor is it based on the notion of the search for ‘geographical clusters’: in this it differs sharply from studies which followed it, in particular on ‘modernisation’ and ‘post-modernisation’, but not only on these.

The model which is proposed in this study differs markedly from the model put forward in The Civic Culture, however. It does so in three ways. It differs, first, in that it aims at examining the extent to which what are widely regarded as two distinct cultures are indeed truly distinct. It differs, second, in that, contrary to what the authors of The Civic Culture state about their work, this study is concerned with ‘orientation to the substance of political demands and outputs’ (1963, 29): it seems impossible to do justice to the presence or absence of a fundamental distinction between two cultures without entering the field of the substance of political culture, even if in a broad manner. This study differs, third, in that the focus is not, as in The Civic Culture, on ‘democratic stability’, and thus not on the nature of support for the political system, but on the extent of this support. This has to be the case, since this study covers two regions, one of which is composed of states, the great majority of which have been highly authoritarian up to the last decades of the twentieth century and some of which were indeed still at least semi-authoritarian at the beginning of the twenty-first.

Yet, The Civic Culture did provide the key lesson that the main effort had to be the search for fundamental distinctions, without constraining these distinctions in terms of time – that is to say without postulating that there was to be ‘convergence’ – or in terms of space – that is to say without postulating that there was to be a search for ‘geographical contiguity’. The Civic Culture provided another basis, and in this it has been followed by subsequent studies of political culture. That basis is that the state was to be the unit of analysis of the political culture of citizens. The case for such a unit of analysis was not argued in The Civic Culture: it was presumably assumed that it went without saying. After much questioning has taken place about the role of the state and in a different century, this assumption needs to be examined; one must reflect as to whether the state should continue to be the basis of the study.

This chapter examines therefore the components of the model which is adopted here and have just been outlined. These are, first, that ‘convergence’ over time cannot be assumed and therefore that it is more prudent to adopt a framework which is not based on time as a factor of ‘development’. Second, geographical contiguity cannot be assumed either, that is to say that the culture of citizens who live in neigbouring states cannot be regarded as being axiomatically broadly similar. Third, the state remains the unit of analysis because it continues to be, by and large, even in the twenty-first century, the channel through which political culture is passed on to citizens. Fourth, political culture includes two distinct types of attitudes, both of which have to be explored. They are the attitudes which concern the values held by citizens about the ‘good society’ and those which relate to the support of citizens for the state. While this volume deals with the first aspect, another volume is concerned with the character of the support of citizens for the state.

Why it is not prudent to assume either that the political culture of citizens will become uniform across political systems or that differences in political culture across regions are fundamental

The key difficulty with the analysis of the political culture of citizens stems from the fact that we have barely any means, so far at least, of monitoring the dynamics of the process. We do have evidence of the dynamics of the process of economic change and of those aspects of social change which are ‘objective’, for instance in relation to health, welfare or education – though, even in the latter case, conclusions about literacy achievements are subject to substantial debates. We do not know, on the other hand, except to a very limited and indeed controversial extent, about changes in citizens’ values. Indeed, we do not even know well what these values are, at least for most parts of the world, let alone what they were and are becoming. All that is said about dynamics in this field is therefore in the realm of speculation.

Modernisation, post-modernisation and ‘convergence’

There has naturally been much speculation, however, and this speculation falls under three categories. One of these – and such a view is typically labelled ‘modernisation theory’ – consists in assuming a close relationship between economic, social and political change: when there is economic change, social and political change follows. There is therefore a further assumption, namely that, somehow, economic change precedes and ‘explains’ social and political change. That ‘theory’ leads to the notion of ‘convergence’: since industrialisation began, a process started to take place which led all countries to move in the same direction. Not all countries are at the same point on the road towards that goal, naturally, but all are going along it. The idea of convergence is therefore the cornerstone of the edifice of ‘modernisation theory’.

This question is particularly relevant to the present study for, if the theory of convergence is to be valid, it has to apply to East and Southeast Asia, given the extremely rapid development of that region in the last decades of the twentieth century. Western Europe and East and Southeast Asia are the two regions which have come to be the most economically and indeed socially ‘developed’ areas of the globe together with North America: many of the problems which East and Southeast Asia faces are therefore likely to be of the same character as the problems which are faced by Western countries: the matter had to be explored. While a genuinely worldwide study of political cultures poses very difficult problems of analysis and even of interpretation,² it seemed possible and it was truly imperative to undertake an in-depth and geographically representative comparative examination of the political culture of the two regions which are most similar in their economic achievements, in order to discover whether they were different in other ways. If there was to be a way of exploring the validity of the convergence idea, a matter which, as we shall see, is in serious doubt, this had to be by examining in parallel the cultural characteristics of Western countries and of East and Southeast Asian countries.

Although ‘modernisation theory’ was attacked on a variety of grounds and it did suffer a decline from the late 1960s, it was never abandoned altogether. It was even somewhat revived in the last decades of the twentieth century, partly as a result of the fall of communism and partly as a result of the other ‘waves’ of democratisation which characterised the period, as these events seemed to manifest the existence of a close link between economic and political change. This link had indeed been suggested by Lipset and others from the early 1960s, the most sophisticated of these analyses having been those conducted by Vanhanen since the 1980s (Lipset, 1960, new edn 1983; Vanhanen, 1997, 2003).

Meanwhile, ‘modernisation theory’ itself underwent a change as a result of the studies of Inglehart, who suggested, first in his 1977 volume which was devoted to Western Europe and subsequently, on a wider front, in his 1997 volume, that societies were moving towards ‘post-modernisation’ (Inglehart, 1977, 1990, 1997; Inglehart and Baker, 2000). Inglehart stated categorically that ‘post-modernisation’ was part of ‘modernisation theory’. He also suggested that there was some evidence that the political culture of citizens did change from a ‘modernisation’ to a ‘post-modernisation’ set of attitudes, but on the basis of data which related to Western countries only (Inglehart, 1977, 53).³

He thus claims at the opening of the 1997 volume:

Economic, cultural, and political change go together in coherent patterns that are changing the world in predictable ways.

This has been the central claim of Modernisation theory, from Karl Marx to Max Weber and Daniel Bell. The claim has given rise to heated debate during the last two centuries. This book presents evidence that this claim is largely correct.

(ibid., 7)

Inglehart’s 1977 study was based on Western European countries only; that of 1997 was based on 40 countries from around the world, but the sample was fundamentally biassed: Western states constituted about half the total of the forty countries, while a further quarter was made up of Eastern European countries, with the result that the number of Latin American cases is small (four) and that of East and Southeast Asian cases tiny (Korea and Japan, with China being included, somewhat surprisingly). Yet, despite the fact that this evidence is biassed geographically and does not provide any dynamics, except to a limited extent for Western Europe, Inglehart proceeds to express in the strongest manner the view that there is ‘convergence’ while correspondingly asserting that political culture is in some sense the consequence of economic change.

Although frequently stereotyped as having authoritarian cultures, China, Japan, and South Korea all emerge near the pole that emphasises thrift rather than obedience. The three East Asian societies in this survey rank highest on Achievement Motivation . . . . The scale reflects the balance between two types of values: one type of values – emphasising thrift and determination – supports economic achievement, while the other – emphasising obedience and religious faith – tends to discourage it, stressing conformity to traditional authority and norms. These two types of values are not necessarily incompatible: some societies rank high on both, while others rank relatively low on both. But the relatively (sic) priority accorded to these two types of values is strongly related to a society’s growth rate.

(ibid., 221–2)

He adds:

Brilliant and instructive books have been written about the ways in which given societies differ from others. This book focuses on the general themes underlying the cross-national pattern, not because we are uninterested in the unique aspects of given societies – few things are more fascinating – but because the common themes are also interesting, and because any book that undertakes to deal with more than 40 societies almost inevitably must focus on what is common, rather than on what is unique. The evidence examined here indicates that common underlying themes do exist: it suggests that roughly half of the crossnational variance in these values and attitudes can be accounted for by the processes of Modernisation and Postmodernisation, while the remaining half of the variation reflects factors that are more or less nation-specific.

(Inglehart, 1997, 84, italics in the text)

One should note in this respect that if ‘roughly half of the cross-national variance in these values and attitudes can be accounted for by the processes of Modernisation and Postmodernisation’, ‘roughly half of the crossnational variance in these values and attitudes’ cannot be accounted for by these processes. It therefore is not prudent to assume such dependency of political culture on economic change and to assume convergence among citizens’ values before being even clear as to what these values are across the world.

Political culture as accounting for economic and social change

The view that there might be ‘convergence’ about political culture across the world is thus speculative: it is perhaps not surprising that it should be rejected by many, in particular by those who feel that it has a pro-Western bias, the West being expected to lead the path towards modernisation and post-modernisation. This is the second form, equally speculative, which has thus been put forward. It consists in claiming that political culture is the engine of development including economic and social development. Whether such a view also means that there will or not be convergence is not clear; the main purpose is not to consider what the future might hold but to claim that the political culture of regions other than the West, in this case East and Southeast Asia, is ‘better’ for economic and social change, and for society in general than the political culture of the West. This view was adopted in its most extreme form by some academics and politicians of East and Southeast Asia who suggested that ‘Asian values’ were indeed what made the region so dynamic economically. It was claimed in particular that the socio-political relationships prevailing among East and Southeast Asian populations were based on a more ‘collective’ or ‘communitarian’ view of society, in contrast with the equally widely believed notion that Western citizens display greater ‘individualism’⁴: this was the reason, according to those who held this view, why East and Southeast Asia had been so successful. The same kind of approach was also adopted, albeit in a somewhat ‘softer’ manner and in the context of business only, by a variety of scholars and commentators from both East and West who pointed to the superiority of the Japanese model of industrial management over the Western one.

While, at any rate for some decades, it was clear that economic change was more rapid in East and Southeast Asia than in the West, the link between this performance and the values of citizens was not proven. Broad studies of the values of citizens at large were not undertaken in that part of the world; there were a number of empirical studies of the values of managers and of key employees of firms from the late 1970s onwards, admittedly, and these began to cover areas outside the West: but they did not – and could not – demonstrate that the economic performance of firms and of the economy in general in East and Southeast Asia was due to the political culture of these managers and key employees.

Political culture as distinct from economic and social change

If both the claims that economic and social change leads to ‘convergence’ and that the values of citizens account for economic and social change are purely speculative, it is understandable that a third, somewhat intermediate line should have been taken, namely that political culture is scarcely affected by economic and social change. This view has been expressed most emphatically by Pye, who both agrees with the ‘convergence’ aspects of economic development and rejects the notion that political culture will ever be uniform.

The degree to which cultures converge during the process of modernisation is significant since they are all participating in the spread of a world culture based on advanced technology. Yet political cultures will always have a strongly parochial dimension because every political system is anchored in its distinctive history, and the central political values of loyalty and patriotism and the phenomenon of national identity mean that differences are certain to persist, and possibly even to increase with modernization.

(Pye, 1985, 342)

The author then goes on to find evidence in the fact that Western European countries, while including ‘ “modern” societies composed of “modern” people’ have ‘profoundly different’ political cultures (ibid.).

Such a view is seemingly more realistic in that no great claims are being made, indeed quite the contrary; yet it is as speculative as the other two. It seems even difficult to hold it literally as it is too ‘modest’. It is hard to believe that there is no relationship whatsoever between the political culture of citizens and ‘objective’ social and economic change. It seems more probable the case that some relationship exists, but that it is reciprocal and that it is subjected to lags of an indeterminate character. In the last resort, the demonstrat...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Figures
• Tables
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The nature and content of the notion of ‘Asian values’
• 3 How opposed are ‘basic societal values’ in the two regions?
• 4 A common political culture in Western Europe?
• 5 A common political culture in East and Southeast Asia?
• 6 Political culture at the level of individual states
• 7 Conclusion
• Appendix I
• Appendix II
• Appendix III
• Notes
• Bibliography