Michael Schudson
Department of Communciation
MCC 2l0
mschudson@ucsd.edu

This seminar explores the concept of "political culture" and seeks to assess its value in explaining political outcomes. The notion of political culture bridges disciplines. It is most regularly addressed in political science, but there it is often treated as a residual aspect of analysis, what you turn to when none of the variables you normally work with explain the phenomena you want to understand. Advocates of political culture analysis in political science draw their inspiration from and intellectual resources from outside their field -- from anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, history, and media studies. In communication studies, "political culture" has not been a central topic; it is typically either reduced to political communication (itself then reduced to electoral campaign messages) or it is discussed in global terms as "culture" or "ideology" without any specific reference to or knowledge of conventional political and social institutions. Are there ways that the notion of political culture can be retrieved and developed for the study of politics, communication, and culture? That is the question this seminar is designed to provoke.

Texts for Purchase:

Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work (Princeton, l993)

Michael Schudson, The Good Citizen (Free Press, l998)

Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, eds., The Civic Culture Revisited (Sage, l989)

Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies (Princeton, l977)

Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen (Stanford, l976)

Richard Madsen, Morality and Power in a Chinese Village (California, l984)

Softreserve Packet

I. What Is Political Culture? 9/24

Lucian Pye, "Political Culture" in Seymour Martin Lipset, ed., The Encyclopedia of Democracy (Washington: Congressional Quarterly, l995) vol. 3, ppp. 965-969.

II, III, IV. Political Culture as a Set of Attitudes: The Conventional View, Its Extensions, and Its Critics l0/l, (special meeting to be arranged) l0/5, and l0-l5

Guest Speaker l0/l5 at l0:30: Wayne Cornelius, Political Science Dept.

A. The Civic Culture Debates

Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, l963) pp. 3-4l, ll5-l72, 273-284, 397-428.

Almond and Verba, eds., The Civic Culture Revisited (Newbury Park: SAGE, l989).

David Laitin, "Civic Culture At 30" American Political Science Review 89 (l995) l68-l73.

Ruth Lane, "Political Culture: Residual Category or General Theory?" Comparative Political Studies 25 (l992) 362-387.

Ronald Inglehart, "Economic Development, Political Culture, and Democracy: Bringing the People Back In," in Inglehart, Modernization and Postmodernization (Princeton, l997) pp. l60-2l5.

B. Polling and Attitudes

George Gallup and Saul Forbes Rae, The Pulse of Democracy (New York: Simon & Schuster, l940) pp. 3-33, 125-143, 226-245, 257-290.

Recommended:
Ted Glasser and Charles Salmon, ed., Public Opinion and the Communication of Consent (Guilford, l995)
Susan Herbst, Numbered Voices (Chicago, l993)

V. Political Culture as Historically-Sedimented Values/Traditions l0/22<

(The emphasis here is on patterns of cultural continuity and "path-dependent" features of contemporary politics.)

Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work (Princeton, l993)

Eugen Weber, Peasants Into Frenchmen (Stanford, l976)

Recommended:
Robert Bellah, et. al. Habits of the Heart
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

VI. Political Culture as Meaning-System or Norm-System l0/29

(Here political culture is located in social institutions and cultural objects or cultural discourses, not in persons; the emphasis is on the frameworks within which attitudes are grounded, not attitudes.)

Clifford Geertz, "Centers, Kings, and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power" in Clifford Geertz, Local Knowledge (Basic, l983) l2l-l46.

Jean H. Baker, "The Ceremonies of Politics: Nineteenth-Century Rituals of National Affirmation" in William J. Coooper, Jr., et. al., eds. A Master's Due (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, l985) l6l-l78.

Richard Madsen, Morality and Power in a Chinese Village (California, l984)

Guest Speaker at l0:30: Richard Madsen, Sociology Dept.

VII. Political Culture as a Set of (Historically Alterable) Practices ll/5

(The emphasis here shifts from continuity to change in political culture and consequently the relative open-ness of culture to transformation or at least alteration.)

Michael Schudson, The Good Citizen (New York: Free Press, l998)

Recommended:
Michael McGerr, The Decline of Popular Politics (New York: Oxford, l986)

VIII. Political Culture of Elites and Activists ll/l2

(Politics, past and present, has normally been an activity of elites, with occasional explosions of mass participation. What is the culture of elites and activists? To what extent are the features of political culture features of a particular occupational or class subgroup?)

A. Occupational Culture of Politicians

Max Weber, "Politics as a Vocation" (Softreserve)

Edward Shils, "Center and Periphery" in Edward Shils, Selected Essays (l970)

William Muir, Legislature (California, l982) pp. 89-95.

B. Social Movements and Resistance

Doug McAdam, "Culture and Social Movements" in Enrique Larana, Hank Johnston, and Joseph R. Gusfield, The New Social Movements (Temple, l994) pp. 36-57.

IX. Political Culture and Comparative Political Systems ll/19

(One of the domains where, interestingly, political culture is taken seriously is in the study of comparative political institutions. Institutions shape culture, but culture also constrains institutions. Are there certain types of societies and cultures that are well suited to only certain kinds of democratic institutions?)

Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies

Guest Speaker at l0:30: Arend Lijphart, Political Science Dept.

X. Political Culture and Media l2/3

A. Mass Media

Daniel Hallin and Paolo Mancini, "Speaking of the President" in Daniel Hallin, We Keep America on Top of the World (Routledge, l994) ll3-l32.

Jean Chalaby, "The Americanization..."

Michael Schudson, "Question Authority: The History of the News Interview, l870-l930" in Michael Schudson, The Power of News (Harvard, l995).

B. Politics in Conversation

William Gamson and Andre Modigliani, "Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power," American Journal of Sociology 95 (l989) pp. l-37.

Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding Politics (Cambridge, l998)

XI. Politics Without Culture: Rational Choice Theory *

* Depending on student interest, it may be possible to arrange one additional session to discuss leading alternative views to a position that focuses on political culture.

A. Rational Choice and Its Critics

Alessandro Pizzorno, "Some Other Kinds of Otherness: A Critique of 'Rational Choice' Theories" in Alejandro Foxley, et. al., eds., Development, Democracy and the Art of Trespassing (Notre Dame)

B. Cultural Explanations for Political Triumphs and Failures

German Nazism
Balkan blood feuds
Japanese diligence
American exceptionalism
Latin authoritarianism