Читать книгу Political Science For Dummies - Marcus A. Stadelmann - Страница 61

The seminal work on political culture was published in 1963 by Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba. Titled The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (SAGE Publications, Inc.), the work was in response to the collapse of democracy in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s and in Africa in the 1950s. In both instances, democracies were established in former authoritarian countries (colonies in Africa) but survived for only a few years. (See Chapter 16 for more information on failures of democracy.)

The civic culture is the only culture that can sustain democracy over time in a country.

Almond and Verba believed that political cultures could be used to explain the failure of democracy. For them, democracy needed a certain, specific culture, which they titled the civic culture, to survive in the long run. So they set out to discover the characteristics of a civic culture. They believed that if they discovered a political culture that could sustain democracy, they could change other cultures to create this civic culture and then make sure democracy survived. In their research, they discovered the following five components of a civic culture, necessary to sustain a democracy:

 A large middle class: A large middle class has to exist in a democracy, because it’s the class most likely to possess democratic values. If the middle class is small and other nondemocratic classes such as an aristocracy or a radicalized working class dominate society, there’s a good chance that an authoritarian regime can come to power.

 A secular society: A society has to be secular with no state religion in place. Religion has to be kept out of government, because many religions hold nondemocratic values. If religion dominates society like in Iran today, democracy isn’t possible.

 Pluralism: A democratic society has to allow for the creation of political parties and interest groups to represent the will of the people. In other words, people have to be able to organize and express their wishes to government.

 A culture of consensus: A society has to agree on the major political issues shaping it. These include form of government and economic structure. Almost all Americans agree that democracy is the best form of government and that a form of capitalism is the best economic structure for a society. In Russia, on the other hand, such a consensus doesn’t exist. About one-third of all Russians believe in democracy and capitalism, while the other two-thirds support either strong man rule or a return to communism. This makes it tough for democracy to set foot in Russia.

 Permission of moderate change: Government and its people have to be willing to change over time. With societies and the world constantly changing, there has to be a willingness to accept change and adapt to it. Societies that don’t change, for either political or religious reasons, will fall behind globally and become pariah nations. In addition, they’ll face constant battles at home between citizens ready for change and those who want to stick with the status quo. Iran and Afghanistan are two good examples of such societies.