Authors: Bogdanor
Summary: In approximately 1300 words, this entry places the concept in historical context, emphasizes Almond and Verba's significant contributions to understanding political culture, and explains concisely some shortcomings of Almond and Verba's work.
According to the entry, political culture is really just a new term for an idea as old as political analysis itself. Many political philosophers as well as anthropologists and historians have written about the concept, referring to it as a 'state of mind,' 'national character' or 'tradition.' Gabriel Almond suggests three interdependent intellectual influences from which the concept of political culture emerged: (1) social psychology and psycho anthropology, including the work of Freud, Malinowski and Benedict; (2) European sociology, represented by the work of Weber, Pareto, Durkheim and Talcott Parsons; and (3) survey research.
Political culture became increasingly important as a reaction against the legal institutional political perspective. Also important in promoting political culture, however, were events like the collapse of many constitutional regimes during the inter-war years.
Almond and Verba developed one of the most influential definitions of political culture: "'pattern of orientations' to political objects." They used this approach to political analysis to propose a theory about the cultural bases of stable democracy. Also briefly mentioned is S.E. Finer's work. In conclusion, the entry offers a few critical remarks about political culture as a form of political analysis, focusing particularly on establishing causal relationships and using survey data.