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The Civic Culture Revisited

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At the time of writing The Civic Culture (1963), Almond and Verba had observed the second wave of democratization (Huntington, 1991). As such, the authors witnessed the emergence of many new democracies. The authors knew, however, that there was more to democratic systems than simply structures and formal institutions. The authors felt that aside from the creation of democratic institutions, it was necessary that a political culture that supports democratic ideals also emerge. Almond and Verba defined this necessary cultural subtype as civic culture, a "culture based on communication and persuasion, a culture of consensus and diversity, a culture that permitted change but moderated it" (8).

The purpose of The Civic Culture is to quantify the ideals and attitudes which compose the civic culture of "operating democratic systems" (11). By doing so, the authors believe that the cultural ideals necessary for a stable democracy will be readily disseminated to newly emerging democracies.

In order to quantify democratic ideals, the authors undertook a comparative cross-national survey of five operating democratic systems: the US, UK, Germany, Italy and Mexico. In order to limit the research to the attitudes of individuals, the authors avoided questions about government, and rather posed inquires "about the individual's perception about government in relation to himself" (70). As testing attitudes of individuals is a complex task, the attempt to do so in a comparative fashion across five nations is especially difficult.

In order to create an environment of comparability, Almond and Verba place respondents into one of three categories of political culture: parochial, subject and participant. In the parochial culture, the respondent "has neither knowledge of nor interest in politics." In the subject culture, the respondent is "at least dimly aware of politics and political symbols and institutions (and) he understands that his life is touched by government policies." Lastly, in the participant culture the respondent "has a keenly developed notion of his own political efficacy and competence as a political actor" (Walter, 1965).

The three categories can combine and change. They are not mutually exclusive. Political cultures are not homogenous and each category can be subdivided into a number of cleavage groups. Almond and Verba believe that the combination between all these orientations (parochial, subject and participant "lead to a balanced political culture" (32).

In order for Almond and Verba to make sense of these combinations and cleavages, they attempt to explore the differences and similarities between variables, and then compare the relative relationships of variables between nations (70). By evaluating the data collected in the five nations regarding political culture, the authors are then able to "validate inferences...and develop independent measures that can be used to explain other phenomena" (50). The next section will attempt to illustrate the practicality of Almond and Verba's methodology.

For example, Verba and Almond seek to explore levels of individual political competence among nations. The authors hypothesize that a democratic system must have a political culture in place in which the citizens believe that they possess the ability to influence government. In order to validate their hypothesis, Almond and Verba ask respondents in all five nations whether they feel they can influence local, and national government, and at which level their influence is most effective. It was discovered that the respondents in all five nations felt they were more able to influence local government as opposed to national government. But upon closer inspection, the levels of political competence varied between nations.

Table 1

Nation Local Competence* National Competence*

USA 77 75

UK 78 62

Germany 62 38

Italy 51 28

Mexico 52 38

*Percentage of respondents who felt themselves politically competent

Data from The Civic Culture (1963)

Almond and Verba explain this discrepancy by arguing that in the case of Mexico and Italy, local competence is greater than national competence because "local government autonomy and the accessibility of local government officials is most firmly institutionalized" (188).

From this one section of The Civic Culture, Almond and Verba can claim three assumptions regarding political competence across nations. First, "local and national competence is related". Second, "local competence is more widespread then national competence". Third, "local competence is related to the institutional availability of opportunities to participate on the local level" (188).

Throughout the subsequent chapters of the book, the authors continue to explore political attitudes across the five nations using methodology similar to the example above. For example, in chapter nine, Almond and Verba seek to draw a correlation between political competence and participation, and the influence of these variables on the effectiveness and legitimacy of a political system (230).

Further chapters explore political emotion and participation, political obligation, and a number of other relationships regarding political attitudes and their effect on political structures. Still, in order for this large amount of data to be used more broadly, it is necessary for the authors to create generalizations regarding political culture that can be circulated to other emerging democracies. The authors use their compiled data to create a picture of the political culture of each nation studied, then they "attempt to relate these patterns of attitudes to a theory of the functioning of democratic governments" (402).

In order to form a generalization regarding democratic systems and political attitudes, it is necessary to quickly revisit the idea of civic culture. Almond and Verba define civic culture as a "culture based on communication and persuasion, a culture of consensus and diversity, a culture that permitted change but moderated it" (8). From this definition, it becomes apparent that contradictions exist in the idea of civic culture. However, this only illustrates the compatibility of civic culture and a democratic system.

A democratic system, like civic culture, is composed of contradictions. In a democratic society, elites governing the system must be responsive to the wishes of the citizenry, but also maintain the ability to make "authoritative decisions" (477). As such, "the civic culture, which sometimes contains apparently contradictory political attitudes, seems to be particularly appropriate for democratic political systems, for they, too, are mixtures of contradictions" (476).

Almond and Verba contend that of the five nations studied, the United States and the United Kingdom provide prime examples of the most developed civic culture. These nations possess citizenry composed of both the passive and active orientations. As such, the government is able to address the contradictory nature of its main purpose. There are those who place a high degree of responsibility on the government, while there exists still more who readily allow the government to carry on its business with little or no interference.

Almond and Verba offer that the political culture of the US and UK has emerged over a long period of time. Political change came slowly, and with it the emergence of a civic culture. The question then arises whether new developing democracies are capable of creating their own civic culture without having the extended time frame that characterizes both US and UK cases. Disappointingly the authors write, "If our study has taught us anything, it is that there is no simple formula for the development of a political culture conducive to the maintenance of democracy" (501).

However, some generalizations can be drawn by the authors' research. First, education plays a large role in the development of civic culture. Although not a direct catalyst to democratic stability or the emergence of civic culture, if developing nations can insure an increase in education, civic culture will begin to emerge.

Aside from education, the civic culture can be furthered through the development of a myriad of "channels of political socialization" (502). As civic culture is in many ways based upon differences in political orientation, by developing a variety of means to further political socialization, the diversity necessary to ensure democratic ideals emerges.

Lastly, with education and channels of political socialization in place, it still remains necessary to ensure an attitude develops which supports a "commitment to the political system and a sense of political community" (503). This is most obvious in recently created democracies that have not the time to develop a sense of political community. The authors used the example of the Mexican Revolution as a catalyst to a sense of nationality, drawing individuals into a politically joined community.

In their classic studies of political culture, Almond and Verba attempted to use "civic propensities" to explain the stability of governments. There method was quite groundbreaking, for comparative political scientists of those times were heavily into analyzing constitutions. But just reading these legal documents was not proving much explanation for social changes. This was the context in which their work progressed. In the opening chapter of the Civic Culture, Almond & Verba define a civic culture as "a pluralistic culture based on communication and persuasion, a culture of consensus and diversity, a culture that permitted change but moderated it" (pp. 6). For them, Britain and the United States were prime examples of such cultures. The reason was that the citizens of these countries operated in a culture with a highly effective set of orientations towards politics. These orientations include a tendency to have pride in one's government and expect good t! reatment from it. Citizens of a civic culture operate under a myth of sorts-they are not actively involved or interested in politics, but they believe that "the people" are politically powerful. There is just the right mixture of pragmatism and emotional commitment.