Approach- Meaning

An approach, in simple terms, may be defined as a way of looking at and then explaining a
particular phenomenon. The perspective may be broad enough to cover a vast area like the world
as a whole in the study of politics, or it may be very small embracing just an aspect of local,
regional, national, or international politics. Besides, it also covers within its fold every other thing
related to the collection and selection of evidence followed by an investigation and analysis of a
particular hypothesis for an academic purpose. Thus, an approach "consists of criteria of selection-
-criteria employed in selecting the problems or questions to consider and in selecting the data to
bring to bear; it consists of standards governing the inclusion and exclusion of questions and data.

An approach is defined as the creator or a precursor of a theory. An approach "is transformed into
a theory if and when its function extends beyond the selection of problems and data about the
subject under study.

Traditional and Modern Approaches

Approaches to the study of politics may be broadly classified into two categories -normative and
empirical. While the former is said to be value-laden, the latter is known for being 'value-
neutral'. In other words, normativism is the hallmark of the former, and empiricism is that of
the latter. The fact-value relationship is, therefore, the basis of our classification in this regard.

On this basis, we may say that while traditional approaches lean to the side of 'values', the
latter do the same for 'facts'. The result is that 'fact-value dichotomy' becomes the determining
factor. The traditional approaches have a historical-descriptive and prescriptive character with
a dominating place for values and goals. Their different varieties may be discussed as under.

1. Philosophical Approach: The oldest approach to the study of politics is philosophical. It is also
known by the name of the ethical approach. Here the study of state, government, and man as
a political being is inextricably mixed goals, morals, truths, or high principles supposed to
be underlying all knowledge and reality. A study of politics, in this field, assumes a speculative
character because the very word 'philosophical' "refers to thought about thought; a philosophical
analysis is an effort to clarify thought about the nature of the subject and ends and means in
studying it.

Thus, the great works of Plato, More, Bacon, Harrington, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Green,
Bosanquet, Nettleship, Lindsay, and Leo Strauss take the study of politics to a very high level
of abstraction and also try to mix up the system of values with certain high t norms of an ideal
political system.

The philosophical approach is criticized for being speculative and abstract. It is said that such
an approach takes us far away from the world of reality. For this reason, it is accused of being
hypothetical. At the hands of Kant and Hegel, it culminates in the exaltation of the state to
mystical heights. Politics, therefore, becomes like the handmaid of ethics or metaphysics. The
case of things as they 'are' is dominated by the case of things as things as they 'ought to be.

2. Historical Approach: The distinguishing feature of this approach is focused on the past or on
a selected period as well as on a sequence of selected events within a particular phase to find
out an explanation of what institutions are, and are tending to be, or in the knowledge of
what they have been, and how they came to be, what they are then in the analysis of them as
they stand," It may also be added that here a scholar treats history as a genetic process-as the study
of how the man got to be, what man once was and now is. s " A study of politics with such a point
of view also informs him "to look into the role of individual change." "contingencies in historical
continuity and change".

Institutional Approach: Here a student of politics lays stress on the study of the formal
structures of a political organization like legislature, executive, and judiciary. This trend may
be discovered in the writings of a very large number of political scientists from Aristotle and
Polybius in the ancient to Bryce and Finer in the modern periods. However, the peculiar thing
about modern writers is that they also include the party system as the 'fourth estate' in the
structures of a political system, while contemporary writers like Bentley, Truman, Latham, and
V.0. Key, Jr. go a step further by including numerous interest groups that constitute the
infrastructure of a political system. The institutional or structural approach may be visualized in
the works of several English and American writers. We may refer to the works of Walter Bagehot,
F.A. Ogg, W.B. Munro, Herman Finer, HJ. Laski, Richard Neustadt, C.E. Strong, Bernard
Crick, James Bryce, Harold Zink, Maurice Duverger and Giovanni Sartori. The striking
feature of their works is that the study of politics has been confined to the formal, as well as
informal, institutional structures of a political system. That is why, the institutional approach
is also known by the name of the structural approach.

Legal Approach: Finally, in the realm of traditional approaches, we may refer to the legal or
juridical approach. Here the study of politics is mixed up with legal processes and institutions.
Themes of law and justice are treated as not mere affairs of jurisprudence, rather political scientists
look at the state as the maintainer of an effective and equitable system of law and order.
Matters relating to the organization, jurisdiction, and independence of judicial institutions,
therefore, become an essential concern of a political scientist. Analytical jurists from Cicero in
the ancient to Dicey in the modern periods have regarded the state as primarily a corporation
or a juridical person and, in this way, viewing politics as a science of legal norms having nothing
in common with the science of the state as a social organism. Thus, this approach "treats the state
primarily as an organization for the creation and enforcement of law."

In this context, we may refer to the works of Jean Bodin, Hugo Grotius, and Thomas Hobbes
of the early modern period who propounded the doctrine of sovereignty. In the system of Hobbes,
the head of the state is the highest legal authority and his command is a law that must be obeyed
either to avoid punishment following its infraction or to keep the dreadful state of nature away.
The works of Bentham, John Austin, Savigny, Sir Henry Maine, and A.V. Dicey may also be
referred to in this connection. The result is that the study of politics is integrally bound up with the
legal processes of the country and the existence of a harmonious state of liberty and equality is
earmarked by the glorious name of the rule of law.

Shortcomings of Traditional Approaches

Focus on Western Political Systems

1. It dealt primarily with a single-culture configuration in the Western world.

2. It dealt mainly with representative democratic systems and their aberrations.

3. It prevented a student from dealing systematically with Western as well as non-Western systems.
The research was just superficial as it was founded on the study of isolated aspects of the
governmental process within specific countries.
Excessively formalistic in its approach

1. The analysis was focused on the formal institutions of government to the detriment of a
sophisticated awareness of the informal arrangements of society and their role in the formation of
decisions and the exercise of power.

2. It proved to be relatively insensitive to the non-political determinants of political behavior

and hence to the non-political bases of governmental institutions.

3. Comparison was made in terms of the formal constitutional aspects of Western systems which
are not necessarily the most fruitful concepts for a truly comparative study.

Descriptive rather than problem-solving nature

1. Except for some studies of proportional representation, emergency legislation, and electoral
systems, the field was insensitive to hypotheses and their verifications.

2. Even the purely descriptive approach to political systems, was relatively insensitive to the
methods of cultural anthropology, in which descriptions are fruitfully made in terms of concepts
or integrating hypotheses.

3. Thus, description in comparative government did not readily lend itself to the testing of
hypotheses, to the compilation of significant data regarding a single political phenomenon class of
such phenomenon in a large number of societies.

4. Description without systematic orientation obstructed the discovery of hypotheses regarding

uniformities in political behavior and prevented the formulation, on a comparative basis, of the
theory of political dynamics-change, revolution, conditions of stability, etc.

Factors accounting for our increasing awareness in this regard

1. The prevalent dissatisfaction with the country-by-country approach in teaching and research.
The study of foreign governments is not in any sense of the word comparative study. It results in
making superficial similarities and differences between political systems.

2. The need to broaden our approach by including in our study non-Western systems and by
attempting to relate the contextual elements of any system with the political.

3. The growing concern with policy-making and policy implementation.

4. Comparative analysis is becoming increasingly a part and parcel of the growing concern with
the scientific approach to politics

Modern Approach

From the above, it is evident that the study of politics in the context of philosophical, institutional-
structural, historical, legal, philosophical, and ethical, perspectives cannot assign to it the
character of, what modern behaviouralists like David Easton call, a pure science. Thus,
normativism should be replaced by empiricism. Modern approaches are, therefore, marked by
empirical investigation of the relevant data.

1) Sociological Approach

The sociological approach to the study of politics has become very popular now. Eminent writers
like RM Maclver, David Easton, and G.A. Almond subscribing to this approach have taken into
recognition the essential fact that ample data is available in the realm of sociology to lay down
certain empirical rules of political behavior. They have accepted the view of leading sociologists
1ike Comte, Spencer, Ratzen-hofer, Weber, Parsons, Merton, and a host of others that state is
more of a social than that of a political institution.

That is, social context is necessary for the understanding and explanation of the political
behavior of individuals. It is the social whole in which we may find the individuals having a
status and playing a role. The role is determined by certain traits acquired by the individuals. This
process of transmission of values from one generation to another is called 'political socialization.
Another term that this approach has popularised is 'political culture' which "refers to the totality
of what is learned by individuals as of a society; it is a way member of thinking acting and
feeling." A scrutinized study of the rise and fall of a political system of life, a mode shows that its
causes domain of wrong& political socialization whose objective manifest station is the political
culture of the people.

2) Psychological Approach: Political Science has moved very close to the discipline of
psychology in recent times, particularly at the hands of Graham Wallas, Charles Merriam,
Harold D. Lasswell, R.A. Dahl, and Eric Fromm. In early modern times, Machiavelli and
Hobbes stressed the point of security of life and material possessions as a motivating force and
held that the desire for it was inseparable from the desire for power. Recently a good number of
political scientists have borrowed material from the writings of eminent psychologists like Freud,
Jang, Eyesenck, and McDougall to lay down certain valid rules of political behavior. A study of
politics has, for this reason, been made to display the role of emotions, habits, sentiments,
instincts, ego, etc. that are the constituent elements of human personality. The concept of
'power has, therefore, gained its importance.

3 Economic Approach: Matters relating to the production and distribution of goods have an
economic character. But as their regulation is done by the state, they are very much involved in
the political process. The prominent schools of liberalism, socialism, and communism emerge
because of the divergent interpretations of the role of the state in regulating economic matters.
Eminent political scientists like Mill, Marx, Mitchell, Schumpeter, Friedman, and a host of
others have written volumes having a relevance of their own in the domain of political economy.
However, in this regard, the most outstanding name is that of Karl Marx who has built his political
theory based on the criticism of the prevailing capitalist system. It is contained in his well-known
assumption: The mode of production of the material means of existence conditions the whole
process of social, political, and intellectual life." So says Engels: "The ultimate cause of all social
changes and political revolutions are to be sought not in *he minds of men-but in changes in
the mode of production and exchange; they are to be sought not in the philosophy but in the
economics of the period concerned.

4) Systems Approach: This approach has become very popular in recent times. As the very name
of this approach suggests, here the focus is on systems that are defined as "bounded regions in
space-time, involving energy interchange among their parts, which are associated in functional
relationships, and with their environments." Borrowing from the discipline of biological sciences,
sociologists like Parsons thought in terms of a social system. From them, the idea came to new
political scientists like David Easton and G.A. Almond who developed the idea of a political
system. The purpose of general systems theory, as it is known, is to reduce the multiplication of
efforts by integrating all knowledge and treating all systems as interrelated.

5) Simulation Approach: Contemporary political scientists have borrowed much from natural
sciences as well as from cybernetics and mathematics may be studied in this direction.
Simulation means a study with the help of image construction or model-building. We may take
note of this fact in the study of political communication, decision-making, and game theory. The
political communication approach, as popularised by Karl Deutsch, emphasizes how one part of
a system affects another by sending messages or transmitting information with the result that other
parts function and, in turn, do the work of sending messages and transmitting information to each
other because of the 'feedback' process. Thus, according to this approach, politics and government
"appear in essence as processes of steering and coordinating human efforts. The decision-making
approach is another variety of the simulation approach. Here a scholar lays focus on the
characteristics of decision-makers, on persons or groups who might exercise influence over the
decision-makers though not being in the capacity of taking a decision themselves, on the situations
under which a decision is taken, and the like. Allied with it is the approach of game theory where
social scientists, like mathematicians, look at developing a conceptual design that will help the
decision makers to choose a strategy whereby they may make the best possible bargain out of the
Competing or conflicting situations.

6) Behavioural Approach

Modern empirical approaches have found the best manifestation in the trend of behaviouralism
where a host of leading American writers have emphasized the collection and examination of
'facts' relating to the actual behavior of man as a social and political being. This approach has
emerged on the scene amid a large amount of turmoil and controversy within the profession widely
lauded by the protagonists as a 'revolution' in the realm of political science.

Political Culture in Comparative Study

The study of the concept of political culture constitutes an examination of the sociological aspect
of the subject of political development. Ever since this term was popularised by some leading
American writers like Ulam, Beer, and Almond, it has come to stand as a very important variable
for a morphological study of the political systems. It has influenced the system theorists to assert
that one political system is distinguished from another not only in terms of its structure but also
with respect of the political culture in which it lies embedded. It is on account of this very fact that
while a parliamentary system of government could develop and work well in a country like Britain
but failed to have a similar success to the backward countries of the Third World. The ones that
inform any society, and are attitudes, sentiments, and cognitions may represent patterns that fit
together the particular community to a system.
Distinct political culture which gives meaning, predictability, and form to the political process,
that each individual must, in his historical context, learn and incorporate into his personality the
knowledge and feelings about the politics of his people and his community.

It includes certain norms such as that the adult population of a country has the right to take part in
the political discussions. While attitudes inherited from a past full of struggles for constitutional
democracy, as in Britain, may inform that the speakers must behave courteously, the tone of
discourse must be conversational and the whole style of behavior and speech must conform not
only to the rules of procedure of the Parliament but also to a complex and largely unspoken set of
conventions. Attitudes inherited from a long authoritarian past may impede the operation of a
democratic system, even though most of its members sincerely accept the democratic ideal.

A political culture hinging on the fact of people's attitudes and beliefs towards the political system,
whether homogeneous or heterogeneous, is a product of several inter-related factors-historical,
geographical, and socio-economic. Moreover, it is not static, it is dynamic and thus responds to
the needs al generated within the political system or imparted or imposed from outside. A
pragmatic orientation, in this direction, is known by the name of 'secularisation' of the political
culture. Let us first examine the three factors that constitute the foundations of the political culture.

Meaning

There shall be some kind of political culture in every system. This culture determines the political
behaviors or actions of individuals. Certain aspects of the general culture of the society are
especially concerned with how government ought to be conducted and what it shall try to do. This
sector of the culture of the society we call political culture." Thus, political culture refers to "the
set of attitudes, beliefs, and sentiments that give order and meaning to a political process and that
provide the underlying assumptions and rules that govern behavior in the political system.

Political culture is composed of the set of "the attitudes, beliefs, and values of society that relate
to the political system and the political issues." It is defined as "the pattern of individual attitudes
and orientations towards politics among the members of a political system." The members of a
civil society by and large share a common human nature like emotional drives, intellectual
capacities, and moral perspectives. The common human nature expresses itself in the form of
certain values, beliefs, and emotional attitudes which are basic determinants of the political actions
and attitudes of them. These cultures are transmitted from one generation to another, though with
greater or lesser modifications, and thus constitute the general culture of the society.

Definitions

According to Eric Rowe, “Political Culture is a pattern of individual beliefs, values and emotional
attitudes”.

According to Almond and Powell, “Political Culture consists of attitudes, values, and skills which
are current in the entire population and that propensity and pattern which may be found in separate
parts of the society.”

Almond defines Political Culture as a set of attitudes, beliefs, notions, faith, and understanding of
political systems, political issues, political ideology, and political characters.

Robert A. Dahl has singled out political culture as a factor explaining different patterns of political
opposition whose salient elements are

1) Orientations to problem-solving; are they pragmatic or rationalistic?

2) Orientations to collective action; are they cooperative or non-cooperative?
3) Orientations to the political system; are they allegiant or alienated?
4) Orientations to other people; are they trustful or mistrustful?

According to Almond and Powell, "such individual orientations involve three components-

(i) cognitive orientations implying knowledge, accurate or otherwise, of the political

system
(ii) affective orientations implying feelings of attachment, involvement, rejection, and the
like about political objects,
(iii) evaluative orientations implying judgments and opinions about the political objects,
which usually involve applying value Standards to political objects and events.
Factors affecting Political Culture (foundations of Political Culture)

The following factors influence the formation of political culture in a country.

1. Historical- Historical factors such as experience and memories of governments that

ruled in the past, the type of political institutions that existed in the past, the historically
existing social and economic conditions of society, etc. may influence the political culture
of a society

2. Social- Social factors including religion, tribe, gender, ethnicity, race, language,
and family influence the political culture of a people.
3. Economic- The means of production, patterns of distribution and consumption,
property system and economic status, etc. determine the political culture
4. Political – Factors like the nature of existing government, democratic culture,
nature of political parties, and ideologies interplay with political culture.

Influences or Reflections of Political Culture

The political culture existing in a country may be influenced, reflected or manifested in the
following areas.

1. In political problem solving- How the political problems originating in a political

system are solved. For example, people‟s strike for getting reservations in government
services.
2. Like political actions- How people engage in political actions. For example
peoples‟ interest in voting in general elections, the method in which people conduct
agitations (violent or peaceful)
3. In the nature of government-people interaction- How the government and citizens
engage in political communications and transactions. For example, how people pay their
taxes, how the government gives social welfare facilities to people like old age pensions
and scholarships
4. In the nature of people-people interaction- How people engage in social activities.
For example, the nature of relationships between different religious groups.
 5. Value transfer in society- How political socialization takes place in society.
Types of Political Culture

Almond presents a classification of political cultures on a subjects-participants basis and his

classification of the political systems based on different political cultures. In the classification of
political cultures, the basic factor is his emphasis on the roles of the subjects and the participants.
Persons aware of the political system may be either subjects (those individuals who are oriented
to the political system and the Impact which it outputs, such as welfare benefits, laws, etc. may
have upon their lives, but who are not oriented to participation in the input structures) and
participants (those individuals who are oriented to the input structures and processes, and view
themselves as potentially engaging in the engaged in or articulation of demands and the making
of decisions).

With these standpoints, Almond presents a tripartite division of political culture that may be briefly
discussed as under:

1. Parochial Political Culture: In this type of Political Culture, people do not know input and
output. They are not aware of their political system. People are not aware that they are subject to
any government. They also have no interest also to participating in politics. Such a type of political
culture exists in traditional societies. Example: Some Countries of Asia and Africa. E.g.
Afghanistan, Somalia

It exists in simple traditional societies in which there is very little specialization and where actors
fulfill a combination of political, economic, and religious roles simultaneously. Here we find a
pattern of undifferentiated role structure as a chieftain performing the role of the arch-
administrator, arch-priest, arch-economist, etc., and the subjects living under him do not show any
awareness of the political system as such, though they have much awareness of their community
as a whole. It may be that on account of the development, some may become aware of the existence
of central individuals' political authority, but their feelings for and evaluation of the system as a
whole "have not crystallized sufficiently for them to establish for themselves norms and standards
to regulate their relations with the system

Subject Political Culture: The people in this type of Political Culture have knowledge about the
existence of government in the system and they know that they are subject to that government and
system. But they are not interested in participating in that system. Example: Major post-colonial
countries of Asia and Africa. E.g. Sri Lanka, Nigeria. It exists where there is a high frequency of
orientations to the system as a whole and its specific output aspect. It occurs in dependent colonies
where the people either feel pride or cultivate hostility towards their political system. That is, they
either accept the decisions of their rulers as legitimate or Struggle against them in the name of
their right to self-determination. It is a different thing that Almond lays too much emphasis on the
part of the people's blind acceptance of the political system as legitimate and he 1gnores the latter
part of their hostility that results in the form of movements repudiating the authority of the
decision-makers by calling their laws as ‘black' and demanding nothing short of complete
independence.

2. Participant Political Culture: Participant Political Culture is mainly found in developed

countries where people are fully aware and have the knowledge of the existence of government
and who actively participate in it. Examples: the USA, France, and the European Countries. It
exists in highly developed societies where people take an active part in the political sphere by
considering themselves as active members of the polity. They are well conscious of their rights
and duties. "Evaluation and criticism of the system exist at all levels, and it is generally accepted
as discernible that political activity should be under the scrutiny of individuals and groups it clear
that as political cultures are more within society. ." Almond, however, makes politically
homogeneous, individuals should n not be taken as uniformly oriented to political actions.

Political Culture of a Systematically Mixed Variety

In addition to this, Almond points out two more variables that should be taken into account. First,
apart from all these varieties of the political culture of an unmixed type, he also refers to the
political culture of a systematically mixed variety. Here he deals with situations where there are
significant proportions of more than one pattern of orientations. Thus, he lays down three varieties:
(i) parochial subject-political culture, (ii) subject-participant political culture, (ii) parochial-
participant political culture, and (iv) civic culture

Almond’s Typological Illustration of the Political Systems

Then, Almond presents a typological Illustration of the political systems that may briefly be
discussed.
Anglo-American Systems: This is the first variety operating in advanced Western democratic
countries like Britain and America whose salient characteristics may be enumerated thus:

(i) Such systems are characterized by multi-valued political cultures that are homogeneous
and continuous in the sense that there is general agreement about political ends and means
to their realization;
(ii) Politics becomes like a game in which several players, though rivals, play their part they
never take their differences to the extent of converting the atmosphere of the game into that
of a battlefield;
(iii) Politics also looks like a marketplace where decision-makers offer their outputs as
exchanges for winning votes or people's support. Thus, a bargaining process takes place
between the rulers and the ruled, the elected and the electors, and between leaders and their
followers;
(iv) Society has a plural character in which different parties and interest groups operate to
influence the decision-making process in response to their respective interests;
(v) There is the diffusion of power and influence. Thus, there is a full and well-functioning
arrangement of checks and balances. Legal institutions are checked by the channels of mass
communication and mass education so that the prospects of authoritarian rule are mitigated,
even eliminated; and
(vi) Finally, there is the stability of differentiated roles. Different institutions Perform their
respective functions; they also perform the functions of others with the result that the
administrators become legislators in one and the adjudicators in another respect; or the
bureaucrats become legislators.

Continental European Political Systems: This is the second variety operating in less Europe
like France, Italy, Sweden, Norway, etc. whose salient features may be thus enumerated

() The political culture is fragmented where different sections of society establish, different
patterns of development, while some are more culturally developed than others. For this reason.
the political culture has with it a train of political sub-cultures that may be affected either by
scientific and technological innovations or on account of their importation from the advanced
ruling country. Such a particular culture has much of its past coming from the days of feudalism
and also tries to emulate the higher values of countries belonging to the above category;
(ii) Each political sub-culture develops a separate sub-system of roles with the result that various
cultures become the focal points of the whole system. Thus, one has to look at the infrastructure
also after he makes a study of the legal institutional framework; and

(iii) The process of political bargaining is virtually non-existent which creates a situation in which
politics becomes like a game. The result is that various subcultures are at war against each other
and one poses itself as superior to the other or the others and thus tries to impose its norms on the
rest. Thus, instead of bargaining, there is warfare among groups competing for power.

Pre-industrialized or partially Industrialised Systems: This category of a large number of

countries that have emerged from the days of long colonial domination.

(i) The political culture of the masters is superimposed over the political culture of the
subjects. The result is the erosion of the political culture of the subjects and the super-
imposition of the political culture of the rulers who are deemed as superior in all respects;
The leaders may try to establish a synthesis between the old and the new and thereby
develop characteristics providing a new source of legitimacy to the system. It is, however,
possible that there occur violent outbreaks that may make the whole system unstable if the
charismatic leadership is exposed or replaced by another leadership of the same variety;
and
(ii) Here two or more political cultures may be at work within a single structure of roles. For
instance, a particular family or a caste may remain in power about particular traditions and
also emulate the ways of Western democracy.

Totalitarian Political Systems: Finally. Almond takes up the case of a totalitarian country like the
former Soviet Union and China. It may be said to have these characteristics:

(0) The quality of the acceptability of the legitimacy is artificially created. The characteristic
orientation to an authority tends to be some combination of Conformity or apathy produced by the
Central control or the means of communication and the agencies of violence;

(ü) CoerC0Cn becomes the hallmark of the exercise of authority. All organizations are surrounded
by an atmosphere of coercion exercised by an all-powerful state, and
(iü) There is an all-concentration of power that negates the principle of diffusion of authority. The
men in power count heavily on the support of the bureaucracy, police, and army.

Professor S.E Finer suggests three variables of a political culture based on the role of the
military

(i) Mature Political Culture: As obtained in Britain, America, Australia, and the
Netherlands, it shows that the political consensus and its degree of organization are very
high; the need for the government to count on the support of the armed forces is at a
minimum; and long habituation to this situation has brought not only the public but even
the armed services to an almost unquestioning belief in the principle of civil supremacy.
(ii) Developed Political Culture: It refers to a society where the public is highly organized,
though, from time to time, it becomes sharply polarised on either the legitimacy of its
institutions and procedures or on the incumbents who hold office as a consequence of
these. We may find that the civilian governments are often threatened, even subverted, by
military pressures, and the people, in general, are either silenced by the force of arms, or
they feel solace in getting politically alienated. Countries like Egypt. Algeria and Cuba
can be placed in this category
(iii) Low Political Culture: It is found in countries with narrow and weakly organized publics,
often self-divided on the legitimacy of the regime or the incumbents in office. In such
countries, public opinion is too feeble self-divided or both to offer any sustained resistance
to authoritarian rules Countries like Vietnam, Iraq. Syria, Bhutan, and Indonesia may be
placed in this category

Professor S.P. Varma points out five main contributions of this approach

1. It has made Political Science a more complete social science through its insistence on a
combined micro-macro approach.

2. It has focused our attention on the study of the political community or society, as a dynamic
collective entity as distinct from the individual and thus on the total political system.

3. It has encouraged political scientists to take up the study of social and cultural factors that are
responsible for giving the political culture of a country its broad shape.
4. It has helped us in combining the study of the rational factors which shape the actions of
individuals to a large extent with the more latent, irrational, determinants of behavior that may be
subjected to empirical research to a quite considerable extent.

5. It is the political culture "helped us to understand why different approaches which political
societies, inevitably moved in different directions development, or maybe, find themselves
political.

Concept of Civic Culture

Political culture has been studied most intensively in the context of established Western
democracies. The classic study of political culture is The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and
Democracy in Five Nations (1963) by American political scientists Gabriel Almond and Sydney
Verba. Based on surveys conducted in the United States, Britain, West Germany, Italy, and
Mexico, this landmark investigation sought to identify the political culture within which a liberal
democracy is most likely to develop and consolidate. Almond and Verba‟s argument is based on a
distinction between three pure types of political culture: parochial, subject, and participant. In
a parochial political culture, citizens are only imprecisely aware of the existence of central
government. In a subject political culture, citizens see themselves not as participants in the political
process but as subjects of the government. In a participant political culture, citizens believe both
that they can contribute to the system and that they are affected by it. Almond and Verba‟s work
attracted the attention of generations of scholars who replicated the findings, criticized the
conceptualizations, and refined the theory.

Almond and Verba‟s core idea was that democracy will prove most stable in societies
where subject and parochial attitudes provide ballast to an essentially participant culture. This mix
is known as civic culture. In this ideal combination, the citizens are sufficiently active in politics
to express their preferences to rulers but not so involved as to refuse to accept decisions with which
they disagree. Thus, the civic culture resolves the tension within democracy between popular
control and effective governance. In Almond and Verba‟s study, Britain and, to a lesser extent, the
United States came closest to this ideal. In both countries, the citizens felt that they could influence
the government. Following the pioneering footsteps of The Civic Culture, American political
scientist Robert Putnam argued that civic community, based on high levels of political interest,
social equality, interpersonal trust, and voluntary association, leads to higher probabilities of
effective governance and democracy