A state’s political culture is a crucial factor, which influences many aspects of forming social policy issues as well as impacts the establishment of public opinions significantly. A political culture is an essential tool that creates an overall idea about the government and its perception among citizens, therefore influencing each state’s decision-making process in the government. This essay will discuss the notion of political culture itself and its various types that differ from state to state. The uniqueness of every kind of political culture will be reviewed and compared to each other, with provided examples of its influence on social policy. The factors of the state’s political culture and its effect on public policies will be determined and analyzed.
Determining What Political Culture Is
To analyze the influence of political culture on the state’s social policy, one must define precisely what political culture is, and what the nuances of its existence are. Political culture can be interpreted as deeply rooted norms, values, and beliefs of a citizen community, which influence the perception of politics inside the state and play a vital role in their lives. It can also be defined as the reflection of government with a combined set of already established traditions and values that directly influence current authority. Foremost, political culture determines the dynamic of the citizen-government relationship; therefore, it also affects the process of creating and implementing social policies inside the community.
Types of Political Culture
In the United States of America, cultural politics can be divided into three branches, which were initially identified by Daniel Elazar, who justified their diversity as the reason each state has a different approach to adopting various social
policies and opposing views to upholding issues (Smith and Greenblatt, Governing States and Localities). The three branches of political culture are the following: individualistic, moralistic, and traditionalistic. Within the individualistic type of political culture, communication between the government and a citizen is similar to marketplace communication. The government is pursued in the form of an individualistic mechanism as a way for citizens to achieve their own goals (Smith and Greenblatt, Governing States and Localities: the Essentials).
The government is expected to provide its citizens with highly approved policies but is not perceived as a tool whose purpose is to form the ideal united society. Each individual seeks personal benefits from it. Therefore, political culture in individualistic nature affects social policies in such a way that they follow their own needs in the first place. The state of Texas remains one of the brightest examples of individualistic culture with its policy that denies personal or corporate income tax. Moreover, elections demonstrate the individualistic culture better than anything. In Texas, election attendance remains extremely low – less than half of the citizens turn up for presidential election and only thirty percent for gubernatorial.
The complete opposite of individualistic political culture is moralistic. It is determined to achieve collective goals through the government and form a right and just society (Smith and Greenblatt, Governing States and Localities: the Essentials). The moralistic culture model envisages the active participation of citizens in political life with the primary goal of achieving the overall wellness of their community. In this case, the state’s social policies are mainly aimed at greater society rather than separate individuals.
Moreover, the government puts the public interests as a priority and has a positive influence on the lives of citizens. A great example of a moralistic culture influence on social policy is the legalization of same-sex marriage. The government prioritizes the needs of society and decides what is better for a community as a whole. Communism society was similar in some parts to moralistic political culture. The government put the needs of an individual citizen first and allowed a person to work as much as one wanted to gain the resources they thought were enough.
Traditionalistic political culture does not have any similarities to individualistic or moralistic cultures. It refers to the one where citizens do not concern themselves with the government and carry on conservative views to preserve their well-established society (Smith and Greenblatt, Governing States and Localities: the Essentials). Usually, citizens do not show much interest in the political life of their states and refer to its representatives as the “province of the elite.”
The only concern of the citizens is to maintain the existing social order. Countries with the traditionalistic political culture commonly carry conservative views and frequently oppose any change in social policies that contradict with their current beliefs and require any changes. An example of traditionalistic social policy is stringent restrictions or a complete ban on abortion because it is perceived as a murder of a live organism. Such policies represent traditionalistic conservative views.
States with constant individualistic political culture are situated in the northeast of the United States, except for a few that are in the Midwest. Those states that represent moralistic culture are located in the north-western part of the country. And lastly, southern states represent the traditionalistic political culture. That explains the different concepts and radical disparity in the social policies between different parts of the country. For example, moralistic and traditionalistic states have contradicting views on the abortions issue, which is caused by different views formed by political cultures. Moreover, the difference between the approaches to the government is what makes social policies throughout the country so diverse.
The political culture, in many ways, follows an idea of supporting the individual well-being of the citizens prior to forming them. It gives community the in-control feeling over the government and provides people with an opportunity to become a part of collective decisions in the vital creation of policies. When people are coming out on peaceful protests with a belief in policy changes by the government, it allows them to be a part of the democratic society, which can influence the decision-making process inside the country.
Because in different parts of the country, people perceive government in different ways and have many opposing views of political cultures, their involvement in government life varies significantly. For instance, with moralistic political culture, citizens show a very high interest in any decision-making process of the government. That is why in the states with such political culture, protests, and petitions to defend one’s views are more common.
People reflect a strong desire to use politics to construct the best possible society (Smith and Greenblatt, Governing States and Localities: the Essentials). For instance, influencing government to spend more money on social programs that would benefit the society reflects the urge to change the community through politics. Therefore, social policies in those states reflect the best interests of the citizens. However, in the states with traditionalistic political culture citizens are not usually politically involved, and only concerned about maintaining the current society, thus, the influence of political culture on different social policies is not as apparent.
Political Culture’s Impact on The State’s Public Policy
Many types of research were conducted to determine the effects of political cultures on public policies. Numerous studies have found that the dominant political culture shapes politics and policy in significant ways. Policy change and innovation, for example, are more likely in moralistic states, where citizens are more likely to change their points of view to suit the greater good of their community.
Elections can be a solid example: it would not be significant if a candidate belongs to the party one does not support, if he/she is motivated by the idea of a greater community and follows has intentions. In this case, a voter may change their party identification but for the belief in a greater good. Another example of such social policy is an affirmative action, the primary goal of which is to minimize discrimination of all means through strict measures with a purpose to ensure equality for everyone. Individualistic states are more likely to create policies that chase the personal interests of citizens. Traditionalistic states tend to support old, long-time stated policies without any urge to change or modify them to the standards of the modern world.
Concluding, political culture’s impact on the state’s public policy is inevitable, and many examples show that political culture plays an essential role in forming public opinions towards the government. By determining the different branches of political culture, it became clear why different states have such contradictive views on similar issues.
Works Cited
Smith, Kevin B., and Alan Greenblatt. Governing States and Localities. 5th ed., Sage, 2016. Web.
Smith, Kevin B., and Alan Greenblatt. Governing States and Localities: the Essentials. CQ Press, 2013. Web.