Avoiding the Pitfalls: Thompson, et al

Introduction to Part One: "Against Dualism"

Notes regretfully that social science is steeped in dualisms. Though the latter can be useful in making analytical distinctions, a too heavy reliance on them can obscure extensive interdependencies between phenomenon. They argue that there is no need to choose between falsely dichotomized elements.

Culture/Structure

The debate continues to rage within social science as to the relationship between culture (values, beliefs, any/all mental products) and institutional structures. Cultural biases and social institutions must be seen as mutually interdependent and reinforcing. The authors insist that "asking which comes first of which should be given priority is a nonstarter" (21). Such chicken or the egg investigations will be conspicuously lacking from their brand of cultural investigation. They wish to bring the two aspects of human life together.

Individual/Society

They also see the never ending battle between "voluntarists" and those who stress the way in which institutional arrangements constrain behavior as fruitless. The see individuals as constrained but also capable of transforming/eliminating those constraints. To use their rather cunning analogy, "the individual (unlike the behaviorist's rats shapes the maze while running in it" (22).

Fact/Value

Facts as filtered through a cultural screen. Weber's distinction is artificial in that our sense of what ought to be is conditioned by what we sense is possible, based on experience. If world views are not supported by perceived reality "this discrepancy between the expectation and the result can dislodge individuals from their existing view of how the world ought to be and thrust them into another" (22).

Finally, the authors (as many have before them) discard the rational/irrational dichotomy, upon which is imposed the division between modern and premodern societies, as a meaningful way of classifying ways of life.

Introduction to Part Two: "The Indispensability of Functional Explanation"

Functionalism is flawed not in theory, but in practice. They note that though many social scientists consider functionalism an embarrassment to the field, these same practitioners unwittingly employ functionalist explanations. An example would be Marxists who, while decrying functionalism employ an essentially functionalist logic, stressing the way in which institutional arrangements or patterns of belief serve capitalist interests. Traditional functionalists erred in asking what was functional for whole societies and ignoring issues of conflict. In contrast, the authors' cultural -functional theory, by tying functions to ways of life, explicitly addresses the question of conflict, asking who benefits and acknowledging that a behavior that is functional for one group-one way of life-will often undermine other ways of life.

Chapter ?: "Merton, Stinchcombe, and Elster" (very brief excerpt)

Just as traditional functionalists erred in attaching functions to whole societies rather than their "constituent ways of life" (groups with differing cultures), traditional students of political culture erred in assuming that each nation (or ethnic group or tribe) had a single political culture.

Introduction to Part Three: Cultures Are Plural, Not Singular

What is Political?

Definitions of the political are in and of themselves culturally based. The study of political culture (as distinct from culture generally) must pay "special attention to the ways in which the boundary between political and nonpolitical is socially negotiated. More important, it also means that political scientists must give up the notion that the distinction between politics and other spheres (whether economic, social or something else) is "out there in the world", ready made to be picked up and used" (217).

Responding to Major Criticisms of Traditional Approaches to Political Culture

But what about structure?

The criticism is that described by Hannerz as often lodged against the "culture of poverty " thesis. Behavior that is being explained as the product of culture, it is charged, is more the product of structural constraints. Just as high levels of black unemployment are attributed not to cultural rejections of honest labor but are instead the product of limited economic opportunity, the absence of collection action (to use the example provided by the authors) is attributed to an "irrational ethos" (lack of trust, etc.), ignoring the their marginalized position in the economic and political structure. Thompson et al, take a tack similar to Hannerz'. They are unwilling to relinquish culture as an explanatory variable but stresses that political cultures develop as individuals, over their lifetime, are exposed to political institutions. This allows for change--prompted by changing institutions and circumstances--within political culture, a contrast to the static notions favored by traditional authors.

Moving Beyond "National Character"

Research in political culture had its intellectual roots in the studies of national culture (Margaret Mead and others). But by assigning a country a given culture (and a corresponding political culture) early theorists were then unable to explain conflict. This tended to be left to those brandishing political economic concepts of class and self-interest.

Thompson notes that, despite a growing body of empirical evidence suggesting the inadequacy of the one nation/one political culture formula, it is alive and well. The authors take a stand against this practice, asserting that "no matter what their level of technology, literacy rate, or type of political system, countries are constituted of competing political cultures, not a single political culture" (216).