Notes Ap Comparative Government

Throughout the world there are many diverse political cultures. A political culture is the attitudes, beliefs or practices among a group of likeminded individuals. (Giardino pg. 27) There are different categories that embrace a political culture like an Individualistic, traditionalistic and moralistic. An individualistic culture is one that prefers less government involvement. The traditionalists’ culture maintains government as the social and economic hierarchy and does not like change. The moralistic culture favors public good and it revolves around social issues. In shaping a political culture demographics such as population size, growth, distribution and diversity are essential to determine how a state is in any of the three categories. Society is strongly affected by decisions of who, what and when does an individual receive any types of goods or services. Government is the structure, buildings and institutions that are held within politics.

Daniel Elazar’s three categories of state political cultures are moralistic, individualistic, and traditionalistic (Smith & Greenblatt , 2016). Moralistic culture is defined in the textbook, a political culture that views politics and government as the means to achieve the collective good (Smith & Greenblatt , 2016). Individualist culture is described as a political culture that views politics and government as just another way to achieve individual goals (Smith & Greenblatt , 2016). Traditionalistic culture is explained as a political culture that views politics and government as the means of maintaining the existing social order (Smith & Greenblatt , 2016). I believe the states can have mixed features of all three of Elazar’s types of

The idea of political culture is found within the state’s history. The history of the state is impacted by the people settled in the region, religious backgrounds, and geography. The history of the state influences the attitudes and beliefs that people hold regarding their political system. Daniel Elazar theorized a connection between the states’ history and attitude towards government by explaining differences in government between states. Every state is different with some common ground. Elazar’s theory divides states into three types: moralistic, traditionalistic and individualistic. The state’s constitution defines the powers of government with political culture bias. Because of the state constitution, the political culture

Someone may argue the fact that "some confronting societies that are often fragmented and have little orientation to the state as a whole".� Therefore, how is each state and ethnic group willing to

Regional political sub-cultures are the trends people in specific regions of the country have toward their government—how it should function and what they feel it should achieve. As far as the state of Florida is concerned, based on recent voter turnout and demography it can be concluded that the state is divided sub-culturally and has been in flux since the theory of political culture began.

“conflict occurring between individuals or social groups that separated by cultural boundaries can be considered “cross-cultural conflict.” But individuals, even in the same society, are potentially members of many different groups, organized in different ways by different criteria” (Avruvh, 1998, p.6).

• Attitudes and values of the public and the government differ considerably from country to country.

Culture can be broken into multiple parts, as Tim Soutphommasane explains in his TEDxSYDNEY video, individuals actively separate the positives of culture and indulge in certain aspects, such as specific meals. However, for it to be fully understood it requires observing, accepting and experiencing all available aspects of the culture. We have to be willing to recognise the diversity of their citizenship, reflect on their different ways, and allow it to transform us. To further our understanding of the cultures you need to reflect on their values, as well as our own (abc.net.au, 2012). In addition, Tim Soutphommasane describes that to be classified as a part of civic culture it is required to be publicly and politically recognised. Nonetheless, the sense of belonging that comes from being a part of a political culture is felt to be no longer attainable, due to not being able to demand cultural homogeneity (Soutphommasane, 2005).

Even today, divisions in groups have been as a result of continued differences among the uniting groups. Humans have a tendency to incline towards the protection of their interest’s aid favors of their perceived groups. Such favourism makes them advocate fully for their interests posing a challenging opposing side to the interests of their unperceived groups. Many nations today are faced with such opposing groups having differing interests and ideals. People advocating for similar ideals tend to create strong ties of

When I think about a political community, I usually associate it with elections, politicians, and advertisements that bad mouth candidates from the different political parties. Politicians try to persuade citizens to vote for them by making promises that they may never fulfill. But a political community is more than that. A comparison of Aristotle and John Locke’s nature and purpose of a political community has given me a new insight. I learned that, even though the political community is responsible to provide security, its main purpose is aimed for the highest good of all its citizens, which is virtue and happiness.

Political communities, nations and/states, have been formed from shared territory, a constitution, and perhaps most importantly through a collective memory. Memory is traditionally understood as a way of maintaining information, typically a personal and individual affair. But collective memory serves a purpose of connecting the some past experience of a group of individuals to the present to form a narrative. "Identity claims, when pushed, characteristically seek something else: to establish the sameness, the continuity, of a person or community across time and in the face of apparent change" (Booth 1999, p.249). Memory can be a dividing or uniting tool, it split communities into various shared identities, sometimes aligning with state lines

(80) The ideas of individualism and community are not new, but I would like to argue that individualistic ideas, to an extent, does not hurt the political community.

"Culture is more often a source of conflict than of synergy. Cultural differences are nuisance at best and often a disaster." - Dr. Geert Hofstede

The concept of culture is something that defines many aspects of one’s life. From physical objects to different ways of thinking, culture adds significance to human life and makes groups of people distinct from one another. Culture is essentially a group of people who come together with similar interests and points of view. According to the Center for Advanced Language Acquisition of the University of Minnesota, “culture is defined as the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization.” From a more sociological perspective, culture is a way in which people come together in order to fulfill their needs. These shared patterns and ideas identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group.” Culture is one of the things that sets the United States apart from the rest of the world. Not that the rest of the world is not cultural, but the circumstance here is different. Many people of different cultural backroads come to this country in search of a better life. As a consequence, the United States has become a place where many cultures merge together like a colossal pot soup.

Political culture refers to believes, feeling and how people think they should act about government. In the US political culture lays some core ideals and values which are of course not shared by all the Americans. However, the two shared political values in the US by vast majority the regardless of race, creed, national origin are liberty and democracy. In most political debates, there is a tendency to come up with the best framework on how best to achieve these ideals and values assert (Schudson, 271).