The 50th Anniversary of The Civic Culture

Abstract

This article traces the origins of the concept of political culture within the study of comparative politics. After revisiting the circumstances under which it developed, the article highlights some of the key factors that set it apart from other studies in its era – its theoretical exploration of stable democracy, its systematically comparative focus and its use of sample surveys of public opinion. The article shows how these factors were refined and improved in subsequent work on political equality. Overall, it concludes that the basic formulation of The Civic Culture – of congruence between mass attitudes and the type of political system – will be retained and will continue to make a mark upon the future trajectory of comparative research on public opinion.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sidney Verba is the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor Emeritus and Research Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he taught for 35 years. He is the author of over 20 books and numerous articles on American and comparative government. Much of his writing is on the role of citizen engagement and activism in a democracy, with an emphasis on issues of equality in political, social and economic life. His books include The Civic Culture, Participation in America, Participation and Political Equality, The Changing American Voter, Voice and Equality and Designing Social Inquiry. Awards for his writing include the American Political Science Associations Kammerer Award for the best book on American politics and its Woodrow Wilson award for the best book in political science.

Notes

1. Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1963).

2. Quoted in Jan F. Triska, Paul M. Cocks and Gabriel Almond, Political Development in Eastern Europe (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1977), p.vii.

3. Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).

4. The questions I am citing for 1959 and for 2009 touch on general subjects on which people might be expected to have stable views. But we must keep in mind that express attitudes can change and often in a short time in response to current events. In particular, the survey in 2009 was conducted on the cusp of a series of major threats to American complacency, from war in the Middle East to a sagging economy with high unemployment. The 2009 survey was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates.

5. For works on political equality across nations, see Bashiruddin Ahmed and Anil Bhatt, Caste, Race and Politics: A Comparison of India and the United States (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1971). Also, Sidney Verba, Norman Nie and Jae-on Kim, Participation and Political Equality: A Seven-Nation Comparison (London: University of Chicago Press, 1978). For analysis of the United States, see Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Scholzman and Henry E. Brady, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995).