Suchergebnisse

This article proposes a structuralist alternative to mainstream behavioural studies of political culture in the United States. After first describing the deficiencies in the mainstream approach, the article suggests that political culture as attitudes and values should be seen as surface elements of a deep cultural structure. The structuralist alternative is presented in some detail, with emphasis upon cultural narratives. Building upon structuralist theory, American political culture emerges as 'mythologized individualism', the ramifications of which are described in terms of American ideological cognition and in terms of American capacities to use culture as a means of realizing democratic ideals. In these latter respects, mythologized individualism is found wanting.

This article describes the territorial dimensions of a recurrent struggle between authority and community. Authority prefers and requires the expansion of territorial units; community prefers and requires the contraction of units. A model is proposed that attempts to synthesize these countertendencies by arguing that territorial expansion occurs as part of a process of expanding production, but that the consumption of the resulting productive surplus contracts territories and creates waste. The process is entropic, and helps explain why neither authority nor community triumphs.

Social psychology is employed to illuminate processes of domination, self-justification, & self-doubt among dominant groups. It is claimed that social identity theory as formulated by Henri Tajfel (Social Identity and Intergroup Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge U Press, 1982) & his associates helps explain group domination. It is argued that attribution research, the just world phenomenon, the "base line fallacy," & schema theory, inter alia, help in understanding dominant group self-justification. However dominant group self-justification is never complete; instead, it is accompanied by pervasive, sociopsychologically engendered self-doubt. A principle contributor to dominant group self-doubt is the emergence of a social control agency that enjoys partial autonomy. The benefits of integrating research in social psychology into traditional Marxist & Weberian approaches to domination & political conflict are noted. 74 References. Modified HA

I first encountered the work of Harold Lasswell in the late 1950s, when I was a barely awake undergraduate at a university whose reputation for mediocrity was richly deserved. I openedPolitics: Who Gets What, When, Howto the first paragraph: 'The study of politics is the study of influence and the influential. The science of politics states conditions; the philosophy of politics justifies preferences. This book, restricted to political analysis, declares no preferences. It states conditions.' I had never heard of Lasswell, for my political science courses limited themselves to subjects like Congressional seniority and Cabinet responsibility in Britain. One course discussed the law of piracy, a subject I had trouble linking to international politics in the 1950s. Some enterprising instructors occasionally discussed the balance of power, and one even assigned David Truman. But Lasswell wasterra incognitato me, as he no doubt was to most undergraduates in those years.

This article argues that weaknesses in the school's socialization of democratic values can be traced to culturally patterned strains in American education. Such strains are cultural adaptations to a conflict between educational knowledge and order, on the one hand, and egalitarian politics in America, on the other. After treating a defective explanation for the school's weakness as a democratic socialization agent–the "hidden curriculum" approach–the article outlines the conflict between democratic politics and "the basic shape of schooling." The article concludes by tracing the deleterious effect of this conflict on teachers, curricula, and students.