Danielle Dawkins Essays (1054 words) - Thought, Terminology

Danielle Dawkins Essays (1054 words) - Thought, Terminology Danielle Dawkins Dr. Bentzen American Government 5/5/17 Political Culture Political culture can be defined as "historically-based, widely-shared beliefs, feelings and values about the nature of political systems, which can serve as a link between citizens and the government." Political culture is not to be confused with political ideology, which is a set of values and beliefs that an individual holds. Every country has its own political culture, which provides clues as to why certain governments are organized the way they are, or why some countries are allies with each other while others are not. As it stands, there are currently three theories of political culture: parochial political culture, subject political culture, and participant political culture. In a parochial political culture, citizens possess little to no interest in the government and are mostly uninformed other the entire political process. On the contrary, citizens in a participant political culture are, more or less, well-informed and actively engaged in the political process. America has a participant political culture with a wide array of values and beliefs. In a country that is fundamentally conservative, many American citizens believe and take pride in democracy, equality, and individualism. These values can be traced all the way back to the American revolution. Even so, America's political culture has changed generation by generation through means of political socialization, or a process by which people acquire various political values through family, religion, gender, race, and social class. One key aspect of political culture is political ideology, which is a coherent set of values and beliefs that people hold dear to themselves. The ideologies that people hold set the framework of their thought process while greatly influencing how they perceive the world. Isaiah Berlin, a historian and philosopher, stated that "ideological battles" is one factor that shaped human history in the 20th century. Berlin stated, "the other ideological battles - totalitarian tyrannies of both right and left and the explosions of nationalism, racism, and religious bigotry that the most perceptive social thinkers of the nineteenth century failed to predict." There are currently four functions that political scientists attribute to political ideologies in terms of ideas transforming into actions, and they are the following: explanation, evaluation, orientation, and political program. A lot of the time, social and political conditions are direct products of the political ideologies at hand. For example, totalitarian governments typically have poor social settings, as the government has every say over the lives of its citizens. Along with explanation, ideologies can also produce standards for social conditions and political institutions. Regarding America's standard, Americans tend to take pride in personal responsibility, which is why there so much stigma surrounding entitlement programs and whatnot. Ideologies provide orientation toward several different issues, and they also guide their political actions. In other words, identity politics are employed. There may be four functions attributed to political ideology, but there are also two ways of measuring it. To what extent do people use broad political categories to justify their own beliefs, and how consistent do their beliefs stay over time? Before one can answer these questions, they must have knowledge of American political ideologies, as they are not as simple as just being conservative or liberal. Ideologies are complex at best, and are far more than just labels. The Nolan chart, created by Libertarian party leader David Nolan, captures the political beliefs of citizens on two dimensions: economic and personal freedom. From left to right, Nolan outlined the five key political ideologies: left (liberal), moderate, right (conservative), libertarian (limited government) , and statist (big government). Conservatives tend to believe in limited government and always favor local and state government over the federal government, as they are always advocated for "States' rights". Also, conservatives believe that the private sector is more suited than the federal government in terms of addressing domestic problems like poverty and discrimination. Since the 1970's, social conservatism has been on a rise. While social conservatives tend to believe in limited government on the grounds of domestic problems or whatnot, they see no issue with the government infringing upon personal liberties, such as same-sex marriage, abortion, contraceptives. On the other side of the scale, liberals seek use for the government in terms of changing the