This document discusses key aspects of American political culture, including how it differs from political institutions. It notes that political culture consists of patterned ways of thinking and using symbols that are typically not conscious. The chapter examines debates around individual rights like privacy and how they often center on individual rights in America. It also contrasts political culture with institutions and how culture provides norms and language while institutions establish rules. Additionally, it explores how religious faith, individualism, associations, and public opinion have all shaped American democracy and political culture.

1. Public Opinion and
Political Culture
Chapter 6

2. Political Culture in America
 What makes us free? Could we transport our American
institutions to another country?
 Political Culture – a distinctive and patterned way of thinking
about how political and economic life ought to be carried out;
national character
 Patterned ways of seeing and talking, typically not conscious or
explicit (we don’t think about it)
 “Culture” consists as much in symbols and language as in
thought

3. Example: Right to Privacy
 Debate in America almost always centers on the rights of the
individual
 Protection of right to privacy: an individual’s privacy should be
protected no matter what the circumstances
 Flexibility of right to privacy: an individual’s privacy can be curtailed
in order to protect the immediate and extenuating interests of the
country
 Alternative theories
 Moral argument – what’s moral, just, and holy?
 Communitarian argument – what are the interests and rights of the
community?
 Utilitarian argument – what’s efficient?

4. Political Culture v. Political
Institutions
 Institutions provide the rules of engagement
 Constitution, laws
 Culture provides norms (expectations), symbols of
engagement
 Creates our assumptions as political actors
 Gives us our language of expression
 Two-way street between institutions and culture

5. Faith and Politics
 Religious Faith
 America is a profoundly religious nation, especially in comparison
to its European counterparts
 Politics are often fought out in the religious arena
 Abortion arguments
 Civil rights arguments
 Prohibition arguments
 Secular Faith (the faith of the 20th century?)
 Symbol of the Dream (MLK)
 Symbol of the Struggle and Liberation (MLK)
 Symbol of the Frontier (JFK)

6. Deliberative Organization
 The constitutional primacy of the legislature in America rests on
the cultural primacy of the committee
 Tocqueville – In response to a given problem, “the neighbors at once
form a deliberative body; this improvised assembly produces an
executive authority which remedies the trouble before anyone has
thought of the possibility of some previously constituted authority
beyond that of the concerned.”
 Good or bad?
 Why the committee and why the association?
 Collective problem solving
 Individual freedom and voice

7. Individualism
 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, “Of Individuals in
Democracies.”
 “Individualism is a calm and considered feeling which disposes
each citizen to isolate himself from the masses of his fellows and
withdraw into the circle of family and friends; with this little society
formed to his taste, he gladly leaves the greater society to look
after itself.”

8. Individualism
 Implications
 Government – “that government governs best which governs not
at all” (Henry David Thoreau)
 Beliefs – “Let your conscience be your guide.” (Thoreau)
 Symbol – the cowboy
 Tocqueville argues that individualism is a threat to democracy
 How do we solve this?
 Political liberty
 Faith, deliberation, and association

9. Associations
 What associations do we make on a daily basis?
 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, “On the Use Which the
Americans Make of Associations in Civil Life.”
 “Americans of all ages, all conditions, and dispositions constantly
form associations. They have not only commercial and
manufacturing companies, in which all take part, but associations of
a thousand other kinds, -- religious, moral, serious, futile, general or
restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans make
associations to given entertainments, to found seminaries, to build
inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries…;
they found in this manner hospitals, prisons, and schools.”

10. Associations
 Does Tocqueville’s theory still apply today?
 “We have created rootless, dangling people with little link to
the supportive networks – family, friends, school – that
sustain some sense of purpose in life.”

11. Public Opinion and Democracy
 Democracy: The Rule of the Ruled
 Framers believed that democracy required “due dependence
upon the people.”
 Hamilton: safety in the executive requires “due dependence”
of President upon popular will
 Accountability to public interest matters
 Cornerstone Political Science Question
 Why do people behave, and think, as they do?

12. Check my SlideShare page
(rfair07) for more lectures
Lectures posted for:
 United States History before 1877 / after 1877
 Texas History
 United States (Federal) Government / Texas Government
 Slide 12 of 25
 To download a full copy of the full PowerPoint presentation,
please go to: https://gumroad.com/l/FphqI 
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