Political Culture, Participation and Voting

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Political Culture, Participation and Voting
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Political culture

• Represents a shared set of norms and values.
• Determined by a states history and immigration
• Maintained through existing political
  institutions.
• Expressed through public attitudes.

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The Elazar Categories

• Daniel Elazar provided the first classification
  of states according to distinct political
  cultures.
• Elazar concluded that states could be separated
  according to religious and ethnic backgrounds and
  migration patterns.

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Why Minnesota is liberal and Texas conservative

• The political culture of a state provides a
  foundation for the values and beliefs of its
  citizens about the appropriate role of
  government.
• States political culture best expressed by
  citizen attitudes toward government and public
  representatives.

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Elazars classification

• Moralistic Minnesota liberals
• Lutherans, Scandinavian
• Individualistic Every man for himself
• Catholics, Irish, Italians
• Traditionalistic Texas conservatives
• WASP Baptists, Evangelicals

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Debating Elazar

• Political culture is rarely clear-cut attitudes
  change over time.
• Most states have characteristics that reflect
  more than one political culture.
• Political culture reflects sectionalism, or
  regional patterns, rather than distinct cultural
  divisions.

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Debating Culture

• Culture too easy an explanation of why states
  differ
• resources, ideology, party systems
• Culture not a thing that can be changed much
• What is it, really?

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Political culture and elections

• Political participation is a reflection of a
  states dominant political culture.
• Elections are the primary mechanism for
  expressing attitudes and beliefs about the
  direction of government.

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Political culture and electoral institutions

• Moralistic
• control parties
• inter-party competition
• non-party elections (local)
• Progressive Era reforms
• direct democracy
• 3rd party and independents

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Political culture and institutions

• Individualistic
• Machine politics
• some party competition
• Hierarchical, patronage-based party organizations
• Partisan local elections
• high participation
• politics as vocation

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Political culture and institutions

• Traditionalistic
• preserve authority
• limit participation
• one-party systems

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Elections and representation

• Ballot access
• FL GA vs. OR WA
• Registration
• MS AL vs. ME ND
• Effects of registration (2004)
• 30 days 55.3
• 20 days 58.6
• 15 days 60.2
• 0 days 65.2

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Political culture and political behavior

• Political participation depends on existing
  electoral conditions.
• Moralistic states, with a high degree of
  political competition, have the highest rates of
  political participation.
• Competitive elections also drive up rates of
  voter turnout.

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Conclusion

• Although rarely clear-cut, the political cultures
  of the states help explain why states differ in
  terms of inter-party competition and political
  behavior.
• The political culture of a state influences
  everything from political attitudes and political
  participation to the regulation of statewide
  elections.