Primary factors determining cultural characteristics

1
Primary factors determining cultural
characteristics

• Geography proximity tends to correlate with
  shared historical experience, language, and
  economic conditions
• Religion tends to correlate with core
  assumptions about human nature and expectations
  about politics
• Level of economic development transition from an
  agricultural to an industrial to a service
  economy causes major changes in overall social
  structure

2
Clustering of Cultural Values
Source www.worldvaluessurvey.org University of
Michigan
3
Examples of Universal Behaviors in Human Cultures

• Living in groups which claim a territory and a
  sense of being distinct
• Status and prestige, both assigned (e.g. by
  kinship, age, sex) and achieved
• Some degree of economic inequality
• Exchange of labor, goods, and services
• Reciprocity in both gifts and retaliation

4

• Coalitions and social reasoning
• Government in the sense of binding collective
  decisions about public affairs
• Laws, rights and obligations, including laws
  against violence, rape, and murder
• Inheritance of property
• Sense of right and wrong seeking of redress for
  wrongs
• Source Donald E. Brown, Human Universals (Quoted
  in Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct, pp
  413-415)

5
Political philosophy

• Can people be trusted?
• What makes a government legitimate?
• Order vs freedom - should the law be obeyed for
  its own sake?
• Importance of government vs importance of
  family/village

6
Questions that differentiate some aspects of
political culture

• You are driving on a deserted road at night and
  are confident no one else is around. You come to
  a stop sign. Do you stop?
• Prior to an election, reliable polls have shown
  that there will be a clear winner in all of the
  races. Do you vote?
• If the majority of citizens believe in something,
  should that become law?

7
An Italian discussing Italian attitudes towards
the law

• In Italy, red lights come in many varieties. A
  rare few actually mean stop. Others, to the
  Italian driver, suggest different
  interpretations. At a pedestrian crossing at 7
  a.m., with no pedestrians around, it is a
  negotiable red, more like a weak orange. It is
  more of a suggestion than a command. It all
  depends.
• We Italians think its an insult to comply with
  a regulation. Obedience is boring. If I were to
  cheat on my taxes, two neighbors would come round
  to ask how I did it, and two more would loath me
  in silence. No one would report me.
• Beppe Severgnini. La Bella Figura(Severgnini is
  a columnist for the Milan newspaper Corriere
  della Sera)

8
Questions that can differentiate some aspects of
political culture, continued

• What is more responsible for your absolute
  success in life
• your actions as an individual
• your family
• society in general
• the will of God
• You encounter two friends who have just found a
  large amount of money in the street. They ask
  you to divide it between them. You know that one
  of the friends is twice as wealthy as the other.
  How do you divide it?

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FACTORS INFLUENCING POLITICAL CULTURE

• Language

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Major World Languages

• Native speakers, all dialects, millions
• Chinese 937
• Spanish 332
• English 322
• Bengali 189
• Hindi/Urdu 182
• Arabic 175
• Portuguese 170
• Russian 170
• Japanese 125
• German 98
• French 79

• Primary and secondary speakers, millions
• Mand. Chinese 1120
• English 480
• Spanish 320
• Russian 285
• French 265
• Hindi/Urdu 250
• Arabic 221
• Portuguese 188
• Bengali 185
• Japanese 133
• German 109

11
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis language determines
thought

• Originated in 1930s, popular ever since, but
  little empirical support
• Whorf (a studentlook what a mere student can
  do) incorrectly thought the Hopi language had no
  markers for past and future
• It does, just differently than English. As do
  most languages
• Whorf is apparently also responsible for what
  linguists call the great Eskimo snow vocabulary
  hoax
• Busy guy
• Languages do, however, differ in the available
  vocabulary
• Languages from Confucian cultures provide more
  vocabulary for indicating relative status
• Many African languages have different terms for
  aunt and uncle depending on whether the
  relationship is from mother or father
• Arabic has a number of different terms that
  translate to English Board of Directors

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FACTORS INFLUENCING POLITICAL CULTURE

• Language
• Religion and philosophy

13
Source Global Trends 2015 A Dialogue About the
Future With Nongovernment Experts. U.S. National
Intelligence Council, December, 2000.
14
FACTORS INFLUENCING POLITICAL CULTURE

• Language
• Religion and philosophy
• Art and literature
• Popular culture shootout on main street
• Mythology Odessey vs Ramayana

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Mythology as Political Culture

• Odessey Greece
• Achilles is a self-centered jerk Illiad
• Ulysses makes it home alive
• Everyone else traveling with Ulysses dies
• Hey, you got a problem with that?
• Ramayana South Asia
• Obligations within the family
• Obligations to subordinates

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FACTORS INFLUENCING POLITICAL CULTURE

• Language
• Religion and philosophy
• Art and literature
• Level of economic development

17
Source Global Trends 2015 A Dialogue About the
Future With Nongovernment Experts. U.S. National
Intelligence Council, December, 2000.
(http//www.odci.gov/cia/publications/globaltrends
2015/)
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North and South Cultural Value Contrasts
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FACTORS INFLUENCING POLITICAL CULTURE

• Language
• Religion and philosophy
• Art and literature
• Level of economic development
• History
• National traumas, e.g. Pearl Harbor
• Templates for interpreting behavior
• Inertia

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National Traumas

• USA
• Pearl Harbor
• Vietnam
• 9/11 ?
• Russia
• Assorted invasions Genghis Khan, Napoleon,
  Hitler
• Japan
• Black Ships (1854) following isolation
• China
• Chaos of 1850-1970 wasnt pleasant, but China is
  historically accustomed to inter-dynastic chaos

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Historical Inertia Spelling

• knight
• A common WGer. word OE. cniht, cneoht OFris.
  knecht, kniucht, OS. (in)knecht (MDu. and Du.
  knecht), OHG., MHG. kneht (G. knecht). In the
  continental tongues the prevailing senses are
  lad, servant, soldier. Source Oxford English
  Dictionary
• See also know, knot, knit, knoll

22
Historical Inertia

• US railway gauge (i.e. the tracks you cross in
  Kansas), is 4 feet, 8.5 inches.
• Not exactly intuitive, eh?
• This is an improbable 143.51 centimeters, so
  cant blame the metric system
• Because that is the UK railway gauge
• Which in turn was based on the standard width of
  wagon axles in the UK
• Which in turn was based in the distance between
  the ruts in the only long-distance roads in
  medieval England
• Which were Roman and the standard ruts were based
  on the standardized axles of Roman chariots
• the Romans standardized everything military...

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Global Distribution of Population
Source Oak Ridge National Laboratory "LandScan
Global" project http//www.ornl.gov/gist/
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REGION Northern Industrial
POPULATION 1.2-billion MAJOR LANGUAGES
English, German, Russian, Japanese MAJOR
RELIGIONS Christianity MAJOR STATES United
States (250-million), European Union
(300-million), Russia (150-million), Japan
(130-million) ECONOMY Post-Industrial (fully
mechanized agriculture large service
sector) COLONIAL EXPERIENCE None colonized
everyone else POLITICAL SYSTEMS Liberal
democratic and post-communist transitional POLITI
CAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT EXPERTS Western Europe
Ronald Francisco, Julie Kaarbo Eastern Europe
Paul D'Anieri, Erik Herron, Catherine
Weaver North America Allan Cigler, Dorothy
Daley, Donald Haider-Markel, Mark Joslyn, Paul
Johnson, Burdett Loomis, Elaine Sharp
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REGION Latin America
POPULATION 400-million MAJOR LANGUAGES
Spanish, Portuguese MAJOR RELIGIONS
Christianity MAJOR STATES Brazil (150-million),
Mexico (90-million) ECONOMY NICs market
system with export-oriented economies COLONIAL
EXPERIENCE Spanish prior to 1820 then no
significant intervention except by USA in Central
America POLITICAL SYSTEMS Largely military
regimes until mid-1980s, now almost entirely
liberal democratic POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT
EXPERTS Gary Reich
26
REGION Arab
POPULATION 300-million MAJOR LANGUAGES
Arabic MAJOR RELIGIONS Islam MAJOR STATES
Egypt (54-million) ECONOMICS Industrializing
many states have substantial oil
reserves COLONIAL EXPERIENCE Long experience of
conflict with Europe some British and French
colonial activity using indirect rule POLITICAL
SYSTEMS Monarchies single-party post-colonial
revolutionary states high level of governmental
stability POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT EXPERTS
none currently
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REGION Sub-Saharan Africa
POPULATION 300-million MAJOR LANGUAGES
Arabic, keSwahili, Zulu, Hausa English and
French used as official languages MAJOR
RELIGIONS Islam, Christianity MAJOR STATES
Nigeria (115-million), Ethiopia (53-million),
South Africa (40-million) ECONOMIES
Industrializing with market systems and urban
bias COLONIAL EXPERIENCE Intensive European
colonial activity from 1500 until about
1960 POLITICAL SYSTEMS Some liberal democratic
systems remainder are single-party, often with
military involvement POLITICAL SCIENCE
DEPARTMENT EXPERTS Hannah Britton
28
REGION Central Asia
POPULATION 200-million MAJOR LANGUAGES
Turkish Farsi (Persian) MAJOR RELIGIONS
Islam MAJOR STATES Turkey (55-million), Iran
(60-million) ECONOMY Industrializing and
agricultural COLONIAL EXPERIENCE Limited,
though some British and Russian
influence. POLITICAL SYSTEMS Very mixed Turkey
is democratic with occasional military coups
Iran is an Islamic republic former Soviet
Central Asian states have post-Soviet
governments POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT
EXPERTS Erik Herron, currently recruiting
29
REGION South Asia
POPULATION 1.2-billion MAJOR LANGUAGES
Hindi/Urdu, Bengali MAJOR RELIGIONS Islam,
Hinduism MAJOR STATES India (900-million),
Pakistan (120-million), Bangladesh
(120-million) ECONOMY India is an NIC
remainder still largely agricultural COLONIAL
EXPERIENCE British prior to 1948 "crown jewel"
of British imperial system POLITICAL SYSTEMS
India, Sri LankaLiberal democratic Pakistan,
Bengladesh democratic with significant military
influence
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REGION China
POPULATION 1.2-billion MAJOR LANGUAGES
Chinese MAJOR RELIGIONS Confucian and
Buddhist MAJOR STATES China ECONOMY
Post-communist newly industrializing market
economy with a large number of uncompetitive
state enterprises COLONIAL EXPERIENCE None
prior to about 1850, then very chaotic period
until 1970 POLITICAL SYSTEM Single party rule,
supposedly communist. Military is a significant
political and economic actor. DEPARTMENT EXPERT
John Kennedy
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REGION Southeast Asia
POPULATION 400-million MAJOR LANGUAGES no
dominant languages MAJOR RELIGIONS Buddhism,
Islam, Christianity MAJOR STATES Indonesia
(180-million), Vietnam (70-million), Philippines
(66-million), Thailand (60-million) LEVEL OF
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT NICs in ASEAN others still
largely agricultural COLONIAL EXPERIENCE French
and Dutch prior to WWII POLITICAL SYSTEMS
Mostly single-party regimes, with significant
military influence POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT
EXPERTS Fiona Yap