Transcript Politics and Culture: - Graduate School for Social Research

Beyond political culture
Warsaw, May-June 2009 Lectures
Johann
Friedrich
Overbeck
(1789-1869)
Meanings
Resources
Interaction
(basic unit of
the society)
Organization(s)/
institutions
Comments on the chart:
– At the outset of an interaction the participating actors
are in symmetrical or asymmetrical (more often)
positions: initial power differential.
– Interaction actualizes this differential and may change
it: final/outcome power differential.
– Interaction is ALWAYS an act of communication
(meaning).
– Interaction is ALWAYS carried our within some
(institutional) constraints.
– Interaction has ALWAYS (?) an impact on the
distribution of resources (sometimes indirectly; see Goodin and Klingemann on this
point (1996:7)).
– Interaction can be usefully modeled as a game (with
rational actors).
Signifying
element
Sender
?
Receiver
(Political) Field
Signified
element
Definitions of politics:
1. Institutional:
1. “’Politics’ might best be characterized as the constrained
use of social power.”
2. The study of politics: “the study of the nature and sources
of those constraints and the techniques for the use of
social power within those constraints” (7).”[1]
2. Material-institutional:
1. "A conception of politics as decision making and
resource allocation is at least as old as Plato and
Aristotle" (47); Laswell’s: who gets what when and how.“
2. "the organizing principle of a political system is the
allocation of scarce resources in the face of conflict of
interests“
[1] Robert Gooding and Hans-Dieter Klingemann (A New Handbook of Political
Science, Oxford, 1996): 7.
Definitions of politics:
3. Structural:
From: Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow and Charles Tilly, Dynamics of Contention
Definitions of politics:
"Although there are exceptions, the modern perspective in political science has generally
given primacy to substantive outcomes and either ignored symbolic actions
or seen symbols as part of manipulative efforts to control outcomes." /…?
These challenges echo another ancient theme of political thought,
the idea that politics creates, confirms, or modifies interpretations
of life. Through politics, individuals develop their identities, their
communities, and the public good" (March, Olsen, 1989:47-48).
4.
Cultural-institutional:
"Politics is usually conducted as if identity were fixed. The question
then becomes, on what basis, at different times in different
places, does the nonfixity become temporarily fixed in such a
way that individuals and groups can behave as a particular
kind of agency, political or otherwise? How do people become
shaped into acting subjects, understanding themselves in
particular ways? In effect, politics consists of the effort to
domesticate the infinitude of identity. It is the attempt to
hegemonize identity, to order it into a strong programmatic
statement. If identity is decentered, politics is about the
attempt to create a center."[1]
[1] Nicholas B. Dirks, Geoff Eley, and Sherry B. Ortner, "Introduction" to Culture/Power/History.
1994, Princeton: Princeton University Press: 32.
A Reader in Contemporary Social Theory, Nicholas B. Dirks, Geoff Eley, and Sherry B. Ortner, editors,
Definitions of culture: total/global
Total concept of culture:
• E.B.Tylor (Primitive Culture, 1871):
• Culture is "that complex whole which
includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law,
custom, and any other capabilities and habits
acquired by man as a member of society."
Selective definitions:
Psycho-social:
• Almond and Bingham Powell, Jr., (1966:23):
• Culture: "attitudes, beliefs, values and skills which are current in an
entire population, as well as those special propensities and patterns
which may be found within separate parts of that population."
Semiotic:
• Clifford Geertz (1973:145):
• "Culture is the fabric of meaning in terms of which human beings
interpret their experience and guide their action; social structure is
the form that action takes, the actually existing network of social
relations. Culture and social structure are then but different
abstractions from the same phenomena."
Ann Swidler (1986:273):
“Culture consists of such symbolic vehicles of
meaning, including beliefs, ritual practices, art
forms, and ceremonies, as well as informal
cultural practices such as language, gossip,
stories, and rituals of daily life. These
symbolic forms are the means through which
'social process of sharing modes of behavior
and outlook within [a] community' (Hannerz,
1969:184) take place.”
Political culture (psycho-social:
Almond and Verba (1963:15)
Political culture is "a people's predominant beliefs,
attitudes, values, ideals, sentiments, and
evaluations about the political system of its country,
and the role of the self in that system.“
(1963:13): culture: "a set of orientations toward ...
social objects“
political culture: "orientations toward specifically
political objects"
Political culture (semiotic):
Gamson (1988:220)
"A nonredundant concept of political
culture refers to the meaning systems
that are culturally available for talking,
writing, and thinking about political
objects: the myths and metaphors, the
language and idea elements, the
frames, ideologies, values, and
condensing symbols."
Six pairs of contrasts:
• Psycho-social (culture as attitudes) versus
semiotic (culture as texts)
• Culture as a constraint (Geertz) versus culture
as a resource (utilitarian) (Cohen)
• Public (inter-subjective, collective) versus
individual level: Hannertz versus
Strauss&Quinn
• Emic (“native’s point of view”) versus etic
(external)
• Holism (Huntington) versus individualism
(game theory)
• Semiotic system (structuralism) versus
(social) practice (post-structuralism);
Four possible conceptualizations of the
elements of culture
Elements of
culture as
constraints
Psycho-social
(attitudes)
Semiotic
(signs)
Elements of
culture as
resources
Attitudes as
constraints
(homo
sovieticus)
Symbols as
tools of
manipulation
Ulf Hannertz: Cultural Complexity: Studies
in the Social Organization of Meaning (7).
Three dimension of culture:
• Ideas and modes of thought as entities and
processes of the mind;
• Forms of externalization, the different ways in
which meaning is made accessible to the
senses, made public;
• Social distribution, the ways in which the
collective inventory of meanings and
meaningful external forms - is spread over a
population and its social relationship.
Approaches to the study of culture and politics
POLITICAL CULTURE
CULTURE OF POLITICS
Main object of analysis: people's attitudes as legacies of past
socialization and their impact on political behavior (example:
voting).
Main object of analysis: models (schemas) of the social and political
worlds discernible in political texts, politicians' statements and
informing their actions
Key concepts: attitudes, values
Key method(s): surveys of attitudes
Key concepts: representations of politics, root paradigm, cultural
scenario, cultural schema
Key methods: content analysis
Examples of studies:
1. Almond and Verba, The Civic Culture (Revisited);
2. Ronald Inglehart, Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society.
Examples of studies:
1. Myron Aronoff, Israeli Visions and Divisions;
2. Murray Edelman, Constructing the Political Spectacle;
3. Victoria Bonnell, Iconography of Power. Soviet Political Posters
under Lenin and Stalin.
4. John Dryzek and Leslie Holmes, Post-Communist Democratization :
Political Discourses Across Thirteen Countries.
CULTURAL POLITICS
POLITICS OF CULTURE
Main object of study: policies and institutions involved in the
generation and management of cultural production
Main object of analysis: political content (often "hidden" of ostensibly
a-political) cultural products; power differential constructed
in/through discourse
Key concepts: propaganda, indoctrination, censorship
Key method(s): institutional analysis, policy analysis
Examples of studies:
1. Glenn Jordan and Chris Weedon, Cultural Politics. Class, Gender,
Race and the Postmodern World;
2. Jane Curry, The Black Book of Polish Censorship.
Key concepts: politics of representation, hegemony, "hidden transcripts,"
subalternity
Key method(s): (critical) content analysis
Examples of studies:
1. Cultural Studies: useful summary: Fred Inglis, Cultural Studies;
2. Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power;
3. Subaltern studies: Spivak and Mohanty;
4. Third face of power (Lukes and Gaventa).