Political Culture – shared political values, beliefs and norms. a distinctive pattern of ideals about how political life ought to be carried out

Liberty/Freedom Equality Democracy Civic Duty- Speech -political: one man - equal representation - obey laws- Religion one vote - right of majority - pay taxes- Privacy - legal: equal protection - respect of minority - vote

- economic: opportunity - participation/adversarial - serve on jury not results

Important Related Effects of Political Culture: Mistrust of Government (+) = “fear of government”

(-) = cynicism Political Efficacy: is it all worthwhile- being a US citizen?

internal: confidence in your ability to understand and participate in political affairs. external: confidence that government will listen and respond to your efforts to influence policy.

How Do We Know What We Should Value? = Political Socialization

The learning of Political Culture

AGENTS OF SOCIALIZATION (teachers of culture)1. Family2. Education3. Peers4. Government (overt socialization)5. Media

Be aware that socialization is not the same for all nor does it have the same effect on all. In fact some values taught are in conflict. Wilson calls these “crosscutting cleavages”

1. occupation ( social class)2. Region3. Ethnicity/race4. Religion5. Gender

So yes we have an American Political Culture, but differences in how to live thesevalues out, are present because of how or how deeply people have been socializedor how present are crosscutting cleavages in our lives. These differences cancomprise what is called- Political Opinion

Public Opinion is the distribution of individual attitudes toward a particular issue, candidate, or political institution. Although the definition is simple enough, public opinion encompasses the attitudes of millions of diverse people from many racial, ethnic, age, and regional groups. As a result, the study of American public opinion is especially complex, but also very important. For American government to operate democratically, the opinions of the American public must reach and become an integral part of the political process

POLITICAL CULTURE = set of agreed upon values and goals

POLITICAL Opinion/ Ideology= the manner of best achieving those same agreed upon values/goals

an ideology is a consistent set of beliefs/attitudes

For United States in 2014, we make this highly complex difference in political opinion too simplistic with the notions of

LIBERAL versus CONSERVATIVE

the LEFT versus the RIGHT DEMOCRAT versus REPUBLICAN (GOP) PROGRESSIVE versus ORTHODOX