Chapter Summary

Chapters 5 through 7 dealt with political philosophical questions about what the good life looks like and what the major political ideologies contribute to this discussion. Chapter 8 considers whether this is all merely talk. Just because theorists of liberal democracy say they value justice and believe in individual freedom does not mean that countries professing to be liberal democracies practice what they preach. Similar philosophical questions can be asked about communist countries and social democratic nations.

To understand how politics actually works we need to understand some key terms that political scientists use. Thus, Chapter 8 defines terms such as political values, goals, and political actors. This gives students a framework in which to comprehend politics.

In Chapter 8, we look at the ways political systems deal with the constant struggle for power within a nation. Given that politics is such a struggle for power, which political patterns promote cooperation, advance accommodation, and handle conflicts in domestic politics?

Our hypothesis in Chapters 8 is that successful political patterns require the following:

  • Agreement on certain constitutional fundamentals to facilitate consensus and trust. Political actors need to accept certain basic rules for how politics will work in their country.
  • Meaningful opportunities for expressing needs, interests, and desires to direct us to interest articulation. Political actors must be able to express themselves and to articulate their needs.
  • Sound mechanisms for selecting priorities.
  • Concern with acceptable ways of legitimating public policy choices, which means articulating and agreeing on principles and mechanisms of political obligation. Why do people obey the law and accept public policy?
  • Government that can maintain freedom, law, and order; raise and spend revenue on behalf of agreed-upon public purposes; and ensure necessary services and benefits.
  • Regular and effective controls on government.

This hypothesis is explored by focusing on political culture, constitutional arrangements, and the role of nongovernmental actors. Political culture refers to the distinguishing attitudes, habits, and behavior patterns that characterize a political community. Students of politics can observe important distinctions between what values and beliefs are central to a given society. In the United States, for instance, there is a great emphasis placed on individual freedom. Other cultures may be more concerned with collective equality or less enamored with the very idea of personal freedom.

A political culture is significantly influenced by a number of factors. These include the larger environment, as we saw in Chapter 4. The climate, kinds of natural resources, and population all affect political culture. A nation’s historical experience and memory clearly shape its culture, as do its language, religion, art, literature, and social mores. Economics and geography also influence the cultural ethos. The cultural framework is important because it provides the fundamental agreement—and therefore the trust—without which politics cannot advance as a civilizing process. It provides sound rules for the political game. This agreement on fundamentals does not require, however, that all citizens agree on all aspects of life.

While political culture provides the backdrop against which politics is played, every society has certain specific rules to the political game. These rules are spelled out in the constitution of a country, and they provide the legal framework within which politics unfolds. Some of the key questions that we can ask of any constitution are as follows:

  1. Is the government limited or unlimited in its power?
  2. If it is a democracy, is the government a representative democracy or a direct democracy?
  3. Is there a separation of powers within the government, as in the United States, where power is divided among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. Or is there a connection of powers, as in the United Kingdom?
  4. Is the constitution a federal one, in which there is a division of powers between the central and local governments, or is it a unitary one, in which all power emanates from the center?
  5. Does the government operate by majority rule or by some other method of decision making?

After exploring the important constitutional features of democracies, Chapter 8 deals with the following key questions: How do the actual political values of political actors compare with values such as peace, liberty, and welfare? What do the professed values of political actors really mean? Can political actors harmonize different, sometimes competing, values? Finally, how do the values of political leaders differ from the values held by common citizens?

The guiding hypothesis for this chapter is fourfold.

First, the political values of political actors are rooted in their vital needs, fundamental interests, and perceived desires.

Second, the struggle over political values is conditioned by differing interpretations of needs, interests, and desires by diverse political actors and by the historical distribution of power. These factors make for both conflict and consensus in politics.

Third, the world of politics frequently contains serious gaps between professed values and actual behavior.

Fourth, although prediction is hazardous, the future will probably include a major constitutional and democratic struggle between what we might call broad values and narrow values. This struggle will manifest itself in a number of ways, including in a struggle between broader global needs and narrower national interests.

One of the key factors determining how nations act is concern for what is in the national interest. The national interest, to a significant degree, is determined by such issues as security and peace for the nation; the professed commitment to liberty, human rights, and democracy; the desire for justice, which demands a balancing of liberty and equality; and the need for the welfare and economic well-being of all citizens.

Of course, to an important degree, these values are shaped by the views of citizens. Chapter 8 also investigates what citizens believe. What shapes their values? How do these values vary from country to country? There is considerable evidence that the values of the people who make up political communities are rooted in and correlated with a hierarchy of human needs—for sustenance and safety, for belonging and esteem, and for intellectual, aesthetic, and social fulfillment.

Of related importance is the perceived gap between popular values (the values held by the individuals who make up the nation) and national values (the values of governing leaders, elites, and parties). The normal assumption is that in genuinely democratic countries, national and popular values are pretty much in agreement. But is this the case? There is some evidence that in the United States, political elites are more respectful of civil liberties than is the public at large. To some critics, this is a good thing because the values of typical citizens can often be fickle and uninformed. Many public surveys confirm that citizens are remarkably ignorant of basic political facts. However, this view has been challenged by recent research that shows that basic policy preferences of Americans are actually consistent and not subject to irrational changes.

Our investigation of values invites both hopeful and fearful forecasts. Individual values are correlated with a hierarchy of needs, and it becomes obvious why such values are firmly rooted in human biology, psychology, and sociology. Thus, such fundamental values cannot be so easily ignored by governing elites. However, we must be concerned about the ways these values can come into conflict, either within a nation or between nations.