3.2 - Political Culture
Political culture is made up of the collective attitudes, values, and beliefs of a citizenry, along with the norms of behavior within the political system. This includes attitudes (general orientations toward politics, like trust versus suspicion), values (fundamental principles like equality, freedom, security, or tradition), beliefs (convictions about how the system works or should work), and behavioral norms (expectations about how citizens should participate and how leaders should act).
Balancing Order and Liberty
Political culture sets expectations about the exercise of power, establishing a balance between social order (stability, security, predictability, government authority to maintain peace) and individual liberty (personal freedom, rights, autonomy, limits on government power).
Some cultures emphasize liberty, prioritizing individual rights, limiting government authority, and protecting dissent and diversity. The UK's political culture emphasizes individual liberties, parliamentary limits on executive power, and a long tradition of protecting civil rights, valuing personal freedom and governmental restraint even alongside some acceptance of the welfare state.
Others emphasize order, prioritizing stability and collective harmony over individual autonomy, valuing social cohesion and authority, and emphasizing duties over rights. China's political culture emphasizes social harmony, collective welfare, and respect for authority, drawing on Confucian traditions that support accepting Communist Party authority and prioritizing stability over individual political freedoms.
Some cultures try to strike a balance between the two. Nigeria's political culture reflects real tension between order (the desire for stability after civil war and military rule) and liberty (democratic aspirations and demands for ethnic group autonomy), with different groups emphasizing different sides and ongoing negotiation between them.
Political culture shapes how much power citizens expect government to have, what actions they consider legitimate, how actively they participate, what rights they demand, and how they respond to authority in general.
What Shapes Political Culture
Political culture is influenced by geography, religious traditions, and history, all of which shape a population's values and beliefs about government's role, individual rights, and citizen control of policymaking.
Geography matters in several ways. Resource distribution, like oil wealth or agricultural capacity, affects attitudes toward government's economic role; Nigeria's oil wealth, concentrated in the southern Niger Delta, created a political culture demanding resource control and benefit-sharing, while northern agricultural states developed different economic expectations entirely. Size and terrain matter too: vast territories tend to encourage decentralization and regional identity, while compact areas facilitate national unity, and Russia's enormous territory spanning eleven time zones reinforces a political culture that accepts strong centralized authority to prevent fragmentation. Borders and neighbors shape security concerns as well; Iran's location surrounded by unstable neighbors and its history of foreign invasion has contributed to a political culture emphasizing sovereignty, resistance to foreign interference, and acceptance of strong state authority for security.
Religious traditions profoundly shape political values too. Confucianism in China emphasizes hierarchical relationships, respect for authority and elders, harmony over conflict, and collective over individual interests, creating a political culture that accepts authoritarian government as long as it governs competently and maintains order. Islam in Iran and Nigeria emphasizes religious law as a basis for governance and the community of believers over individualism; in Iran this creates acceptance of religious authorities' political role and Islamic law's supremacy, while in Nigeria it creates parallel legal expectations with northern Muslims supporting Sharia implementation. Christianity in Nigeria, Mexico, and the UK emphasizes individual conscience and dignity along with some degree of separation between religious and political authority; in Mexico, Catholic social teaching still shapes expectations about social welfare despite formal secularism, and in Nigeria, Christianity shapes southern political culture around rights and democratic participation. Orthodoxy in Russia contributes to acceptance of close church-state relations and a sense of Russian distinctiveness from the West. Secularism creates an expectation of government neutrality on religion and protection of religious diversity. Mexico is formally secular (its constitution separates church and state), while the UK is a largely secular society that still has an established church: the monarch is Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and 26 Church of England bishops sit in the House of Lords.
History shapes enduring political attitudes as well. Colonial legacy in Nigeria, with its artificial borders uniting diverse peoples, exploitation, and imposed institutions, created a political culture marked by strong ethnic identity, suspicion of central authority, and normalized corruption. Revolutionary history in Iran, Mexico, Russia, and China created foundational myths and legitimizing narratives; Mexico's Revolution (1910 to 1920) created a political culture emphasizing social justice, land reform, and nationalism, Iran's Islamic Revolution (1979) legitimized religious governance and anti-Western attitudes, and China's Communist Revolution emphasizes party leadership and national rejuvenation after what's called the "century of humiliation." Decades of authoritarianism in Russia, China, and historically Nigeria shape expectations too, creating limited experience with democratic institutions, suspicion, and political withdrawal; Russia's long history of autocracy, from the Tsars through the Soviets to today, creates a political culture with limited expectations for democratic participation. The UK's democratic tradition of gradual rights expansion and parliamentary supremacy creates an expectation of accountability, respect for rights, and incremental reform rather than revolutionary upheaval. And conflict and war leave lasting marks too; Nigeria's Biafran Civil War (1967 to 1970) created a political culture emphasizing territorial integrity and federal unity while still carrying memories of ethnic tension decades later.
Together, these factors shape beliefs about government's proper role (extensive in China's party-state, more limited in the UK, contested in Nigeria), individual rights (emphasized in the UK, subordinate to collective harmony in China, religiously defined in Iran), and whether citizens can control policy (expected in the UK, limited and channeled in Russia's managed democracy, impossible in China's one-party monopoly, and aspired to but imperfectly realized in Nigeria).
Political Socialization
Political socialization is the lifelong process of acquiring one's beliefs, values, and orientations toward the political system. It happens throughout life, not just in childhood: early childhood lays the foundation for attitudes toward authority and community, adolescence brings political awareness and identity formation, young adulthood is when active engagement typically begins, and major events like wars, economic crises, or political transitions can reshape attitudes even in adulthood. Russians who lived through the Soviet collapse in 1991 developed different political attitudes than those socialized entirely under Putin, and Nigerians socialized during military dictatorship (1983 to 1999) developed different orientations than those who came of age during the Fourth Republic's democracy.
Political socialization transmits a sense of regime legitimacy, political efficacy (whether one's participation actually matters), trust or cynicism toward institutions, ideological orientation, national identity, norms about how and whether to participate, and general rights consciousness.
Agents of Political Socialization
Family, schools, peers, religious institutions, media, and broader social environments including civic organizations all play crucial roles in shaping political attitudes and values.
Family is the primary socialization agent, especially early in life. Children often adopt their parents' party identification, family discussions (or silence) about politics shape engagement, and parental attitudes toward authority transfer down. In the UK, children from Labour-supporting families often maintain that identification into adulthood, and in China, families teach respect for authority and social harmony, reinforcing Communist Party messaging from the start.
Schools transmit political values formally through curriculum (civics classes, history courses shaping national narrative) and through practices like student government or its absence, school authority structures, and rituals like flag salutes. Mexican schools teach Revolutionary history emphasizing nationalism and social justice, Chinese schools include required political education teaching party history and "Xi Jinping Thought," and UK schools teach parliamentary democracy and rights traditions through both curriculum and practices like student councils.
Peers socialize through discussion, conformity pressure, youth subcultures, and generational cohort effects, with influence growing during adolescence and young adulthood, sometimes reinforcing and sometimes challenging family socialization. Iranian youth culture sometimes resists official Islamic values through peer influence and underground music, fashion, and social practices, while Nigerian university students have historically socialized each other into activism against military rule.
Religious institutions shape political values through teachings, clergy interpretations, and shared community identity. In Iran, mosques transmit Islamic Republic ideology, including political sermons during Friday prayers. In Nigeria, churches and mosques are powerful socialization agents, with southern Pentecostal churches promoting democratic engagement and northern mosques sometimes teaching Sharia advocacy. In Mexico, despite official secularism, the Catholic Church has historically shaped political values, with liberation theology influencing social justice movements.
Media shapes political attitudes through both traditional outlets (television, newspapers, radio) and social media, which enables discussion, alternative information, and rapid mobilization, though it can also create echo chambers. In democracies, diverse viewpoints are available and critical coverage socializes skepticism and engagement, as with UK media pluralism spanning the BBC and various partisan tabloids. In authoritarian systems, state control limits information and propaganda socializes support for the regime; Chinese media is entirely party-controlled, presenting consistent messaging about party competence, and Russian state television dominates media consumption, socializing citizens into nationalist, anti-Western, pro-Putin attitudes.
Social environments and civic organizations, including workplaces, civic groups, and neighborhoods, also socialize political attitudes. UK trade union membership socializes members toward Labour Party support and collective bargaining, and Nigerian ethnic associations socialize members into group political identity and collective action. Online communities have become another important space for this, reinforcing or challenging offline socialization and connecting people across geography.
Authoritarian vs. Democratic Socialization
Though many of the same agents exist across regime types, authoritarian regimes apply much more concerted governmental pressure to socialize citizens toward conforming beliefs than democratic regimes do.
Democratic socialization is pluralistic: multiple competing agents operate without government monopoly, families, media, and civic organizations act independently, and diverse messages allow individual choice. Government's role is limited, schools teach democratic values without indoctrinating a single ideology, government doesn't control media content, and access to multiple information sources, critical perspectives, and international media is generally open. UK citizens encounter diverse socialization from family traditions, varied media, and autonomous civic organizations, with no unified government-orchestrated messaging, producing a genuinely pluralistic political culture. Mexico's democratization opened up media space too, allowing diverse socialization even though government still has some influence over certain outlets.
Authoritarian socialization is coordinated: government orchestrates consistent messaging across schools, media, and civic organizations, creating a unified effort while suppressing dissenting messages. Government's role is extensive, with education systems indoctrinating regime ideology, state-controlled media, government-organized civil society replacing independent organizations, and censorship limiting alternative perspectives.
In China, schools require political education teaching party ideology, media is entirely party-controlled, civil society is limited to party-approved organizations, the internet is heavily censored through the Great Firewall, historically work units enforced political conformity, and today social credit systems (mostly blacklists and ratings run by courts, regulators, and local governments, not one national score) add pressure to follow the rules. The result is fairly uniform political socialization toward regime support. In Russia, state television dominates with a pro-Putin narrative, schools increasingly emphasize patriotic education, youth organizations like Yunarmia teach regime loyalty, and independent civil society is suppressed. In Iran, religious education is required in schools, media is supervised for Islamic compatibility, mosques serve as regime socialization agents, and the Basij paramilitary youth organization socializes loyalty, all coordinated to produce citizens who accept the Islamic Republic.
This pressure has grown in recent years. China's Patriotic Education Law, in force since January 2024, requires schools, families, and the media to promote love of the country and the Communist Party. Since 2022, Russian schools have held a weekly class called "Conversations About Important Things" that teaches the government's view of history and the war in Ukraine, and a new standard history textbook for the last two years of high school, introduced in 2023, defends the invasion.
Even authoritarian socialization has limits, though. Generational gaps mean younger people sometimes resist official messaging, alternative sources like the internet, foreign media, and peer groups provide competing information, family can transmit different private values than the official line, and opposition movements offer counter-socialization. Iranian youth often develop more liberal attitudes despite government efforts, through peers, satellite television, and the internet, and educated urban Chinese citizens sometimes develop critical perspectives through international education, VPNs, and private discussion, even amid heavy propaganda.
The real difference isn't whether socialization happens (it happens everywhere) but whether the government monopolizes and coordinates it, as in authoritarian systems, or allows pluralistic, competing socialization, as in democracies. Authoritarian socialization aims for conformity, producing a more uniform political culture on the surface with less open dissent, though potentially hiding dissent underneath. Democratic socialization accepts and even encourages diversity of political attitudes, producing more open disagreement, varied political behavior, and visible dissent and opposition.