education that imparts self-awareness. Of course, throughout history there
have been those rare epochal paradigm shifts that alter the values of a people.
Still, that rarity involves a competition between the old and the new, in which
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victory depends on how thoroughly the new paradigm, with its values,
addresses the shortcomings in society. For that reason, Letwin critiques
Mathew Arnold’s book Culture and Anarchy for its emphasis on ‘tribal unity’
as the highest civic achievement in a modern, urban metropolis.7 Tribal unity, for Arnold, is represented as an ideal to be ‘handed down’ or aspired to, due
to the sense of togetherness it inculcates. Yet she dismisses that as a romantic
illusion, since it ceases to be relevant, as a set of precise commands that gives
every member an assigned role, in a contemporary city. In other words, she
criticizes Arnold for romanticising a concept of tribal camaraderie without
recognizing its absence from the culture meant to sustain it. Tribal customs
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Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture
are by definition unchanging, with assigned roles, and they could not manifest
themselves in today’s modern cities in which the structure for designation of
responsibilities is different. 8 Traditions remain coherent not through changelessness but through continuity, which must emanate from something within
that particular culture. One could only hope for continuity of a tradition if it
is present in the cultural fabric of society, not by simply wishing it so. Hence,
the continuity of tradition is dependent on the teaching skills of the ‘master’
who recognizes the embeddedness of certain values, but does not require mere
imitations of his performance or style. Every pupil must make something new
of what he learns, for a tradition lives through a stream of individual inter-
pretations and reinvention of what has gone before. 9 Whether invented tradition or rigid imitation, both, far from maintaining tradition, kill it.
The process of continuity that permits political orientations to be handed
down and effectively reinvented from generation to generation needs to be
substantiated from within a culture. If this process of reinvention and reim-
plementation of values and tradition is acceptable to the populace at large,
then, the result will be widespread legitimacy. Here Letwin cites Palladian
architecture: ‘it is said that Palladio’s buildings are the perfect embodiment of
what is called the classic tradition’. Undoubtedly, they contain direct echoes
of ancient buildings, but in fact those ‘echoes are fairly superficial and what is
much more important is a certain sense of order, a certain relationship of
parts among themselves and to the whole’.10 Of course, Palladio learned a classical theory of proportion through his studies of Trissino, and he acquired the
architectural vocabulary of the ancients through making pedantic drawings. 11
However, she attributes Palladio’s expertise to his studies and reformulation
of other architects. ‘Palladio read Alvise Cornoro … the Bolognese theorist,
Sebastino Serlio … and great Italian designers like Brunelleschi and Miche-
langelo, but also from the Byzantine fantasy and Venetian lightness’.12 What this implies is that Palladio absorbed information from many diverse sources and
then produced buildings that look as if they had grown out of the ground on
which they stand. Explaining, Letwin insists that though there is ‘good reason
to describe Palladio as classical, he was not classical in the same way as
Bramante, Sangallo, Sansovino, or Raphael. He had created a style of his
own, the Palladian building’. 13 And so it is with political culture; it grows by seeking continuity with established traditions and deep-seated societal values
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in order to seem as if it ‘grows out of the ground on which it is meant to
stand’. Of course, this is not merely to mirror what has transpired, or ignore
influence, but to present an alternative that is at once relevant, in that it is
connected to tradition, and contextual. Certainly, institutions transferred
from outside, without precedent in the society that it means to perform, will
find difficulty in acceptance, thereby causing instability.
The process of continuity, substantiated on local values, and progressively
moved forward by apprenticeship, requires both deference and individuality.
Letwin states that it is a ‘false understanding of individuality that had led to the disdain of deference and apprenticeship that produces the horrible confidence of
Deconstructing political culture
17
the parvenu and has made the call for organic unity beguiling to cultured
people’.14 In other words, every apprentice must start by imitating or heeding his master in the fashion of a disciple, yet will see such a relationship as a prelude to another sort of relationship and another sort of learning and teaching that
accepts personal initiative in knowledge reconstruction. Blind adherence to
custom stifles inventiveness; it certainly cannot tolerate it. If societies are
expected to mature, live and change in line with cherished values, then the
individuals collectively comprising a society must permit new applications
and consider contextual nuances. The failure to do so is bound to kill tradition
by reducing it to custom, or by provoking rebellion among those who rightly
value their independence.
In essence, the importance of political culture is that it ultimately deals with
values, which shapes the direction of political life. Examining it, though,
raises the following critical questions: How do we decipher what those values
are in a given polity? Indeed, even if we can convincingly reveal those values, what is the process by which they are passed down from generation to generation,
namely apprenticeship? By what standard does reinvention occur without
becoming illegitimate? These and many other questions are important; however,
prior to resolving them this study will discuss the exceptional difficulties in
defining political culture.
Defining political culture
Few concepts have bedevilled description as much as ‘political culture’. An
increasingly trendy and illusory designation, it obscures far more than it
illuminates. Perplexing and thorny, it has become quite widespread ‘among
journalists, television commentators, policy analysts, governmental officials,
peoples of all walks of life, and, in its most worrying development, to advertising
copywriters’.15 Of course, due to its breadth, the idea of political culture is attractive, often serving the purpose of the final word. And, for ‘political scientists, historians, and pundits, like the early anthropological idea of culture itself, it threatens to absorb everything in its vicinity’. 16 For that reason, though, it has sometimes been avoided because of the danger of tautology: ‘petition
principii: the thing that has to be explained is used itself as the main
explaining factor’.17 Other objections to the term ‘political culture’ include it Downloaded by [University of Connecticut] at 18:26 09 January 2017
being used in too fixed a way due to its reliance on consensus in society. As if
all society would have accept
ed the values and rules of a singular political
culture. Still, notwithstanding its widespread use, we don’t really understand
this term; it has become a convenient shorthand for a variety of factors
embedded within it, and is frequently misrepresented, leading to misconceptions
about how to understand it. Commonly, pertinent questions of usage and
intent are ignored, and it is assumed that people from different cultures think
and act the same way, or are motivated by similar goals.
First, a description of ‘political culture’, with its value propensity, group
formation and impact on the political environment, was Ibn Khaldun’s
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Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture
conceptualization. 18 But it was J.G. Herder’s eighteenth-century insight that coined the term and brought it into to the accounts of modern academic consciousness. 19 It was, however, not until Gabriel Almond described it ‘as the particular pattern of orientations to political action’ wherein ‘every political
system is embedded’ that it became recognized.20 Since then, scholars have continued to define political culture in a multiplicity of ways. Macridis, for
instance, argues that it is ‘commonly shared goals and commonly accepted
rules’.21 Similarly, Kim described it as orientations toward national political institutions, including values, beliefs, and emotional attitudes about how a
government ought to conduct itself. 22 For Pye, the indicators of a nation’s political culture include its political scope, how the ends and means in politics
are related, standards for the evaluation of political action, and what values are
salient for political action.23 Kavanaugh, comparably, stresses that political culture has much to do with orientations that arise, in a particular sense, from
a subculture, influenced by general culture. 24 As is evident, the multiplicities in definitions of political culture are not necessarily in disagreement, even
while focusing on different social aspects of its impact. However, this does
inform us that its definition is largely shaped by the context under investigation.
Clearly, the aspects that define political culture, in any context, are changing
phenomena and that partially explains the differing definitions of the term. This,
conversely, points to serious drawbacks in attempting to define it – namely,
methodology and usage.
For Rosenbaum, the multiplicity of definitions of political culture, although
insightful, led to the necessity of describing the methodologies to study it. He
suggests there are, essentially, two major approaches: first, the ‘individual-centric’
approach, with a strongly psychological basis that entails all the important ways
in which a person is subjectively orientated toward the essential elements in
his political system; and second, a ‘system-level’ approach that refers to the
collective orientation of people toward the basic elements in their political
system.25 Here, he is interested in the manner in which citizens, individually or collectively, evaluate their political institutions and officials. To say, for instance, that a nation’s political culture is largely cohesive implies that most people within the system have similar, or like-minded, political culture orientations, which are
agreeable to the political institutions within which they live. Hence, when political culture is discussed, it usually refers to these mass political orientations across
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the whole political system.
Rosenbaum, suitably, recognizes that divergent methodologies influence
political culture definitions. Yet there is, still, a broad consensus that political culture denotes the emotional and attitudinal environment within which a
political system operates. Be it his individual or system-centric approach,
political culture, to put it plainly, is the underlying value-based, psychological
climate in which politics takes place. The tendency, then, by political scientists, is to emphasize cultural and/or structural factors when trying to define it and
explain the nature and performance of political systems. Parsons, who
believes in an inherent interconnectedness in societies’ social systems, both
Deconstructing political culture
19
cultural and structural, takes this standpoint.26 Undoubtedly, a rich explanation of political phenomena will draw on both cultural and structural factors, but
will primarily be concerned with orientations toward political objects that
emanate from their values. Orientations, here, means predispositions to political
action; they are determined by religion, traditions, historical memories, motives,
norms, myths, emotions, and symbols. Wilson breaks down these orientations
into their constituent parts as follows: ‘thoughts – knowledge and awareness of
the political system; influence – emotional disposition to the political system;
and assessment – judgment about the system’.27 Political objects, or institutions, also need explanation. That would include the functioning of the executive,
judiciary and legislative processes, political parties, pressure groups, and the
individual’s view of himself as a political actor, as well as his views of other
citizens. Political culture, then, may be seen as the overall distribution of
citizens’ orientations to political objects. Thereafter, we are encouraged to
think in terms of what kind of orientations are held by people toward political
objects. Herein is the most significant challenge: how to accurately describe
those orientations towards political objects, and, thereafter, describe the political culture of a given polity?
Here, let’s examine Almond and Verba’s renowned book, The Civic Culture,
which uses a definition of political culture associated with democracy.28 For them, a ‘civic culture’ includes a dualistic orientation to political authority – a
balance of directive and acquiescent, participant and passive, attitudes. It is this mixed political culture, taken as ‘ideal’, which allows elites the freedom to take
decisions that can be countered by participant orientations. Consequently, this
makes the elites sensitive to popular preferences. The problem, however, is
that this definition of political culture justifies a particular type of orientation, or ‘civic culture’, that presupposes a close affinity to West European/North
American liberal democratic political traditions.29 And, by doing so, it does not assist us in deciphering a given country’s political culture, only how far
along it is in relation to the democratic standard set.
Admittedly, Almond and Verba have cleverly drawn on the cognitive, affective
and evaluative dimensions of attitudes about political objects to develop their
typology of political cultures: participant, subject and parochial. 30 Where orientations are positive to all the objects, they articulate a ‘participant’ political culture. If citizens assume a passive or obedient relationship to the system,
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perceiving themselves as hardly affecting the political apparatus, though being
affected by it, the political culture is ‘subject’. Where the individual hardly
relates to the political system and has only a dim awareness and knowledge of
it, they classify the political culture as ‘parochial’.
To explain further, a ‘parochial’ political culture is pre-political in nature.
Individuals belonging
to this typology are characterized as being apolitical or
insular in attitude. For instance, tribal societies often reflect a parochial type
of political culture. Inhabitants of tribal societies commonly manifest a distinct
inability to relate to the relevance of societal structures, authority sources, and
polities beyond their immediate family or tribe.31 Individuals in parochial
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Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture
polities are often unaware of – and also unconcerned about – matters that do
not pertain to their immediate kinship group.
Second, the ‘subject’ political culture is distinct from the parochial type
apropos the peoples’ awareness of the sociopolitical setting that exists beyond
their immediate familial ties and kinship affiliations. Being cognizant of a
broader political setting, inhabitants of a subject political culture reasonably
comprehend the manner in which the political structures affect them, and
may even accept the legitimacy of these structures. However, the individual’s
role is principally a passive one, and is confined primarily to obeying decisions
made by political leaders.
Third, the ‘participant’ political culture type provides for an explicit and
distinct political role for the individual member. In fact, input from the
masses is actively promoted. The populace is accorded a high-profile status and
is considered vital for the successful maintenance, management and stability of
the polity. A participant political culture, in other words, operates on the
premise that individuals should be masters of their own destiny and should
have a direct hand in shaping this destiny. 32 This type of political culture allows for disgruntled citizenry to express discontent within the confines of
the political environment. It intends to manage conflict within its political
apparatus and to avoid the only recourse to dissent being violence.
The democratic culture, as suggested by Almond and Verba, is a mixture of
parochial, subject and participatory types. 33 It is suggested that excessive amounts of participatory, parochial or subject mentality in the culture of a
given polity would be detrimental to the sustenance of democracy. The concept
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