of ‘mixed nature’ being the magic of democracy is reflected in the idea that
democratic cultures are pre-eminently ‘allegiant’ and participatory in nature.34
To explain, the allegiant component of a democratic culture serves to promote
a general sense of identification with, and loyalty toward, the political system.
It generates a sentiment of popular trust and a willingness to permit those in
positions of political authority to administer the affairs of state and to decide
on issues, which have ramifications for the populace at large. However, in
keeping with their premise that a balance between political culture typologies
is imperative to sustain democracy, allegiance does not translate into mass
complacency in political authority. It coexists with the participatory dimension
of democratic culture, thus ensuring political accountability and public control
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of those in positions of power and authority.
Welch, while not critiquing Almond and Verba’s definition of political culture
typologies, admonishes them for their support for the modernization theory of
political development and their confusion of comparative and sociological
political culture research. 35 By associating political culture with democracy and liberal values they fail to teach us how to understand it. Similarly, Brands
agrees that a liberal/democratic definition of political culture had become ‘in
vogue’ in Europe, and was used to describe successful political development.
Analysis on political culture, then, always used those values as a benchmark.
Further explaining, he critiques European attitudes towards political culture
Deconstructing political culture
21
as following a threefold developmental pattern: ‘First, the era of natural
classification and hierarchy in societies – ‘all anchor’; second, the period after
World War II: paradigm of universal development – ‘all sail’; third, our con-
temporary period, both ‘sail and anchor’.36 In other words, for the achievement of a prosperous, democratic polity, it reads: (a) we can, you can’t; (b) we all
can; (c) or, lastly, some might and others might not.
To explain, Brands definition of political culture and development in the
pre-World War II period – ‘all anchor’ – reveals descriptive tendencies that
rely on static social characteristics. One needs to ‘simply glance at a pre-war
encyclopaedia to notice how strong the immutability of social characteristics
was still considered to be’. 37 At that time, notions of active and passive races were pervasive: ‘races that were making history and those who were only
considered to be objects for the others; people being by innate quality fit for
self-government and those who needed to be ruled by others’.38 Interestingly, those that ruled were always ethnic Europeans and this tendency to promote
their view of political culture and development is a vital cultural reality pre
World War II.
By compiling a collection of statements by European scholars and politicians
during the ‘inter-bellum’, it is easy to discern this thinking among leading
intellectuals. Commenting on this, Brands argues that one only has to read
Christopher Thorne’s Allies of a Kind, which details ‘American and British
cooperation during the war against Japan and reveals the deeply ingrained
racist ideas manifested on both sides of the Atlantic’. 39 Gunner Myrdal and Sissela Bok’s book The American Dilemma deals with the same issues, though
in an American context. 40 So pervasive were these ideas that Hegel proposed
‘the entire nature of the Negro race is such as to preclude the existence of
any … political constitution’. 41 These racist ideas flourished during the
‘interwar years’. 42 The power structure in the world and in Western society did not encourage giving up the idea of a ‘natural hierarchy’ of peoples and
of their corresponding political culture.43 That would, though, soon change with the transformation of European intellectual society following the
destruction of Nazi Germany.
The effective destruction of Nazism, and their ideas of racial superiority, led to
Brands’ second classification of political culture and development, namely ‘all
sail’. ‘Never before had ideas about the inequality of peoples, races, individuals
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been as strongly discredited as by the experiences of the Third Reich … the
Nazis being so strongly in favour of ideas of natural inequality, most strongly
helped the revolution of equality … ’44 Added to this, the discrediting of the natural division of labour and a favourable climate of change was soon to
sweep political fields. Resultantly, this transformation came with an enthusiastic
naiveté concerning optimistic universal development; all could prosper, albeit
through embracing liberal values and democracy.
Economic development and political self-determination became not only
political goals, morally substantiated through United Nations declarations,
but also the paradigm the social sciences worked with. Commonplace theories
22
Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture
of natural impediments to development, including climate, geopolitical situation
and demography, were swept aside by the optimism of universal development
heralded by modernization theories. 45 Of course, those theories did not give much attention to the diverging values, traditions and culture of people. In
fact, Brands adds that while economic development was considered essential
for ‘political modernization and modernization of values … these theories
were implicitly and explicitly strongly “Americano-centric”; they referred
to the development of, broadly speaking, American society or aspects
thereof ’. 46 Critics did warn, however, against the doctrine of developmental universalism – the belief that each new nation-state deserves and can achieve
a developed economy and a working democracy with a participatory political
culture. Those warnings, though, went unheeded because vested interests,
both economical and ideological, were too strong.
Now, in the final and present stage, the past counts again and the world is
becoming less new than many theorists expected, or even wanted. Those who
believe in racial hierarchy, and others who believe in the universality of liberal
democracy, persist. Yet what is argued for by this study is the need for an
alternative, rather than a one-size-fits-all, theory of political culture and
effective governance. Many historical elements that were previously ignored
are now recognized as critical in our ‘post-industrial’, ‘post-materialistic’,
‘post-humanistic’ and postmodern society. A considerable reorientation of
political ideas is taking place, which incorporates indigenous attitudes to
knowledge. That appreciation recognizes the diversity of political culture
definitions, shifting by methodology and usage. Hence, our aim here is to
effectively understand the dynamics of political culture in Muslim polities,
citing Pakistan. The following section will shed light on how this study proceeds
to accomplish that.
Political culture research
Political culture research is a ‘scholarly jungle, tangled and cacophonous’ and
can only loosely be divided into neat, mutually exclusive categories. 47 Often, considerable overlapping occurs and it has more to do with what is being
studied than what it is itself. Now this may seem confusing, since undertaking
political culture research reveals that definitions shift according to the objectives Downloaded by [University of Connecticut] at 18:26 09 January 2017
of inquiry. Yet those shifting definitions permit the astute scholar to decipher
the motivation for political culture research and recognize the importance of
its environment. In other words, it accounts for and explains particular
orientations to political objects in society.
To begin with, Welch describes political culture research as entailing two
methodologies: the behavioural and the interpretivist.48 This study, instead, characterizes them based on the manner in which they are used, namely
‘hegemony’ and ‘clash’. Hegemony occurs in a behavioural, quantitative
research method that encourages positivism and universality of values. It may
give way to either comparative or sociological studies, or a combination of
Deconstructing political culture
23
the two. Conversely, ‘clash’ occurs as a result of a culturally relative, qualita-
tive research method that gives way to interpretivism and idealist tendencies.
Both methods are inadequate to accurately define political culture in a given
context. Consequently, Welch argues for the ‘phenomenological’ method,
which construes meaning as that described by participants themselves. Below,
Figure 2.1 reveals the dominant trends of political culture research.
Hegemony
The ‘hegemonic’ tendency in political culture research first found fertile soil in
the ‘legal-institutional’ approach, which ‘focused on the importance of political
institutions, the constitution, the judiciary … and the interaction between these
and the masses’.49 This approach was excessively narrow, restricting its attention to formal rules and institutions and overlooking informal behaviour.50 Its most striking inadequacies were its inability to account for and incorporate indigenous perceptions and values toward understanding political structures. In
other words, it focused on institutions as opposed to peoples’ engagement
with them. By doing so, it neglected the struggle of various classes in society
with one another and with the political system. These deficiencies led to the
development of ‘behaviouralism’ in political culture research.
Behaviouralism was only a slight improvement on the legal-institutional
approach. It did, however, expand political culture research to include informal
elite behaviour, voter behaviour and, finally, mass attitudes and conduct beyond
the space of electoral participation. Yet this approach, too, is fraught with
ambiguity since it adopts a positivist outlook on political culture. It purports to
show the ‘development of a science of the political process’ and ruses as a
‘major step forward for the naturalization of political science as a science … a
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Figure 2.1 Graphic representation of the two dominant trends of political culture
research and their trajectories
24
Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture
probabilistic theory of politics’. 51 Essentially, this method joins a scientific study of politics with a methodology that appears to make that aspiration
achievable, quantitative survey methodology.52 In other words, it is characterized by the scientific aspiration of value-neutrality, expressed in survey
methodology, with a concomitant subjective or psychological definition of
political culture.53 Now, this expansionist tendency and claim for value-neutrality is misleading since it imposes meaning on its objects of study. To
impose meaning, naturally, restricts the explanatory validity of the concept of
political culture, whether it is for comparative or sociological ends. This,
thereby, warrants the accusation that behaviouralism is used to justify particular
patterns of political orientation while disregarding others. That, in turn, leads
to its description as hegemonic.
To further explain, the comparative use of political culture research is
dedicated to the relationship between modernity and the modernization
theory of political development; a defence of democratic forms of political
institutions and behaviour.54 By subscribing to certain set values, asserted as universal, and the attitude that ‘if it’s good for me, it’s good for you’, it is
hegemonic. Of course, the comparative use of political culture aims to identify
why certain nations are more stable and susceptible to democracy than others.
However, it does so poorly by suggesting, simply put, that most countries are
not literate enough to share ‘Western’ values and, until they do, they will not
progress. The discrepancy between where a people are and the modern,
democratic ideal that they are meant to be at is explained as a result of an
intriguing idea, namely ‘cultural lag’.
The idea of ‘cultural lag’, invented by William Ogburn, was intended to
describe a situation ‘when one of two parts of culture which are correlated
changes before or in greater degree than the other part does, thereby causing
less adjustment between the two parts that existed previously’.55 It was meant to describe internal sociological disproportionality within a culture. But Almond
and Pye used it to justify the modernization theory of development and ratio-
nalize their understanding of a stable political society, founded on a certain
political culture. This led to Welch’s contention that ‘political culture
research, then, in its comparative use has been invoked precisely to save
modernization theory from accusations of illegitimate teleology. Cultural lag
is the means by which the rescue is attempted’.56
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Therefore, the comparative use of political culture research is not simply
manipulative when comparing nations, but precisely so by its manner of
explaining differences in national political outcomes and structures. Still, the
difference between the comparative and the sociological is not only one of
methodology or definition. It is a distinction that is drawn clearly at a given
level of putative explanation, or for given units of comparison. 57 For instance, let’s compare various nations and their political cultures with a view to
explaining divergent political outcomes. Clearly, this is a comparative use of
political culture. The problem arises when it is used to defend certain
assumptions about development that are, blatantly, sociological. Under
Deconstructing political culture
25
these conditions, a behavioural, comparative use of political culture becomes
hegemonic.
Alternatively, a sociological approach to understanding political culture
focuses on examining the relationship of variables in it, such as interpersonal
trust and group-forming propensity. Rosenbaum’s three categories of socio-
logical uses of political culture research include ‘orientations to governmental
structures, orientati
ons toward others in the political system, and orientations
to one’s own political activity’. 58 Here, once again, we are dealing with values that externalize in the form of orientations. Continuing, he defines ‘rules of the
game, as an individual’s conception of what should be followed in civic life;
which may or may not be consistent with prevailing law and other norms
supposed to govern civic conduct’.59 Now, the question for us remains as to the best method to extract those ‘rules of the game’? And what happens when
prevailing law is contrary to those rules?
With the inclusion of sociology in political culture research, we are better
equipped to understand those rules of the game. By doing so, we arrive at a
new explanatory theory in which individuals, not nations, are the units of
comparison. And, by focusing on the individual, the ever-important values and
‘rules of the game’ are better manifest. However, there are two drawbacks. First,
even though it claims to assess the relationships among complementing and
conflicting forces in a nation-state rather than between them, it is repeatedly
used to substantiate democratic values. Values that are, often, contrary to the
culture studied. This, then, leads to faulty analyses and a lack of legitimacy.
Moreover, advancing contrary ideals may, too, be hegemonic since it implies
a derogatory attitude toward prevailing indigenous attitudes. Second, socio-
logical sophistication renders untenable the generalizations that are necessary
for cross-national comparisons. This is, especially, true when considering
intra-national aspects such as gender, education levels, trust-formation, values
and beliefs.
Clash
The ‘clash’ tendency in political culture research is largely based on embracing
‘cultural relativity’ and recognizing the global diversity of political values. 60
Moreover, it has confidence in qualitative research methodology to ascertain
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those values, giving priority to the thoughts of those under investigation.
Granted, appreciating the diversity of orientations to political objects is
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