an improvement, particularly over the behavioural method. Still, those orien-
tations must be explained, and that led to the development of ‘interpretivism’
in political culture research. However, interpretivism was not without its own
challenges and it, too, could stray in either of two directions, the ‘idealist’ and
the ‘phenomenological’.
First, interpretivism was a reaction against claims of value-neutrality and
universality from the behavioural tradition.61 It rejected behavioural ‘standards of verification’ and favoured ‘a criterion of plausibility’.62 This means it
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Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture
makes use of tests of plausibility and construes political culture as ‘meaning’
observed by individual interactions. Herein is the challenge, then, when
making any judgement based on observation: the necessity of effectively
describing that observation and ascertaining the relevant meaning. For this,
Geertz’s idea of ‘thick description’ is noteworthy, which insists behaviour is
not usefully described ‘objectively’, but its meaning has also to be described. 63
Likewise, Charles Taylor uses terms such as ‘intersubjective’ and ‘common’
meanings to explain the importance of hidden values that, often, are recognizable
only in the social life to which they give rise.64 Of course, intersubjective meanings do not just facilitate social life, they make it distinctive for society’s
members. And this often implies different meanings in different cultures. For
instance, the meanings of culture, politics and religion differ in Muslim polities
and being unable to understand that will affect our observation and judgement.
Hence these intersubjective meanings provide the fabric of social life, the
criterion of a group being in society.65 Only when intersubjective meanings are present is there a possibility for shared attitudes or, for that matter, disagreements, because intersubjective meanings express each society’s values.
Thus, the defining feature of interpretivism is a conception of political
culture as the meaning of political life for the political actors themselves.
Now, it is fine to recognize the importance of those deep-seated meanings in a
polity, and it’s quite another thing to understand it. There is strong resistance of
‘intersubjective’ meanings to empirical observation, or quantitative survey
methodology, since these methods only expose common attitudes, not neces-
sarily their meaning. Taylor illustrates the resistance of intersubjective and
common meanings to empirical investigation by citing the example of children
in missionary schools who are taught the values and beliefs of a society alien
to them. 66 While one may survey the ideals that are taught, interpreting social practice as a whole can only access the individual expression of those ideals
through each child. Also, even if we may understand what the children are being
taught, and how they behave, we are still unable to understand the unique
embrace of that ideal and what it really means, individually, to each child.
This inability to effectively grasp meaning led to the criticism of the inter-
pretivist political culture research. Specifically, when the meaning for the analyst took precedence over meaning for the participants, it was labelled ‘idealist’. This
is so, since it was idealistically assumed that awareness of participant meanings
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was sufficient. That deficiency, and its tendency to distract attention from
concrete evidence to project onto the subjects of study the description made
by the analyst, are its major weaknesses. Take, for instance, the example of a
wink. While a wink may be described in terms of certain bodily movements,
an adequate description would involve specifying whether the movements
were voluntary, what their intention was, and what social conventions and
cues governed their interpretation by an audience.67 Only a description that included all those factors would effectively recognize what was going on. In
other words, behaviour, while it can be described in terms of its objective
manifestations, cannot usefully be so described.
Deconstructing political culture
27
Furthermore, Geertz’s infamous rendition of a Balinese cockfight elaborates
on the methods involved in ascertaining a ‘thick description’. He suggests that in
cultural analysis ‘one is faced with a problem not in social mechanics but in social semantics’ and that it is necessary to observe behaviour to understand it.68 But apart from the justification already offered for thick description – that it assists the ethnographer in self-orientation – a further justification is offered by Geertz
regarding the cockfight and in the self-understanding of the Balinese. ‘Its func-
tion, if you want to call it that, is interpretative: it is a Balinese reading of
Balinese experience, a story that tells themselves about themselves … attending
cockfights and participating in them is, for the Balinese, a kind of sentimental
education’.69 Here is where the criticism of the ‘idealist’ approach ensues, by encroachment on the sensibilities of the participants by the ethnographer.
Geertz has, inadvertently, defined the participants’ understanding for them.
The problem, then, is ‘the projection by the ethnographer of the cultural
interpretation onto the subjects: the conflation of what makes the situation
intelligible for the ethnographer with what makes it intelligible to the partici-
pants’. 70 Commenting on this, Jonathan Lieberson asserts that ‘it is one thing to claim that devotees of the cockfight attribute deep significance to it because
it serves as an opportunity to express and dramatize their individual status
and rivalries; it is another to describe the cockfight by the Balinese as a
“commentary” on the social order and organization that makes these conflicts
possible’.71 This tendency to impose meaning is what led to the design of a phenomenological approach for understanding political culture.
Phenomenology
Countering the ‘idealist’ tendency to unwittingly impose meaning on the
participants, Welch argues for the phenomenological method of political culture
research. In that approach, for interpretation to be a success, it must account
for the interpretative practices of the participants themselves. That, too, in
turn is related to grasping the existing meaning in their social environment.
Therefore, phenomenology anchors interpretivism to concrete social reality,
while at the same time arguing that such a reality is a construct needing to be
continually reproduced. By doing this, it avoids both a hegemonic and clash
usage of political culture research.
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Originally founded by Edmund Husserl, phenomenology explains the process
by which the immediate elements of perceptual experience are understood as
distinct objects, distances and movements.72 It is therefore a philosophy of the attribution of meaning and form to experience, considered as a natural
human response to experience.73 Then, Alfred Schutz incorporated it into a study of the social world.74 Later, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann continued along that framework and, eventually, Welch argues for its use in political
culture rese
arch.75
Elaborating on phenomenology in the social world, Luckmann and Berger
begin with the assumption that ‘man constructs his own nature’ and that this
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Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture
occurs in a twofold manner involving ‘stock of knowledge’ and ‘habitualization’.76
First, the ‘stock of knowledge’ refers to human beings coming into a world of
existing meanings or ‘formulae’. And he ‘uses them, sometimes deliberately
and with care, most often spontaneously with ease, but always with the same
end in view: to put a construction upon events through which he lives, to adjust
themselves within the ongoing course of experience of things’. 77 Second, habitualization is any action that is repeated frequently, becomes cast and,
thereby, is apprehended by its performer as a pattern. Yet, even while both
assist in constructing nature, it still must be intelligibly communicated. That
occurs through idealization of the interchangeability of standpoints and the
idealization of the congruency of the system of relevancies. 78 All of this leads to the general thesis of reciprocal perspectives and the apprehension of objects
and their aspects that are actually known by me and potentially known by
you as everyone’s knowledge, conceived to be objective and anonymous.79
Critically, and what is so important, is the impact of existing meaning or
the stock of knowledge in understanding political culture, for it permeates
society prior to the advent of the individual, and is not static. Rather, it is in a constant state of dynamism but directly impacts values, traditions and ‘what
is handed down’ – and, thereby, political culture. This existing meaning is
what Schutz refers to as the ‘stock of knowledge’, which Berger and Luckman
use, extant in the social environment to which one is born. Similarly, Geertz
describes it as the ‘significant symbols’ rooted in a polity. Rosenbaum, in line
with others, notes the importance of understanding the ‘core’ of a society in
order to effectively define its political culture. 80 Inglehart, too, suggests the construction of meaning, while in a constant state of fluctuation, is premised
around certain ‘enduring cultural components’, present and permeating the
metaphysical fabric of society. 81
Now, whether it is defined as ‘existing meaning’, ‘formulae’, ‘stock of
knowledge’, ‘core’ or ‘enduring cultural components’, they all refer to the same
enigma that accounts for national variation in political cultures. Explaining,
Inglehart claims that national variations come to the fore when one sets out, for
example, to address happiness indicators in society. Inglehart’s explanation for
variation, thereof, is that ‘given societies may have different cultural baselines
for normal response to questions on how well one is doing’.82 But, as Welch points out, this ‘enduring cultural component’ is not adequately addressed in
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his analysis.83
At the concrete level, phenomenology is characterized by an insistence on
detailed investigation of the process of the construction of meaning. This
includes understanding existing meaning in society, without which accurate
observation of the social world is impossible. In other words, the pheno-
menological approach to political culture research aims to understand the
‘formulae’, ‘significant symbols’, ‘stock of knowledge’, ‘core’ or ‘enduring
cultural component’ that enables a complete understanding of political culture.
This, then, is understood as the ‘gap’ in political culture research: the failure
to adequately research and define that ‘enduring cultural component’ in
Deconstructing political culture
29
Muslim polities that would allow us to describe its political culture. This,
precisely, is what this study describes as the ‘foundational’ sphere of inquiry.
Conclusion
In this chapter we assessed the importance of political culture, noting that it
has much to do with values and their continuity, which makes political life
intelligible. Yet that association to values does not prevent there from being
considerable complexity in narrowing down a precise definition. This is so,
since its definition is contingent upon methodology and usage, which often
are used to support the modernization theory of development and a liberal,
democratic ethic. That insight then discredits those consequent definitions as
unworkable across sociocultural realities. Thereafter, this chapter examined
and described those differing methodologies in political culture research, which,
revealingly, takes either a ‘hegemonic’ or ‘clash’ approach. Both, arguably, are
inadequate to accurately comprehend political culture in a Muslim polity;
hence, what is required is a phenomenological approach. This approach
accounts for indigenous perceptions towards politics and acknowledges the
deep-seated, existing meanings to which an individual is born. Those meanings
are what impact social values and, eventually, political culture.
Welch suggests that it is incumbent upon political culture theorists ‘to show
what distinct socialization processes lead to their [political culture] formation.
This has seldom been attempted’.84 And, that, precisely, is what this study aims to accomplish. It recognizes that human beings come into a world of existing
meanings: ‘formulae’, ‘stock of knowledge’, ‘core’, ‘significant symbols’ or
‘enduring cultural components’. Knowing what that amounts to enables us to
accurately define political culture. Thus, the distinct socialization processes
that lead to variation among national political cultures is located here. And this
is the ‘gap’ in political culture research that this study attempts to decipher in
relation to Muslim polities.
Inglehart discusses the notion of ‘enduring cultural components’ in a given
society but avoids a clear and precise analysis of how they are to be extracted.85
Others, too, while recognizing the need to learn what the ‘core’ is, do not provide
a clear methodology to understand it. Yet they are hardly blameworthy, since
what ‘enduring cultural components’ or the ‘core’ is will depend on the society
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under investigation.
More clearly, the ‘gap’ in political culture research is defined as the ‘enduring
cultural component,’ the ‘ongoing experience of things,’ or that hidden,
unspoken but understood nuance, the ‘stock of knowledge’ – or, as this study
is defining it, the ‘foundational’ – that accounts for national variation in
political culture. Thus, a human being comes into the world of those existing
meanings and makes sense of it. The following chapter, then, while recognizing
that, attempts to deconstruct those ‘enduring cultural components’ to articulate
the distinct socialization processes leading to understanding political culture
in Muslim polities, to be used in Pakistan.
30
Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture
Notes
1 Wilson, Richard. Compliance Ideologies: Rethinking Political Cult
ure, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) p. 1.
2 Letwin, Shirley Robin. ‘Culture, Individuality and Deference’ in Maurice Cranston and Lea Boralevi (eds), Culture and Politics, (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1988) p. 2.
3 Ibid.
4 Robertson, R. ‘Globalization and Sociological Theory’, in H. Martins (ed.), Knowledge and Passion: Essays in Honour of John Rex, (New York: Tauris, 1993)
p. 8.
5 Welch, Stephen. The Concept of Political Culture, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1993) p. 40.
6 Letwin, Shirley Robin. ‘Culture, Individuality and Deference’, p. 3.
7 Arnold, Mathew. Culture and Anarchy, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) p. 13.
8 Letwin, Shirley Robin. ‘Culture, Individuality and Deference’, p. 4.
9 Said, Edward. Orientalism, (New York: Vintage Press, 1979) p. 21.
10 Letwin, Shirley Robin. ‘Culture, Individuality and Deference’, p. 6.
11 Rybcyznski, Witold. The Perfect House: A Journey with Renaissance Master Andrea Palladio, (New York: Scribner, 2003) p. 37.
12 Letwin, Shirley Robin. Culture, Individuality and Deference, p. 7.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid., p. 9.
15 As the advertisement for Basil Blackwell/Polity Press, New York Review of Books 31, 20 December 1984, 29, in Welch, Stephen, The Concept of Political
Culture, p. 39.
16 Ibid., p. 1.
17 Brands, Maarten. ‘Pendulum Swing of a Paradigm? The Deceiving Perspective of Change’, in Maurice Cranston and Lea Campos Boralevi (eds), Culture and
Politics, (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1988) p. 60.
18 Ibn Khaldun. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, translated by Franz Rosenthal, edited by N.J. Dawood, Bollingen Series, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2005) p. 9.
19 Welch, Stephen. The Concept of Political Culture, p. 4.
20 Almond, Gabriel A. ‘Comparative Political Systems’, Journal of Politics 18
(1956): 396.
21 Macridis, Roy. ‘Interest Groups in Comparative Analysis’, in Journal of Politics XXIII (1961): 40.
22 Kim, Yong C. ‘The Concept of Political Culture’, in Journal of Politics, 26
(1964): 336.
23 Pye, Lucien. Aspects of Political Development, (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, and Co. 1966) p. 16.
24 Kavanagh,
Dennis.
Political
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