[Note for bibliographic reference: Melberg, Hans O. (1996), The Cultural Approach to Russian History - How Reliable?, http://www.oocities.org/hmelberg/papers/961020.htm]

The Cultural Approach to Russian History - How Reliable?

by Hans O. Melberg

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Introduction
1.1 General
1.2 Specific

2. Definitions
2.1 The destructive phase I - What should not be included
2.2 The destructive phase II - Distinctions and purposes
2.3 The constructive phase - What should be included?

3. The cultural trait - How to convincingly demonstrate the existence a cultural trait?
3.1 Giving examples
- 3.1.1 Qualitative examples
- 3.1.2 Quantitative evidence
- 3.1.3 Which is best, quantitative or qualitative evidence?
- 3.1.4 The lessons
3.2 Demonstrating the cause of the cultural trait in question
- 3.2.1 Conventional causes and the problem of transmission
- 3.2.2 Internal psychological mechanisms as a cause of political cultures
3.3 Conclusion

4. The link - How to convincingly demonstrate the link between a cultural trait and its claimed consequences
4.1 Historical correlations as proof
4.2 Providing causal mechanisms to justify the link
4.3 Conclusion

5. Changability - Is it possible to change cultures intentionally?
5.1 A case study - The aim and the effort
5.2 Was it a success?

6. Conclusion

References
Footnotes

1 Introduction
1.1 General
Some questions cannot be decisively settled and the search for a key variable which explains history may be such a question. Max Weber, in his book The Protestant Ethic, argued for the importance of culture, while Karl Marx in Das Kapital, argued that technological change was the main causal force behind historic change. The academic community has still not agreed on who, if any, is right1. It would thus be excessively optimistic, not to say arrogant, to argue that I could answer the question. Nevertheless, witching the limits of one paper it is possible to evaluate some of the weak points of one theory and make some suggestions as how to improve. This is what I have tried to do.

1.2 Specific
Zbigniew Brzezinski, a well-known authority on Soviet affairs, has claimed that "Unlike the Russians, the Chinese people have a talent for entrepreneurship."2 This assertion is then used to predict that it will be difficult to establish a market economy in Russia. Brzezinski's quote is only one example of a general class of arguments - hereafter termed the cultural approach - which attempts to explain and predict the course of history using cultural traits as explanatory variables. Another member of this class, is the argument that Russia cannot become a functioning democracy because of their authoritarian culture. As Walter Lacqueur writes: "The Russians never respected and loved democracy as they respected and loved autocracy".3 A third example, is Francis Fukuyama claim that the Soviet Union collapsed because "the imperatives of industrial maturity eventually forced a breakdown of the political system" 4 i.e. the political system was not compatible with the culture created by industrialism. Given the prominent existence of this approach one is entitled to ask the question: How reliable is the cultural approach?

The answer, of course, varies from case to case. However, in general a reliable cultural explanation or prediction have to satisfy the following three questions. First, we have to ask how well the trait in question is established. Do the Russians really have less commercial talent than other nations? Second, even if we can prove that a certain trait is distinctive, we have to question the reliability of the link between the trait and its claimed consequences. Is it really true that the asserted egalitarian culture of the Russians prevents the creation of a market economy? Exactly what is the link between an egalitarian culture and a market economy? Thirdly, even if we can give convincing answers to the first two questions, we still cannot predict that the attempt to create democracy and market economy will fail since it may be possible to change the culture. Thus, the third question concerns the degree to which a culture can be changed. These three questions - the believability of the claimed trait, the reliability of presumed link and the "changeability" of culture - indicates the structural frame of this paper.

In addition to the structure provided by the three questions, I shall focus mainly - but not exclusively - on three issues. These correspond to the quotes in the introduction - the supposed cultural barriers to a market economy, the cultural barriers to democracy and the relationship between culture and political stability.

My own arguments relating to the three general questions are as follows. First, the standard of proof in all the three categories, is often low. This is a strong claim which I hope to justify by giving numerous examples. Second, the low standard only partly reflects inherent problems in the cultural approach. I believe it is possible in principle to give convincing answers to the first question, but less so to the second question. I shall also suggest some improvements which makes the approach more convincing. Thus, the cultural approach should not be judged guilty by association i.e. by the fact that many have used it speculatively. Finally, I believe that many problems originate with imprecise and wrong definitions of culture. This explains - and justifies - the detailed discussion of the definition of the cultural approach to which I now turn.

2. Definitions
In order to answer a question one is forced to define the terms involved so as to avoid confusing the readers. Judged by this the students of culture and its sub-field - political culture - must be thoroughly confused individuals. In 1952 Kroeber and Kluckhohn presented 164 definitions of culture and the number has surely increased over the past forty years.5 The great multiplicity of the definitions raises the question of whether it is possible at all to have a meaningful discussion involving the concept of culture. Clearly, if we all mean different things when we use the term, we are in danger of misunderstanding each other. Fortunately, the state of affairs is not quite as depressing. The definitions, though semantically different, are often overlapping since they use different words to describe the same meaning, and mutually inclusive since they capture different meanings of the same term. However, even if we adjust for this, we are still left with some incompatible definitions. In the following I shall first focus on the incompatible definitions to find out which variables I do not believe should be included by the definition of political culture. Specifically, I shall argue that behavioural variables should be excluded. Next, I shall discuss some commonly noted problems in defining culture. Finally, building on the two first sections, I shall attempt to create a definition wide enough to capture the many compatible meanings of the concept, but precise enough to be useful.

It should be noted that the discussion of the definition is much longer than one would normally expect in a paper of this size. As indicated in the introduction, this is because the definition of culture is itself a part of the problem with the cultural approach. Hence, the following should not be read as a preamble or a preparation to the "real" discussion in following sections. Rather, it is itself a part of the discussion of the weak points in the cultural approach, for example when the definition makes the approach unfalsifiable as I demonstrate below.

2.1 The destructive phase I - What should not be included
As a starting point I shall use Stephen White's definition of political culture. According to him "Political culture may be defined as the attitudinal and behavioural matrix within which the political system is located."6 Initially, this may seems as a perfectly acceptable definition. It is certainly wide enough to encompass many of the other definitions. Yet, it is precisely the wideness which makes it a weak definition. To understand this, it is useful to quote a list of essential characteristics of the Russian political culture as identified by White using his definition. The "essential features" of the "'traditional Russian' political culture" according to White, are:

"Representative institutions ... were weakly articulated and ineffective; levels of popular participation were low; and governing style was centralised, bureaucratic and authoritarian. Popular political attachments, in consequence, were highly personalised; and political knowledge and experience, outside an extremely limited circle, was virtually non-existent. The scope of government was unusually broad: it extended not only to those spheres of life in which other governments of the time were active such as public order and taxation, but also into economic entrepreneurship and control, religion and morals, and the detailed administration of justice. It was based, finally, upon a society of highly 'traditional', gemeinschaft character, in which there was strong traditions of group solidarity together with its converse, a suspicion of outsiders; a greater degree of reliance upon face-to-face relations than upon anonymous procedures; and in which it was accepted that every aspect of the life of the community, from agriculture and military service to beliefs and behaviour, should be subject to the regulation of the community as a whole."7

One might discuss whether all these features really were distinctively Russian, but that is not the issue here.8 The important point is that White's list of essential features of the traditional Russian political culture includes a very wide group of features. Some traits are features of an individual's belief system (such as suspicion of foreigners); Some are features of an individual's value system (group solidarity); Some may be characterized as a feature of individual behaviour (low political participation); and finally some are characterisations of society as a whole (degree of centralisation, weak representative institutions). The question is then whether is useful to produce such a list of diverse features and call it political culture.

It is not useful to include characterisations of societies as a whole or behavioural variables, in the definition of political culture because these are precisely the variables we want to explain using culture as the independent variable. For example, a highly centralised state is a feature of the political system which we want to explain using the concept of political culture (or an alternative approach). The centralisation is itself not part of the political culture. If we include it, then political culture simply becomes a way of redescribing the political system and not an explanatory approach.9 In short, it is to confuse the explanandum and the explananans.10 To examine the inclusion of behavioural variables we may use a concrete example, such as electoral participation. The statistical record shows that there has been a rise in electoral participation in the USSR and White consequently concludes that there has been a change in political culture.11 But is it not precisely the rise in electoral participation which we want to explain? One might try to explain it using cultural variables, but it might also be caused by a change in the reward structure i.e. that is has become more costly not to vote and/or more beneficial to vote. If this is the case, as it clearly was in Russia after 191712, then we would argue that the increased electoral participation was the result of rational adjustment by individuals i.e. using a rational choice approach. We now have two statements. On the one hand, that the increase was caused by rational adaptation to new circumstances. On the other hand, White argues that the increase represents a change in the political culture, regardless of its causes. One might argue that these two statements are compatible and a useful way of looking at the political world. However, as I shall argue below, the inclusion strongly weakens the appeal of cultural explanations because it reduces its testability.

Falsifiability requires testability against rival theories which might explain the same phenomenon. In our example, the increase in the electoral participation could, a priori, be explained either by a change in culture (attitudes) or a change in the reward structure. Empirical investigation could then be used in an attempt to falsify one of the explanatory strategies. To include behaviour in the definition of political culture makes this kind of falsification impossible because the change in behaviour then becomes, by definition, equal to a change in culture. Hence, to avoid that political culture becomes just another way of describing the system and to make the approach falsifiable, we should exclude behavioural variables from the definition of political culture.13

One might argue that the exclusion of behaviour means that we ignore a valuable source of information about culture. This argument is misguided because the attitudinal definition does not prevent us from using behaviour as an indicator of beliefs. Of, course the process is not simple since the same kind of behaviour may indicate different beliefs. When a Soviet citizen joined the Communist Party it could be because he really believed in the Communist ideals, but it could also be that he joined for career reasons without believing in the Communist ideology. In other cases it is easier to reveal beliefs from behaviour, such as the reasonably safe assertion that those who went to Church tend to believe in a God. Thus, the analysis of behaviour is still important to reveal the nature of a culture, but behavioural patterns are themselves not a part of the culture.

2.2 The destructive phase II - Distinctions and purposes
The definition of culture depends on our aim. This means that a definition that is wrong on one reading may be right on another because the authors have different conceptions of the very purpose of the term. For example Tucker argues that the aim of the concept is not to explain political events causally. As he writes:

"Might not the central value of the concept like that of political culture be that it assists us to take our bearings in the study of the political life of a society, to focus on what is happening or not happening, to describe and analyse and order many significant data, and to raise fruitful questions for thought and research - without explaining anything?"14

I find this approach deeply disturbing, but it is both unnecessary and impossible to follow up on this argument here. Unnecessary because the critique in this paper is limited to those who use culture in a causal sense; Impossible because the arguments would make this paper go well beyond the maximum length. Suffice to say that I believe an understanding of a historical events, the answer to a "why" question, must be based on causal and intentional analyses.15

Even if we focus on definitions of political culture that aim to explain, we might still ask exactly which culture we think is causally important. Is it the dominant culture or the sub-culture? Is it the real culture of the ideal culture? Definitions of political culture has commonly been criticised for not taking these distinctions into account. Although the criticism is valid, it indicates two common academic phenomena: the flogging of dead horses and the destruction of straw men. It is to attack a straw man because no-one really argued that all the individuals in a country had all the same cultural traits or that the values claimed in a survey always were the real values expressed in behaviour. From my reading it seems clear that even in the beginning one was talking about dominant tendencies. Even if I am wrong, the supposed mistaken assumption of monolithic cultures was soon pointed out and there should be no need to continue to do so - as there is no need to flog a dead horse.

A much more interesting and less noted problem is that of defining cultural traits using essentially contestable terms.16 An author may, for example, argue that the Russian culture is characterized by a desire for justice. The problem is that justice is itself a very ambiguous concept. Are we talking about end-state justice or equal opportunities? If we are talking about equality of something, then equality of what.17 Unless the definition of culture forces us to be precise on this, it is likely to be of little value since the trait "desire for justice" can be used to predict a wide variety of conflicting outcomes depending on how we interpret justice.18

2.3 The constructive phase - What should be included?
I have so far noted some mistakes, distinctions and common problems which should be taken into account when one defines culture. Armed with the lessons from the previous sections, I shall now make an attempt to construct my own definition of culture. My general approach is to seek culture inside the heads of individuals - in the aims, beliefs and norms that shape their actions. If one group of people differ on average from another in some of these variables, then we have a cultural difference which may be important to explain why their situation is different. The following tries to make these statements more precise.

There are many factors which shape a decision to act, but two of the most commonly invoked variables are beliefs and aims. For example, my decision to go to the movies may depend upon my aims and my beliefs. If my aim is to meet a friend and I believe he is likely to go, I will go. This may all sound very obvious, but this kind of frame allows us to categorise different kinds of beliefs and aims which correspond to different cultural traits.

Some cultural traits may be characterized as a preference i.e. a desire for something which is thought to be a good in itself. The claimed Russian desire for equality is an example of such a preference. The supposed utopian, messianic and expansionistic traits may also be classified as a preference (for more land, a bigger role in world politics).

The assertion that the Russians are more pessimistic about the nature of man than other cultures, fits under the general category of beliefs about how things are (inherent properties). Not all beliefs are of this category, for example some beliefs are about causal connections i.e. how things are related. For example, assume Communism is defined as a life in material and spiritual abundance. The question is then how this state of affairs can be created and the answers may differ from culture to culture based on their beliefs about how things are causally related. Some have argued that the culture of the Russians predisposed people to give authoritarian answers: That the best means to achieve abundance is through centralised government actions.19 Other cultures, for example the American culture, is claimed to have the opposite tendency: to believe that the best means to create material and spiritual abundance is by a system of decentralised and private actions. A third category of beliefs, is beliefs about beliefs (strategic beliefs). For example, I may believe that you believe that I will not give up power even if I loose an election. Once again it is sometimes claimed that the Russian culture tends to have pessimistic beliefs of this type (no doubt based on their negative view of human nature) i.e. that they lack the trust that is necessary to make democracy work.

I have so far defined culture as the dominant preferences and beliefs (of different kinds) of a group of people. However, if we move beyond the economic model of action, we find that norms are also used to explain action. Norms are here defined as rules about behaviour which are not outcome-oriented. For example, "Do X" (Be honest) or "If X, then do Y" ("If you receive a gift, then you have to give a gift in return"). Different cultures have different kind of norms and this, in turn, makes it necessary to include norms, as well as preferences and beliefs, as a part of the definition of political culture. For example, it is argued that the Russian culture is characterized by authoritarian norms such as "Do not question the decision of superiors in public".20 Another example of a supposed typical Russian norms, is demonstrated by Edward Keenan argument that the Russians have a norm of secrecy, illustrated by the rule: "Do not carry rubbish out of the hut".21

Even with the inclusion of norms, some traits, such as Uspenskij and Lotman's characterisation of the Russian culture as bipolar 22, seem to fall outside my definition of culture. It is not a preference, neither a belief and certainly not a norm. If it is none of these then what is it? In my opinion the trait is best characterized as a statement of how the preferences, beliefs and norms of the Russians change over time. Uspenskij and Lotman's basic argument is that the nature of these changes are discrete (not gradual or linear) and extreme. Thus, whereas the Russians one day believed that central planning is a good means to achieve an end, the next day they may believe the diametrically opposite - that an extreme free market economy is the best means to achieve the desired aim. In the same way one may attempt to show that the Russian preferences, beliefs and norms change according to the theories of Uspenskij and Lotman.

We now have a clearer picture of what culture is. A culture may be different from another in that they put emphasis on different goals, have different beliefs (factual, causal and strategic) and by having different norms. These may be called first order cultural differences. In addition there may be differences in how these goals, beliefs and norms change (the nature of the change, the frequency of the change). These may be called second order cultural differences. However, I do not claim that this list exhaust the list of possible cultural differences. For example, if the average degree of weakness of will is different in one group from another this may be a cultural difference (or it may be the expression of such a difference). Yet, although my definition of political culture is not complete, I believe it is adequate to enable further discussion since it captures most of the claimed cultural traits I have come across in the literature.

3. The cultural trait - How to convincingly demonstrate the existence a cultural trait?
If we are faced with a statement such as the Russians "have a deeply held cultural fear of innovation"23, we must ask why we should believe that this is the case. Based on my reading I have found many examples in which this is poorly done, or sometimes even ignored. This may suggest that the quality of the academic literature in general is poor in this aspect. However, it is not impossible in principle to give convincing arguments as I shall also attempt to show and exemplify. These arguments can take two main forms. First, we may give examples which demonstrate the existence of the cultural trait in question. Second, we may give a causal story which makes it plausible to believe that the trait exists.24

3.1 Giving examples
Examples may be of two kinds, qualitative or quantitative. The qualitative method focuses on one or a few number of telling examples which are interpreted in depth. The quantitative method is based on statistical analysis of a large number of cases.25

3.1.1 Qualitative examples
The conventional qualitative method of proving that the Russians have a certain culture is to give examples of Russian behaviour or written and spoken words. The specific source is often a poem, an excerpt from a work of fiction or simply a quote from a person of influence. Sometimes the more imaginative scholars use jokes, anecdotes, proverbs, fairytales, folksongs, name-giving practices, linguistic and semantic observations26, the study of folkheros and paintings to prove a certain cultural trait. For example, to demonstrate that the Russians were not brainwashed into believing everything the official media claimed one might point to the following Russian joke: A daycare teacher is telling the children: "In the Soviet Union everyone eats well, dresses well, lives in fine apartments and all children have a lot of beautiful toys" Hearing this, one little boy begins to whimper: "Wanna ... wanna ... wanna go to the Soviet Union!"27 Given the abundance of possible sources one might believe that there is enough evidence to prove the that the Russians have a certain cultural trait. However, there are several reasons to be sceptical.

First of all, the abundance of evidence is of little help is it is not used. For example, Bauner-Barry and Hody in their book The Politics of Change28 repeatedly relies on cultural traits to explain and predict the course of Russian history while at the same time they provide scant, if any, evidence to convince the readers that the Russians really have the cultural traits they claim (see for example p. 40, p. 46, p. 62, p. 212, p. 221). On their reading the Russians are risk-averse, incapable of understanding politics in terms of institutions, strongly fearful of chaos and anarchy and they are always seeking to annihilate opposition rather than agree to compromises. Their claims may or may not be true, but with the scant evidence they provide we simply do not know.

Next, we may argue that it is precisely the abundance of evidence which makes it difficult to prove a cultural trait. One author may use a poem to prove that the Russians have a collectivistic culture. Another may use proverbs to show that they are individualistic. Even worse, we may both use the same poem or painting but still reach different conclusions because the evidence requires interpretation. An example of this kind of problem is Per-Arne Bodin, a Swedish author, who uses Malevitj's black square to prove rather sweeping conclusions about Russian history. As he writes "Malevitj's black square contains both a European revolt against the whole bourgeoisie civilisation and a Russian longing for God in the darkness ..."29 In short, it seems to me a little doubtful whether a picture of a black square can be used to prove the nature of Russian culture. How do we know whether Bodin's interpretation of this square is correct? How do we know whether this interpretation can be generalised to the whole Russian culture?

Bodin may give several counterarguments: That he used the black square only as an illustration, not as a proof, of a cultural trait; That he provides much more convincing evidence in other places; That I have unfairly singelled out one over-interpretation from a book of more than one hundred pages. My reply would be that since Bodin does not present other kinds of evidence (statistical survey data), he necessarily relies on the many illustrations in order to convince. On the second and third point, I have to admit that he is more convincing in other places, but the problem I have pointed out is not isolated.30 Another example of a trait which is insufficiently established, is the supposed bipolar nature of the Russian mind. Lotman and Uspenskij provides a number of literary quotes to convince us that the Russians really have a bipolar mindset, but some of these quotes suffer from overinterpretation. Furthermore, their research is not comparative so we do not know whether the Russians is more bipolar than others.

The examples of insufficient and contradictory claims about the Russian culture can be multiplied. Against Brzezinski's claim in the introduction that the Russians culture is low on commercial talent, we may use Gregory (1987) who writes that "Samuel Barron shows that, despite this obstacle, indigenous Russian entrepreneurs of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries did a remarkably good job of seeking out profit opportunities."31 Against Lacqueur's claim that Russians love authoritarian rule more than democracy, we may quote Hahn who argues that there is "little support for the argument that Russian political culture today is dominated by the autocratic traditions of the past. Rather, the patterns that emerge suggest that Russian political thinking comes closer to what is found in Western Industrial democracies."32 Against Vera Tolz claim that the Russians believe that "a political opponent should be crushed rather than listened to and accommodated", we could cite Simon who writes that "What has evolved in Russia is a consensus culture. Political decisions are to be taken in consensus".33 In short, there are many examples of how we may arrive at contradictory claims about culture if we rely on simply giving a few quotes.

Given the problem of discriminate and interpretative use of qualitative evidence, we may try to reduce the problem by using large surveys i.e. quantitative evidence.

3.1.2 Quantitative evidence
To examine whether the Russians really desire a strong man above democracy, one might design a questionnaire which is designed to reveal this kind of preference structure. For example, Finifter and Mickiewicz found that 20% of their surveyed Russians "believed that public order was more important than free speech".34 By using survey evidence of this kind one may hope to reduce the problem of discretion and interpretation. At least it is possible to get the opposite result of what one expects when one uses surveys, unlike when one finds a literary quote to support the argument case. Unfortunately, there are also many well-known problems with surveys as I shall discuss in the following.

A survey has to be comparative in order to establish whether the Russians really are different from another culture. The need to do comparative research raises a large statistical problem because different countries do not only have different cultures, they also differ with respect to a number of other variables - the institutional environment, the emotional connotation of terms and the level of wealth. This, in turn, means that it is difficult to pin-point whether it is the culture which is really different, or whether observed differences are due to some other variables. For example, surveys have showed that the Russians are more likely than Americans to dislike rich businessmen and to believe that they have gained their money dishonestly.35 Does this indicate a Russian anti-mercantile culture? It may do so, but it may also be that institutional differences (such as the lack of clearly defined property rights) makes the difference in beliefs really true i.e. that rich people in Russia have gained their wealth dishonestly to a greater degree than rich people in the USA. Similarly, a survey showing Russian risk aversiveness need not be culturally determined, but a function of their low relative wealth. Moreover, Russian support (and dislike) for democracy and market economy may be a function of the emotive connotations of these terms or a short term opinion related to the economic situation, not deep cultural predispositions towards authoritarianism or democracy as we understand the terms in Western political science. In short, surveys are in no way perfect measurements of cultural variables.

The problems mentioned above should not lead to the nihilistic conclusion that we cannot prove anything using statistics. Some results are more reliable than others. For example, White has pointed out three sets of circumstances which makes it more likely that the effects in questions stem from culture and not other factors.36 First, when the traits persist despite the wishes and efforts of the government, such as religious beliefs in the Soviet Union. Second, when the differences persist despite similar institutional structures, such as political differences within Easter Europe during the Communist regime. Third, when the trait can be found even when the individuals are outside the influences of the reward system set up by communist regimes, for example if immigrants from Russia to Israel continue to exhibit collectivistic and authoritarian attitudes. Hence, the mentioned problems with statistical evidence can at least be reduced and quantitative evidence becomes more reliable.

3.1.3 Which is best, quantitative or qualitative evidence?
Given that both the quantitative and qualitative approach have weaknesses, how should we proceed to establish a cultural trait? To be specific: How much faith should I have in the proposition that "An independent judiciary and thus the implementation of the rule of law is even less compatible with the traditions of the Russian society than the division of power at legislative and executive levels".37 An example of a qualitative example to prove this occurred when Yeltsin was in Norway in the autumn of 1996 and he gave the following comment when asked about the Nikitin case (an environmental researcher accused of spying): "I'm not a judge. ... I'm higher than a judge".38 This is very revealing because it indicates the political tradition within which Yeltsin operates - a tradition lacking the western notion of the rule of law and clear distinctions between the judiciary, the legislative and the administrative organs. Yet, I am unable to answer exactly how much the statement should affect probability of the mentioned proposition.

The quantitative method of trying to prove the same question would be based on surveys. For example, Solomon uses a variety of sources, including opinion polls, to determine whether the Russian culture is alien to the rule of law and the division of power.39 His answer is also that "public attachment to legal principles did not run deep".40 The question is then which of these approaches give the original proposition greatest plausibility. In this case I would tend to favour the quantitative approach since Yeltsin's quote is only one of many quotes, and he is only one of many Russians. It would thus be inaccurate to take his statement as a definite demonstration of the cultures of all the Russians.

I doubt whether there can be a general answer to the question of whether one should try to prove a question quantitatively or qualitatively. There seems to be pockets of reliability within both methods. In any case, the approaches are not mutually incompatible. The interview method combined with surveys as applied by the Harvard Refugee Project, the Soviet Interview Project and in Zvi Gitelman's study of Soviet emigrees in Israel all exemplify this combination. The issue is thus not which is best, but how each can be improved and used reliably. This is the topic of my next section.

3.1.4 The lessons
What are the lessons then, concerning the feasibility of establishing cultural traits using examples. The main lesson is that it is not impossible, but the paragraphs above have pointed out some of the pitfalls to be avoided. First, It is not enough to cite one or a few examples from works of fiction to prove that the Russians are characterized by certain traits. Second, I believe the reliability of surveys increase when the questions avoid general concepts such as freedom and justice, and focus on concrete questions. Third, I believe one should explore a new avenue of research: to reveal cultures using experiments. In the next paragraphs I shall discuss these three in more detail.

An excellent example of the possibility of using literature, while at the same time avoid the problem of simply picking the examples one wants, is Fritz Gaenslen's article "Culture and Decision Making in China, Japan, Russia and the USA41 In this article Ganslen uses statistical analysis of 1000 conflicts, described by 274 authors in 514 works of fiction. These conflicts are examined, for example to see the extent to which the author describes it as acceptable that an individual stands up against the majority. Based on this kind of analysis Gaenslen concludes that the Russians really are more collectivisic than the Americans. This may not come as a shock, but Gaenslen's article is one of the few works which does prove this by relying on a few quotes from a few selected authors.

A good example of a survey using concrete, rather than grand concepts like democracy and market economy, is Schiller, Boycko and Korobov.42 By avoiding the grand concepts they increase the reliability of their results because they reduce the potential bias resulting from the fact that grand concepts often have very different meanings in different cultures. In the survey people were asked about how they would react to everyday situations, such as whether they would charge interest rates on a loan to a friend or whether they think the government should impose price controls on the sale of flowers (if the sellers raised the prices in response to a shortage of flowers). The results are in many instances surprising since the Russians often demonstrate a better understanding of the workings of a market economy than Americans. Yet, the overall conclusion from this study, despite the claims of the author, must be that the Russian culture is less "commercial" than the American culture.

Finally, my own suggestion would be to use experiments to reveal the cultures of people in many cases.43 For example, when Bauner-Barry and Hody claim that the Russians have "a deeply held cultural fear of innovation"44 (i.e. in the terminology of economist: risk-aversiveness) this can be studied by experiments. One simple example of this, is to make people choose between the following two options:
Alternative A: $100 for sure
Alternative B: $200 with the probability of 0.5 and $0 with the probability of 0.5
A risk-neutral person would be indifferent between the two options since the expected payoff from each is $100. If we change the probabilities in alternative B to respectively $200 with the probability of 0.6 and $0 with the probability of 0.4 a risk-averse person would still choose alternative A, even though the expected payoff from alternative B is higher. By varying the probabilities (and payoffs) and by presenting this kind of choice to a number of people, one might get a reliable picture of the average risk attitude of a group of people. Similar experiments, based on bargaining, may be conducted to reveal whether the Russians are more concerned with justice than other cultures. Finally it is also easy to design experiments to reveal the degree to which people trust each other to determine whether it is true that the Russians really have a pessimistic view of man. In short, it is possible to measure some several cultural traits reliably because an experimental situation allows us to keep certain factors constant and only varying the variable we are interested in.45

3.2 Demonstrating the cause of the cultural trait in question
In addition to giving examples, there is one other method of establishing the plausibility of a cultural trait - to demonstrate the causal mechanism that creates the culture. I shall consider three commonly mentioned causes of culture - geography, climate and historical experiences. In addition I shall consider a more original cause - internal psychological mechanisms.

3.2.1 Conventional causes and the problem of transmission
The Russians are sometimes said to be excessively concerned with security.46 One causal story used to justify this argument, is the lack of natural frontiers around Russia. This in turn, led to a history of repeated invasions and consequently to a concern with security. Another causal story, trying to establish the same point, is that because of the climatic conditions in Russia, the soil is not very fertile. Thus, the Russians became accustomed to living on the edge between survival and extinction. One single year of bad harvest could be fatal and this created a culture in which no risks, no innovations, nothing that could upset the delicate equilibrium was tried. In all these examples we see how geography, climate and historical experience may enter as a cause of a cultural trait.

There is one problem with the above causal proof of cultural traits: Why should we believe that a cause which affected the Russians more than one hundred years ago to affect the Russians of today? Sometimes this is simply "assumed" i.e. that a culture - once established - is automatically inherited from generation to generation. This, as Mary McAuley has pointed out, is not convincing because it ignores the question of how the culture is transmitted.47 Admittedly there are well established channels for the transmission of culture - by parents conveying norms and beliefs in the upbringing of the children, education, fairytales and many other agents of socialisation. Despite the obvious nature of these mechanism, we should still focus on the transmission because evidently not all culture is perfectly replicated in the children. Furthermore, the assumption of automatic transmission leads us to ignore a potentially important source of cultural traits - internal psychological mechanism.

3.2.2 Internal psychological mechanisms as a cause of political cultures
It is claimed that the Russians commonly believe that the Leader is just and good, while those around him are responsible for all the problems.48 This myth appeared both under the Tsar and under Stalin. One might then be tempted to argue that the culture was simply inherited from the parents to their children. Yet, one might also explain the trait by internal psychological mechanisms without invoking inherited beliefs. The psychological mechanism being that humans have a tendency to adjust their beliefs and desires in order to live happy lives (cognitive dissonance). Thus, in hard times it is a comforting thought that all hope is not lost, that if the leader heard about your problems he would correct the mistakes. If this is the true causal story, then the belief in a just leader was not inherited - it was independently created by the circumstances of the two periods.

The example of the just Leader myth is not an isolated example of the fallacy of assuming that cultures simply are inherited. The cult of Lenin could also be presented as an inherited trait where Lenin simply became a substitute for what God or the Tsar had been before the Revolution. However, as Gerner points out, "the cult was also the outcome of deliberate actions by the Bolshevik leaders ..."49 Thus the Lenin cult was not simply an automatic continuation of Russian traditions, there was a conscious decision to create the cult - to create Lenin-corners in public buildings and to make children in kindergarten sing songs to phrase Lenin.

Thirdly, and maybe most importantly, it is important to focus on internal psychological mechanisms because it throws some doubt on the argument that the Russians culture is more bipolar than other cultures. There seems to be a universal tendency in the mind of humans that we dislike ambiguity and uncertainty and we like to have good reasons when we act.50

3.3 Conclusion
In order to prove a cultural trait we need to give empirical evidence that it exists and a plausible story as to why it exist. This needs to be done in a way which reduces the possibility of simply searching for evidence which proves your original claims. One such way is experiments which, to my knowledge, have not been used comparatively to measure Russian cultural traits. A second suggestion presented in this section, is to focus on internal psychological mechanisms as a cause of cultures.

4. The link - How to convincingly demonstrate the link between a cultural trait and its claimed consequences
One may claim, as Stephen Wegren does, that the Russian cultural thirst for justice hinders the development of a well-functioning market economy.51 However, even if you can establish the fact that the Russians really are more concerned about justice than other cultures, the overall statement need not be very convincing. The author also needs to give some kind of argument as to why the cultural traits has the claimed consequences. This, I believe can be done in two ways. Either by demonstrating a causal connection or by providing a historical statistics which suggests that the two variables are connected even if you do not know exactly how.

4.1 Historical correlations as proof
To justify a link by historical correlation is simply to say that the historical record shows - in general - that when a culture is very concerned about justice, the economy does worse than when a culture does not focus as much on justice. One may then use statistical techniques to establish the reliability of these statements. For example, one may find, as Almond and Verba did in their classic study The Civic Culture, that there is a positive correlation between a civic culture and a stable democracy.52 Besides many well documented statistical and interpretative problems of this approach 53, there are two serious objections: One concerning the causal direction of the relationship, the other to the nature of correlation as proofs.

The first problem occurs when we misinterpret the causal direction of two variables that are causally related and correlated. We may find that the Russians do not have a high civic spirit, as Richard Pipes claims, and then predict that this will prevent the creation of a democracy The problem with this, as Brian Barry has pointed out, is that the causal direction may flow in the other direction. It may be the existence of a democracy which fosters the growth of a civic spirit.54 Indeed, if we look at one of the great classic in political science, Tocqueville's Democracy in America, we read that "I do not know whether a jury is useful to the litigants, but I am sure it is very good for those who have to decide the case. I regard it as one of the most effective means of popular education at society's disposal".55 In other words, it is institutions (here: the jury system) which fosters democratic attitudes, not the opposite.56 If the causal relationship goes from institutions to attitudes It would be wrong to use the correlation to justify the original claim - that culture is the cause of well-functioning democracies. It would also be wrong to predict that a low civic spirit in Russia would prevent the establishment of democracy.

The second problem is that strong correlation need not imply a causal relationship, neither does a weak correlation necessarily imply no causal relationship. As an example of the latter we may return to the claim in the introduction - that the political system must be compatible with the political culture. In an empirical investigation we may find that there is a weak correlation between changes in the political system and changes in the political culture. However, it is still possible that political culture is an important determinant of the political system since there may be institutional inertia which makes change discrete. The figure below tries to illustrate this. The two lines represent respectively the degree of a democratic culture and the degree of a democratic political system. We see that within a band these may go in opposite direction i.e. there is a low correlation. However, at some point the gap between the two is so large that a revolution occurs (by assumption). If this is a true story, then we have low correlation between two variables, but at the same time the change in the political system must be explained using precisely the two mentioned variables.

4.2 Providing causal mechanisms to justify the link
The second way to support an argument linking two variables, is by providing a plausible causal link between the two. Once again I shall focus on arguments relating to the Russian concern for justice and how this affects the effectivity of an economy. How might these two variables be related?

To be efficient a market economy requires goods and services to be traded at prices given by the market - that is the price which makes the supply of a good equal to its demand.57 A concern for justice may prevent that price from being realized because people demand government regulations to lower what they consider to be unfair prices. Alternatively, some markets may fail to exist because people simply refuse to trade at prices they consider unfair. I have tried to illustrate this situation in the figure below. The figure is a standard demand-supply diagram where supply raises as price increases, while demand falls as the price increases. The market price, p*, is given by the intersection of supply and demand which is the point where the amount supplied equals the amount demanded of that good. However, a concern for justice may cause the real price to be below this price, such as p**, which in turn creates an inefficient economy because its regulated cheapness may lead to inefficient uses of the resource. An example of this may be the price of bread in the Soviet Union which was so low that it was sometimes used to feed animals.

[FIGURE]

The above paragraph illustrates one possible causal link between a concern for justice and an inefficient market economy. By giving this story one increases the plausibility of the cultural explanation since one presents reasons to believe in a causal connection, not simply assuming that the link is obvious.

Unsurprisingly, the method of proving a consequence by pointing to a causal mechanism is not without problems. One such problem is the fact that it is one trait may have contradictory consequences. Assume that, as some have claimed, that the Russian elite is characterized by a culture which accepts brutality and authoritarian methods. We may then try to enquire which effects this trait has on the stability of the political system.58 One plausible causal connection is that authoritarian rule makes a system more stable because it denies the potential opposition the opportunity to organise itself. However, another causal connection could be that the authoritarian methods alienates people, thus increasing the desire to revolt and thereby making the system unstable. We now have two causal chains both running out of one cultural trait but with two opposite consequences. It would be meaningless to ask which of these causal mechanisms is true since it is perfectly possible that both exist at the same time.59 The important question is which effect is the strongest i.e. the net effect. However, questions of net effects are very difficult to answer (in advance of an event) because we do not have data on all the relevant variables. This means that predictions based on cultural traits are plagued with great uncertainty. However, there might still be room for cultural explanations after an event has occurred since we then know which effect was the strongest. To be specific, after the collapse of the Soviet Union we know that the causal chains producing instability were stronger than those producing stability. Thus, we may distinguish between the reliability of predictions and the reliability of explanations based on cultural traits.

A second, more obvious problem, is that there are many variables which affect the stability of a political system. To illustrate this problem I shall use Gorer's claim that Russian history may be largely explained by the practice of swaddling. Admittedly this is a bit of a dead horse, but I do not intend to use the whip where it has commonly been used. Instead of criticising the speculative link between swaddling and a culture of expansionism, I shall point out that there may be many other variables which also determine whether the Russians have an expansive culture. For example, the claimed culture of risk-aversiveness may point to a culture of caution, not expansiveness. Moreover, non-cultural variables may also affect whether the Russians really are expansive or not, such as the strength of their military forces. Hence, to go from one cultural trait and predict one consequence is not possible even if there is a plausible link between the trait and the consequences. We must also consider all the other variables affecting the claimed traits and consequences.

4.3 Conclusion
How reliably is it possible to establish a link between a trait and its supposed social consequences? The above discussion has pointed to many difficulties: The problems of using correlation as proofs of causal connections between two variables and the problem of having to consider the net effect of all the variables that affect a relationship. These problems are more serious than the problems involved in proving that a cultural trait exist since the statistical problems in proving a causal relationship is greater than the statistical problems in shoving that a group of people on average are characterized by a cultural trait.

5. Changability - Is it possible to change cultures intentionally?
Assume, for the sake of argument, that we have solved the two issues discussed so far in this paper. To be concrete, even if you can prove that the Russians today lack a civic culture and that this causes problems for the quality of the democracy, the prediction that Russia will not develop into a stable democracy may be false. The prediction may be false because it relies on the implicit assumption that a culture is not changeable. If it is possible to change a culture, then the relevant basis for prediction is not today's political culture, but the culture that will be created tomorrow. The question is thus to what extent it is plausible to assume that cultures can be changed.

5.1 A case study - The aim and the effort
To assess this one might use the history of the Soviet Union. The victory of the Bolsheviks in 1917 started a massive attempt to change the culture of the Russians and a number of other nations. Over the next seventy years a systematic effort was made to develop what might be called the "Soviet Man." There is little doubt about the importance attached to this by Soviet leaders. For example, Chernenko wrote that the party "seeks to construct a new world" which in turn required "the constant concern for the development ... of the man of the new world, for his ideological and moral growth."60 Furthermore, the Party programme always emphasised the re-education of people as an important goals, as demonstrated by the 1985 programme in which a chapter (ch. V) was devoted to "Ideological-Education Work, Public Education, Science and Culture". A typical statement from this chapter include "The CSPU considers the main task of its ideological work to be in education the working people in a spirit of high ideological integrity and dedication to communism ..."61 Given this aim, how did the Soviet leaders try to achieve it?

In the very beginning the effort was directed through the Commissariat of the Enlightenment led by A. V. Lunacharsky. The main committee under this commissariat, Glavpolitprosvet (Chief Committee for Political Education) had 21 500 village reading room and 800 political schools with 265 000 enrolled students (1925)62. By 1976, the effort was even more organised, with 1.3 million propagandists, 7000 rooms of political enlightenment and 3.7 million agitators. One society, The All Union Knowledge Society (Znanie) had 3 million members in 1976 and delivered 24 million lectures that year to 1245 million listeners.63 In addition there was a systematic effort to change beliefs by visual agitation, a systematic change of holidays and anniversaries, biased mass-media reports and ideological education at all levels of life - in kindergarden, schools, universities, the army and at the workplace. It was a truly gigantic attempt to change the beliefs of a whole country.

5.2 Was it a success?
To what degree did the Russian culture change? Except for a much quoted assertion by Huntington, the academic consensus is that the Communists were not successful in intentionally creating a new Soviet Man. Nationalism, selfishness, alcoholism, laziness, religiosity and many other traits of human nature were not eradicated and the belief in central tenets of the Marxist-Leninist ideology was never internalised (or even understood). Yet, some cultural traits may have been reinforced by the Soviet system, such as the supposed collectivistic and authoritarian nature of the Soviet culture (National Bolsheviks). Finally, some new traits may have been created unintentionally, such as cynicism as the result of "institutional hypocrisy", apathy as a consequence of the lack of political freedom and, maybe most importantly, fear and lack of trust resulting from the nature of the Stalin period.

Overall, based on the Soviet experiment it does not appear that cultures can be easily changed intentionally. However, cultures may change unintentionally and this invalidates the implicit assumption of cultural continuity underlying predictions based on cultural traits. To predict the future failure of democracy it is not good enough to use today's political culture, rather one should use the culture which one believes will exist in the future.64

6. Conclusion
It would be foolish to deny that cultural differences exist and that they affect the course of history. For example, a recent article by Inglehart demonstrated stable difference in interpersonal trust and life satisfaction between a large number of countries. However, it is perfectly possible to know that something exist and plays a role, but at the same time know that we simply do not have enough information to measure the importance of it of the role plays. In some cases we may be lucky and find pockets of reliability - conditions that are particularly favourable to draw reliable conclusions (such as White's three conditions for establishing a causal trait) - but in general we are light years away from a general theory of society. If there is a lesson in this it must be that we might be better off avoiding grand theories of social change and focus on the study of mechanisms. To claim that we can predict whether Russia will have a functioning democracy and an effective market economy is to deceive ourselves, to satisfy the human desire for certainty at the cost of intellectual honesty.

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FOOTNOTES
1 See, for example, Robert Putnam (1993) who recently has argued in favour of the cultural approach and Sidney Tarrow (1996) , who argues against Putnam.

2 Brzezinski (1989), p. 177.

3 Cited in Hahn (1991), p. 398.

4 Fukuyama (1993), p. 16.

5 Cited in Tucker (1973), p. 174.

6 White, (1979), p. 1.

7 White, (1979), p 64.

8 White himself, in a later work (see his chapter in Brown (1984)), admitted that he might have exaggerated the difference between Russia and the rest of Europe on some accounts.

9 See also McAuley comments on White in Brown (1984), p. 16.

10 This critique, of course, does not affect those who believe that the aim of the cultural approach is to interpret history, not to exaplain events causally. This approach has become increasingly popular, see for examples Welch (1993) and my comments in section 2.2.

11 White (1979), p. 87-88.

12 Given that your career depended upon conform behaviour and that non-participation in elections was an obvious sign of dissent.

13 For more arguments against the inclusion of behavioural variables, see Brown in Brown (1984). My arguments are informed by, but not based on, his work.

14 Tucker (1973), op. cit., p. 179.

15 See Elster (1983), especially p. 14-24.

16 I am indebted to Paal Kolstoe and the other seminar participant (U. Of Oslo, October 8, 1996) for bringing this problem to my attention.

17 This is the title of a chapter in Sen (1982).

18 For more on the ambiguity of the concept of justice, see Melberg (1996).

19Inkles and Bauer

20 Gaenslen (1986), p. 92.

21 Keenan (1986), p. 119.

22 Lotman, Jurii and Boris A. Uspenskij (1984).
23 Bauner-Barry and Hody (1995), p. 46.

24 The distinction is inspired by Hume's discussion of proof by induction vs. deduction. More recently, I have been informed by the methodological debate between J. Elster and G. A. Cohen in Theory and Society 1982 (issues 11 and 12).

25 I am here indebted to Paal Kolstoe who made me think more closely about the distinction between qualitative and quantitative analysis.

26 Such as trying to prove that the Russians are more collectivistic because they do not have their own word for privacy (.........)

27 Corten (1992), p. 14-15.

28 Bauner-Barry and Hody (1995).

29 Bodin, (1993), p. 131 (my translation).

30 For more on this see Melberg, Hans O. (1996), What can we infer from a black square?, http://www.oocities.org/hmelberg/papers/960920.htm. In short, see Bodins interpretation of the importance of the centralistic perspective in Icon paintings (p. 23) and his interpretation of a poem on p. 104-5.

31 Gregory (1987), p. 77. Admittedly these statements describe different time periods. This weakens the contradiction, but Brzezinski argument does seem to imply that the lack of commerical talent is an old trait.

32 Hahn (1991), p. 393.

33 Simon (1995), p. 248.

34 Finifter and Mickiewicz (1992), p. 860 (Survey from 1989).

35 Schiller & Boycko & Korobov (1991).

36 White (1984), p. 360.

37 Simon (1995), p. 249.

38 Cited in Gomes (1996, p. 2.

39 Solomon (1992).

40 Cited in Fleron (1996), p. 244.

41 Gaenslen (1986).

42 Schiller & Boycko & Korobov (1991)

43 This suggestion is not as novel as I initially though since I came across the same suggestion in Elkins and Simeon (1979), p. 138

44 Bauner-Barry and Hody (1995), p. 46.

45 See Bar-Hillel and Yaari (1984) for a good example of how this can be done (with American and Israeli respondents). To my knowledge no comparable research has been done on Russian subjects.

46 Bauner, Barry and Hody (1995), p. 62.

47 McAuley in Brown (1984), p. 23.

48 This example is taken from McAuley in Brown (1984), p. 19-20.

49 Gerner (1986), p. 33.

50 For more on this see Elster (1993), p. 14. See also the famous Ellesberg paradox in the economic literature.

51 Wegren (1994), pp. 222-229.

52 Almond and Verba (1958).

53 See Melberg (1996), Against Correlation, for a survey of the problems with correlation as proof.

54 Brian Barry (1970), p. 93 ff.

55 Cited in Elster (1983), p. 96.

56 We may, of course, also have a reciprocal relationship between institutions and culture.

57 The optimality of a free market economy is only true under certain assumptions, such as no externalities, no economies of scale and many other technical ssumptions.

58 This example is inspired by Elster (1989) (Nuts), p. 16-17.

59 This is implicitly a critique of the search for laws in history. It is perfectly possible that there are no (simple) lawlike relationship between suppression and stability, while at the same time there are strong causal relationships between the two.

60 Burant, Stephen R. (1987), p. 273.

61 The Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (draft) (1985), Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow, p. 72.

62 White (1979), p. 70.

63 White (1979), p. 77-80.

64 I do not want to press this point too strongly as I believe it is a minor, not a major, problem with cultural explanations since there often is some form of continuity between the old and the new culture. This continuity justifies the implicit assumption, but as noted earlier it is important not simply to postulate continuity, but to examine the agents of transmission since not all traits are simply "inherited."

[Note for bibliographic reference: Melberg, Hans O. (1996), The Cultural Approach to Russian History - How Reliable?, http://www.oocities.org/hmelberg/papers/961020.htm]