Melberg, Hans O., Political culture

_{[Note for bibliographic reference: Melberg, Hans O. (1996), About confusing the
explanandum and the explananda: Should political culture include behavioural variables?, http://www.oocities.org/hmelberg/papers/960926.htm]

About confusing the explanandum and the explananda

Should political culture include behavioural variables?

by Hans O. Melberg

Review of Stephen White, Political Culture and Soviet Politics, Macmillan, London, 1979

234 pages, ISBN: 0-333-24157-6

Introduction

The concept of political culture is enjoying a renaissance and Stephen White deserves
credit for being one of the initiators of this renewal. His book from 1979, Political
Culture and Soviet Politics was one of the first books which dealt exclusively with
the concept of political culture. Being first often entails making some mistakes that
others can learn from. In this review I shall examine the points where I think White is
wrong. The main problem, I shall argue, has to do with his wide definition of political
culture. By using a wide definition White ends up confusing what political culture is
and what political culture tries to explain.

White's argument

White's main concern is to introduce what he calls a "historical perspective" to
the study if Soviet politics. The contrasting view is the ideological model in which
doctrine, not culture, is the main motor of the system. As he writes

"Soviet political institutions are seen as emanating from the doctrines of Marx
and Lenin rather than, in part at least, from the country's centuries of previous
political experiences; and Soviet political beliefs and behaviour patterns are taken to be
the product of a successful process of political socialisation rather than a tribute to
the persistence of traditional beliefs and practices ..." (Preface, ix)

One might suspect that White here exaggerates the supposed ahistorical approach of the
scholarly community in order to justify his book. Yet, the problem raised is a real one:
To what extent was the Soviet system the result of ideology as opposed to cultural
variables?

White's answer is that culture - defined as "the attitudinal and behavioural matrix
within which the political system is located." (p. 1) - is more important than we
often acknowledge. To prove his thesis he discusses the political culture of old Russia,
the causes and effects of political culture and the modern Soviet political culture. I
shall use the same frame to criticise some of his points.

The old Russian political culture

What was distinctive about the old Russian political culture? White's answer is worth
quoting at length:

According to White, the "essential features" of the "'traditional
Russian' political culture" 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." (p. 64)

One might discuss whether all these features were distinctively Russian, or whether it
also applied to the rest of Europe. Was the Prussian government less active in the economy
than the Russian? Was the peasants of Europe better able to conceive of politics in
abstract and institutional terms than the Russian peasants? Indeed, 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. Nevertheless, he still
maintains that there was a distinctive difference between old Russia and the rest of
Europe, a difference best summarised by the term 'autocracy'. The issue is important
because if there are no large differences in political culture, then White cannot explain
why Russia ended up in a different situation than the rest of Europe. However, even
if we accept, as most do, that the Russian political culture in important respects
differed from the rest of Europe, White's characterisation of the Russian political
culture is still problematic because it includes features which really are those we want
to explain, not describe, by using the concept of political culture.

To examine the argument more closely we need to look at White's list of essential features
of the old Russian political culture. A closer investigation reveals that the features
listed are not on the same level: Some 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 macro-features of society
(degree of centralisation, weak representative institutions). The question is the whether
is useful to produce such a list of diverse features and call it political culture.

I shall argue that White's inclusion of macro-features of society as a part of political
culture is wrong. Moreover, I shall argue that his inclusion of behavioural features is
not fruitful.

The first argument is based on the simple observation that it is precisely the
macro-features we want to explain using the concept of political culture. 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 describing the political system and not an explanatory approach. (see
also, McAuley comments on White in Brown (1984), p. 16)

White also includes behavioural features when he defines political culture. We may use a
concrete example, such as the electoral participation, to examine how useful it is to
include this variable. 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. Once again I would complain that the raise in electoral
participation is itself something we would want to explain. One might try to explain it by
using cultural variables, but it might also be caused by a change in the reward structure
- that is has become more costly not to vote and/or more profitable to vote. If this is
the case, as it clearly was in Russia after 1917, then we would argue that the increased
electoral participation was the result of a rational adjustment by individuals (i.e. by
Rational Choice theory). We now have two statements. On the one hand, we know 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, I would argue the aim of the political cultural
approach is to explain patterns of behaviour using cultural variables - not to describe or
restate the behaviour in a new terminology. As such it is falsifiable since there are
rival theories - such as the mentioned rational choice approach - which might also explain
behaviour. 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.

(Note: This does not prevent us from using behaviour as an indicator of beliefs, although
we always need to remember that the link between behaviour and beliefs is complicated. If
a Soviet citizen joined the Party, we cannot draw the conclusion that he had become a
'believing' communist since he might also join for career reasons. White knows this, as
his makes evident when he warns against concluding that religious belief has decreased
simply because official church attendance in Russia has decreased (i.e. a change in
behaviour).

The links

When discussing how a political culture continues to exercise influence over time, we need
to examine how this culture is transmitted. In short, what are the causes of political
culture? On the other hand we also need to discuss the mechanisms whereby the culture
influences today's' (and possibly tomorrow's) political environment. There is, of course,
a reciprocal relationship here: political culture is both a cause of the political
situation and it is caused by current political institutions. However, there is a
time difference which reduces this problem of circularity: It is yesterdays environment
which influences today's culture, but it is today's political situation which influences
tomorrow's political culture. This justifies a treatment of each link separately, as long
as we assume that the share which is simultaneously determined is small.

White and the consequences of political culture

It follows from White's approach (the inclusion of behaviour) that his main concern is not
to use cultural variables to explain or predict patterns of political behaviour. Rather
his main focus is to explain the legitimacy he believes the Soviet system enjoys as a
result of the compatibility between the Soviet system and Russian political culture. As he
writes:

"Overall, then, the evidence which we have reviewed suggests that the Soviet
system may have achieved a relatively high level of legitimacy, or uncoerced support; and
that many of its most distinctive attributes, such as public ownership of the means of
production and the comprehensive provision of welfare, may have the support of a majority
even of those who reject the system as a whole and have chosen to live elsewhere."
(p. 189 )

White then qualifies this by arguing that there might be a distinction between regime
and system loyalty. Even with this qualification, the events of the last decade have
proven White wrong - the Soviet Union was not stable and its continued existence did rest
on coercion. White's behavioural approach must take some of the blame for his failed
predictions. If one focused on electoral participation, and other behavioural statistics,
the Soviet Union was bound to look strong. However, although overt coercion was reduced
(but far from eliminated), economic coercion was widespread: Dissent meant loosing your
job or the chance of a promotion. Hence, conformist behaviour should not be interpreted as
a sign of support.

Of course, White knows all this and he supports his behavioural argument by evidence
relating to the attitudes of the Soviet population. Yet, one problem is that he seems only
to count the number of attitudes, not their strengths. The attitudes of the Soviet
population might be compatible with the current system in many cases, yet if people attach
great importance to one particular attitude, this might still make the system unstable.
Thus, what counts is not only the number of compatible and incompatible features, but also
their relative strength.

In fairness it should be noted that White also presents some predictions and analyses that
turned out to be correct. For example, he perceptively comments that the nationality
problem is not solved and may increase. Furthermore, he discusses the falling rate of
economic growth and the problems it might lead to for a political system which does not
have institutionalised bargaining and which relies on performance based legitimacy. But
these are qualifications, his main line seems to be that the Soviet system enjoyed
legitimacy and hence stability. In this he was wrong.

White and the causes of political culture

White provides only scattered insights on the precise causes of political culture. When
discussing the old political culture he rightly mentions features such as geography and
climate as determining factors. For example, one reason why the Russian nobility never
became strong enough to wrestle constitutional rights away from the Tsar, might be that
the soil in Russia was so poor that the nobility never gained enough independent wealth to
challenge the Tsar. Yet, it is not enough to cite the original cause of a political
culture. We must also, as Mary McAuley has pointed out, explain how the culture is
transmitted over time. Why does some features of a culture continue to exist, while others
die out? On this White is less helpful. He seems to assume that a culture is
"inherited" from generation to generation. Now, this may be a perfectly
reasonable assumption - and White defends it as such in a later article (see White in
Brown (1984), p. 83). However, I think it ignores a possibly important cause of political
culture: internal psychological mechanisms.

Mary McAuley has discussed the belief in a just Tsar is similar to the belief that Stalin
really was just (see McAuley in Brown (1984), p. 19). In both cases evil events were
blamed on the people around the Tsar or Stalin, not the leaders themselves. Thus one might
argue that here we have an example of a feature of the political culture which is
"inherited" from the pre-Revolutionary culture. However, an equally plausible
explanation of this belief is wishful thinking. The myth that Stalin's really was good
could arise simply because it was a comforting though for those who were in the labour
camps: If Stalin was good there was the hope that Stalin would discover that his
associates were evil and intervene to free the prisoners. In this way we may explain a
belief by the mechanism of wishful thinking. It would thus be wrong to assume that the
myth of a just Stalin was inherited or causally related to the myth of a just Tsar. By
automatically assume that beliefs are inherited from generation to generation, we fail to
investigate a whole range of potentially very important mechanisms that shape our
political culture. For example, the writings of Jon Elster provide numerous examples of
how psychological mechanisms, such as sour grapes, may shape our beliefs and preferences.

Moving from the old Russian Culture to the modern Soviet political culture, White spends
two chapters on the mechanisms by which the Soviet authorities tried to change the
political culture - to create a new "Soviet Man." In the very beginning the
effort was directed through the Commissariat of the Enlightenment led by V. A.
Lunacharsky. The main committee under this commissariat, Glavpolitprosvet (Chief Committee
for Political Education) which by 1925 had 21 500 village reading room and 800 political
schools with 265 000 enrolled students. By 1976, this effort was more organised, with 1.3
million propagandists, 7000 rooms of political enlightenment and 3.6 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(!) 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 from
kindergarten, schools, university, the army and at the workplace. It was a truly gigantic
attempt to change the beliefs of a whole nation.

Was it successful? Some authors, such as Huntington, has claimed it was very successful
but White he rightly questions whether these activities had the desired effect. To
describe this I turn to the third sub-heading: White's description of the modern Soviet
political culture.

The Modern Soviet Political Culture

White divides his discussion of the modern political culture into two, first behaviour,
then attitudes.

The discussion of behaviour suffers under mistakes of interpretation and stylistic flaws.
The main mistake of interpretation is the explicit refusal to consider how the meaning of
similar behaviour changes over time. For example, White writes that "... it is at
least clear that the lack of popular involvement in political life which was
characteristic of Tsarist Russia has been largely overcome ..." (p.88. Note that this
seems to be in contradiction to his argument on p. 175). As evidence White cites
statistical indicators such as party membership, trade union membership, electoral
participation and an index of time spend on socio-political activities. All these indexes
show a rising level of participation. However, the point is that an these figures are not
comparable. The choice to participate in an election was relatively free in 1917, but in
the 1970's there were strong positive incentives to participate (and negative incentives
to stop one from abstaining). In consequence, statistical comparisons of involvement and
participation between pre-Revolutionary Russian and the Soviet Union of the 1970's, and
between the West and Russia, is meaningless.

In addition to this important interpretative flaw, White makes some stylistic mistakes in
that he keeps piling statistics upon statistics to convince us that there has been a
change in behaviour and hence political culture. This makes for rather boring reading, at
the same time that much of it is rather obvious. I was not shocked to learn that 1.1% of
the respondents in a survey "stated that they would listen with more attention to a
lecturer who simply read out the text in front of him" (p. 118). Nor did it surprise
me that "the better educated [representatives of the nationalities] appear ... more
likely to know Russian" (p. 150). Finally I do not need a page of statistics to be
convinced that "Education and social position ... appear to be closely related to
different levels of political knowledge and awareness" (p. 159). These are minor
points, but they are irritating when they can be multiplied as they can with some chapters
in White's book.

Turning to attitudes, White mainly surveys some evidence from emigree surveys only to
conclude that there has been little change in attitudes. The main change, as detected by
White, is the effects of Stalinism which created a culture of distrust. At the same time,
the Soviet system has reinforced many of the old attitudes such as the desire for a strong
state with extensive welfare provision. Recent surveys, not possible at the time White
wrote his book, has tended to confirm these arguments. However, one might question whether
these traits are unique to Russia. It seems to me that in most countries people tend to
favour state provision of education, health care and social security benefits.

In conclusion

A review is by its nature critical and thus likely to paint a negative picture of whatever
is reviewed. This review is no exception, but I should add in conclusion that the book
does have several positive aspects. It is well written, it is clear and structured,
empirically oriented and well-researched. Moreover, the author is methodologically
conscious, without getting lost in endless theoretical or abstract discussions. Finally,
the book is well balanced in its treatment of Soviet history. Despite these virtues, the
book suffers under the flaws resulting from its wide definition of political culture,
specifically the inclusion of behaviour.

References

Brown, Archie (ed.), Political Culture and Communist Studies, Macmillan, London:
1984.

Elster, Jon, Sour Grapes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1983

McAuley, Mary, "Political Culture and Communist Politics: One Step Forward, Two Steps
Back" in Archie Brown (1984), Political Culture and Communist Studies,
Macmillan, London.

White, Stephen, "Soviet Political Culture Reassessed" in Archie Brown (1984), Political
Culture and Communist Studies, Macmillan, London

White, Stephen, Political Culture in Communist States: Some Problems of Theory and Method,
Comparative Politics, 1984, pp. 351-365.

Note: I would recommend White's article "Political Culture in Communist States: Some
Problems of Theory and Method" (Comparative Politics, 1984, pp. 351-365). This is a
very good article which also raises some of the points discussed in this review.

_{[Note for bibliographic reference: Melberg, Hans O. (1996), About confusing the
explanandum and the explananda: Should political culture include behavioural variables?, http://www.oocities.org/hmelberg/papers/960926.htm]}}