WHAT IS POLITICAL CULTURE?

Culture is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts.

Politics is the activities aimed at improving someone’s status or increasing power within an organization. The political culture of anyone state can vary widely and sometimes the culture within the state can be a source of division. Political culture is shaped largely by government though various mediums including public events and education.

WHAT IS POLITICAL CULTURE

Political culture is the practices and attitudes that shape the perception of people when it comes to politics. Political culture might also include ideas, beliefs, myths and moral judgments that are particular to a certain political party. Commemoration of the past can be used to shape political culture. Political culture is a direct reflection of the government, but sometimes the culture of politics predates the existing political environment based on tradition and history

.TYPES OF POLITICAL CULTURE

• Parochial Political Culture; Where the people have no understanding of the national political system, they do not posses any tendency to participate in the input processes and have no consciousness of the output processes, such a type of political culture is called parochial political culture. African tribes fall in this category.

• Subject Political Culture; this type of political culture is found in the monarchies. The people there are aware of the government system, they also know the role of the government regarding law making, tax collection e.t.c. In this culture people are not taught to participate in the input functions so they find it hard to influence the workings of the political system.
• Participant Political Culture; in this type of political culture, people are keen to participate in the political system and influence its workings. They are always busy making reasonable demands on the political system and are involved in the making of decisions. Political and pressure groups fall in this category.
• Political Sub-Culture; it is not necessary that all the groups in-habituating a country will be equally advanced. Some may be more and others less advanced. Therefore those groups that are more advanced develop a participating culture while the lesser ones still retain subject. The reason is that in many countries of this world there are different ethnic groups.

IMPORTANCE OF POLITICAL CULTURE

• Political culture is important because it helps in the policy making processes. It is important in the society because it is constructed by the society; political culture determines the type of government institutions. It also has others which are;
• It set ethical norms and standard of behavior for the government, organization and individuals.
• It constraint the actions of politicians and public officials.
• It refrain’s politicians from taking positions or implementing policies that blatantly violate the element of the political culture.