Session 8: Political Culture

Political culture is an individual’s psychological inclination towards political entities such as parties, government and the state. These do not pour into a person’s mind like heavy showers but are slowly shaped by external factors such as family, media and government.

In Pakistan, for example, people vote for parties rather than individuals.  Voters’ preferences are skewed towards a specific party since the family’s affiliation lies with them. For example, the PPP is often victorious in Sindh while PMLN has a monopoly in Punjab.  However, this may not always be the case as in recent years we have seen a change in public opinion. Nonetheless, this prevents the election of leaders with new ideas for the betterment of the existing policies, increasing overall efficiency and curtailing corruption.

Moreover, certain channels are biased towards one particular party and thus highlight their positive points while others against it will bring their negative features in the limelight. This greatly influences public opinion and directly affects the voting patterns.

Furthermore, the focal point of political culture has often been associated with civic culture, identified by three general types; participant culture, subject culture and parochial culture. In participant culture, the citizens stress upon the participation of the citizens in politics and consider it as both desirable and effective. However, this type can be amorphously associated with Pakistani politics. On the other end, subject and parochial culture in coalition can be experienced in Pakistan.  People feel powerless to substantially affect the government as stated by Subject Culture and bestow their sincerity towards race or location rather than the nation as mentioned by parochial culture. It can thus be said that Pakistani population is a crowd and not a nation.