a culturalist theory of political change

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A Culturalist Theory of Political Change

Harry Eckstein

The American Political Science Review, Vol. 82, No. 3. (Sep., 1988), pp. 789-804.

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A CULTURALIST THEORY OF

POLITICAL CHANGE -HARRY ECKSTEIN

University of California Irvine

T h e most telling criticism of political culture theory is thatit has coped very inadequately with political change. There is a good reason for this: theassumptions of the political culture approach in fact lead to the expectation of con-tinuity. But continuity can be reconciled with changes, though only changes of par-

ticular kinds. The nature of political changes consistent with culturalist assumptions andwith the culturalist expectation of continuity are here specified by hypotheses about (1)

the effects of changes in social context, whether "normal" or involving abrupt dis-continuity, and (2)the effects of attempted revolutionary transformation.

T h e political legalism of the field-the other being

culture approach to building positive political rational choice theory. Indeed,

political theories and to political explana- determining which of the two modes oftion has been with us since about 1960, theorizing and explaining-the "cultural-

and has been much described abstractly ist" or the "rationalist"-is likely to give

and much applied to concrete cases. The the better results may be the single most

seminal works are Almond and important item now on the agenda of

Coleman's (1960) and Almond and political science (Eckstein 1979a).

Verba's (1963). Applications of the ap- Whether or not it is advisable to take

proach are covered comprehensively in a the culturalist road to theory dependsretrospective on the influence of their above all on the ability to produce a co-work by Almond and Verba (1979). Ex- gent culturalist theory of political change:

plications of it as a contender for paradig- a theory consistent with the assumptionsmatic status in political science, so to (postulates) of the approach and con-speak, occur in numerous works (e.g., Bill firmed by experience. Criticisms ofand Hardgrave 1973; Dawson and Prewitt culturalist political theories certainly have

1969; Merkl1970; Putnam 1973; and Pye emphasized the occurrence of certainand Verba 1965). My own use of the con- changes in political structures, attitudes,cept of culture, which I consider more and behavior and culturalist accounts ofprecise than that of others, is discussed in their occurrence in order to impugn thethe Appendix. approach. Rogowski (1974), for example,

Political culture theory may plausibly has argued that political culturalists havebe considered one of two still viable been very offhand in dealing with

general approaches to political theory and change-that they have tended to impro-explanation proposed since the early fif- vise far too much in order to accom-ties to replace the long-dominant formal- modate political changes into their frarne-



Am erican Political Science Review Vol. 82

work. They have done so, he writes, tothe point that they no longer have a con-

vincing way to treat political change atall. His argument is directed at culturalisttheory in general, but he singles out Al-

mond's work with Powell (1966) as

especially indicative of the sins thatculturalists commit.

This argument-and others to similar

effect-strikes me as cogent criticism ofhow culturalists have in fact dealt withpolitical changes. Furthermore, dif-ficulties accounting for change in general

and for certain kinds of change especiallyseem to me inherent in the assumptions onwhich the political culture approach is

based.Difficult, however, does not mean im-

possible, nor implausible. It is quite possi-ble to deduce from these assumptions alogically cogent account of how politicalchange, and every kind of such change,occurs. My purpose here is to providesuch an account, as remedy for the "adhocery" Rogowski rightly criticizes.

The Postulates of Culturalist

Theories and The Expectation of

Continuity

The basic reason why a culturalist ac-sount of change is intrinsically difficult to

construct (hence, why culturalists have infact tended to waffle in explainingpolitical change) is simple: the postulatesof the approach all lead to the expectationof political continuity; they make politicalcontinuity the "normal" state.

The Postulates of Culturalism

To see why this is so we must first makeexplicit the fundamental assumptions

from which culturalist theory proceeds-its "axiomatic" basis, so to speak. Theseassumptions unfortunately have been leftimplicit in cdturalist writings. It is neces-

sary to make them explicit if one is com-pellingly to specify what experiences are

"normal" in a culturalist world and whatconditions culturalist theory can and can-not accommodate.

The touchstone of culturalist theory is

the postulate of oriented action: actors donot respond directly to "situations" butrespond to them through mediating"orientations." All else either elaborates

or follows from that postulate. What ex-actly, then, does the postulate assert?

"Orientations to action" are general dis-

positions of actors to act in certain waysin sets of situations. Such general disposi-tions pattern actions. If actors do nothave them, or if orientations are illformed or inconsistent, actions will be er-

ratic: patternless, anomic. The idea of"orientations to action" follows a particu-lar psychological stimulus-responsemodel: not the simple "single-stage" be-haviorist model in which nothing "subjec-tive" intervenes between the experience ofsituations and responses to it (actions)but"mediational" models in which responsesto stimuli (actions in situations) are con-sidered results both of the experience ofobjective situations and actors' subjectiveprocessing of experience. "Orientations"do the processing. We may call them, asdid Bentley, soul-stuff, or mind-stuff.The critical methodological task of studiesbased on such models is, of course, to

penetrate reliably and with validity intothe subjective.

Orientations are not "attitudes": thelatter are specific, the formergeneral, dis-positions. Attitudes themselves derivefrom and express orientations; though at-titudes may, through their patterning,help us to find orientations. If orienta-tions frequently occur in collectivitiesthey may be called "culture themes," as

by Mead and Metraux (1954). Pye (Pye

and Verba 1965) has distinguished foursets of such "themes" that he considersuseful for making cultural comparisonson the societal level: trust-distrust, hier-



Political Change

archy-equality, liberty-coercion, paro-chial-national identifications. Putnam

(1973) considers the theme of conflict orits counterpart, harmony, critical forcross-cultural analysis. These "themes"exemplify how "orientations" are generaldispositions that pattern sets of actionsand sets of specific attitudes. It is conven-

tional to regard orientations as havingthree components: cognitive elementsthat, so to speak, decode experience (giveit meaning); affective elements that investcognition with feelings that "move" actors

to act; and evaluative elements that pro-vide goals toward which actors are movedto act (Pye and Verba 1965).

The assumption of oriented actionswould be vacuous without the addition ofa second postulate, which we might callthe postulate o f orientational variab ility:orientations vary and are not mere subjec-tive reflections of objective conditions.The significance of this postulate lies par-ticularly in this: if the processing of ex-periences into actions were uniform-if itwere fixed at the biological level or if italways involved "rationalist" cost-benefitcalculation-then mediating mind-stuffcould simply be left out of theory. InHempel's terms, we would only need toknow "initial conditions" (situations,structures) to explain actions, since wealready know the universal covering lawneeded to complete an explanandum. No

doubt ingenuity is required in relatingconditions to actions via uniform orienta-tions: the rational choice theories we haveprovide more than enough cases in point.But this does not alter the logic of theargument that without orientationalvariability we remain in a strictly be-haviorist world. Similarly, if actions aremerely "superstructural," we manifestlyneed only to know situations to explainactions. In that case, only the explanationof deviant cases (like false class conscious-ness) would require the use of mediatingvariables.

but variable, then something that is vari-able must form them. And if orientations

are not simply subjective reflections ofvarying objective situations, then thevariable conditions through which theyare formed must themselves be cultural.Orientations are not acquired in some

automatic way; they must be learned.Thus, a postulate o f cultural socializationmust hold if the first and second assump-tions hold: orientations are learnedthrough the agency of external "social-izers." The repertoire of cognitions, feel-

ings, and schemes of evaluation that proc-ess experience into action must be im-parted by the socialized carriers ofculture. The process can be direct, by"teachers" who are culturally variable ac-tors; or it can occur indirectly simplythrough the experience of variablecultures.

"Rationalist" theorists do not, ofcourse, reject the notion of politicalsocialization. That would be silly. Whatdivides culturalist and rationalist theoristshere involves the issue of late-in-lifelearning, or resocialization.

In regard to that matter, culturalistsproceed from a postulate of "cumulative"socialization. This means two things.First, although learning is regarded ascontinuous throughout life (which is notlikely to be questioned) early learning-all prior learning-is regarded as a sort of

filter for later learning: early learning con-ditions later learning and is harder to un-do. Second, a tendency is assumedtoward making the bits and pieces ofcognitive, affective, and evaluative learn-ing form a coherent (consistent, conso-nant) whole.

The postulate of cumulative learningprovides the culturalist account of howtwo fundamental needs of actors insocieties are satisfied: the need for econ-omy of action and the need for predict-ability in interaction. Life would hardly

be bearable, even possible, if one had to



American Political Science Review Vol. 82

count all pertinent information and lackof information. Orientational schematathus save virtually all decision costs.Social life, similarly, would hardly bepossible without reliable preknowledge ofothers' actions and of the effect of one'sown actions on those of others. Withoutsuch preknowledge social life would tendto be entropic. As Crozier (1964) has co-gently argued, "uncertainty" of actionalso begets power-arbitrary power.

Both economy of action and predict-ability in interaction are diminished to the

extent that individual orientations are in-consistent and that early learning may

readily be undone. These conditions haveeffects similar to a lack of orientations to

actions and of socially shared orientationsaltogether. They lead to erratic, incoher-ent behavior by individuals and in socialaggregates: anomie in the former; theabsence of anything like a stable con-science collectif in the latter.

It should be pointed out that theculturalist solution of the problems ofeconomy of action and social predict-ability is not a unique solution, howeverplausible it may seem. Thus, in the ratio-nalist perspective, economy of action isprovided by "ideologies" or by the sen-sible delegation of decision-makingpowers (Downs 1957). The fixity requiredfor predictability in social life followsfrom the very fact that rational choice is

considered a fixed disposition. If this is so,one can anticipate the actions of othersand adjust one's own behavior to the an-ticipation. Social predictability may also

be achieved through rationally formu-lated and enforced contractual arrange-ments or general legal rules. (It should beapparent that the two accounts of econ-omy of action and social predictabilityprovide a good basis for evaluating therelative power of culturalist and ratio-nalist perspectives.)

To summarize, "cultural" people proc-ess experience into action through general

dispositions; the patterns of such predis-positions vary from society to society,

from social segment to social segment;they do not vary because objective social

situations or structures vary but becauseof culturally determined learning; earlylearning conditions later learning andlearning involves a process of seeking co-herence in dispositions. And this is so inorder to "economize" in decisions to actand to achieve predictability in social in-teractions.

The Expectation of Continuity

When the postulates of the political cul-ture approach are made explicit, it shouldbe evident why political culture theoristsshould have difficulties in accounting forpolitical change. The assumptions of cul-turalist theory manifestly lead to an ex-pectation of continuity, even in cases ofchanges in the objective contexts of politi-cal actions.

The expectation of continuity in aggre-gate (and individual) orientations followsmost plainly from the assumption thatorientations are not superstructural reflec-tions of objective structures, but them-selves invest structures and behavior with

cognitive and normative meaning.Cultural continuity also manifestly

follows from the assumption that orienta-tions are formed through processes of

socialization. To the extent that socializa-tion is direct (by precept), generationalcontinuity must occur, the socializers be-ing formed, "cultural men." To the extentthat socialization is indirect (by experi-

ence), generational continuity stillfollows; experience with authority occursfirst in the family, then in schools, whereunformed children encounter formedadults. In either case, what is true of onegeneration should continue substantiallyto be true in the next. This applies asmuch to cultural divisions in a society asto more general culture types and



Political Change

This, incidentally, makes the political cul-ture perspective quite compatible with the

finding that political regimes typically areshort-lived (Gurr 1974).The expectation of continuity in

political cultures follows, most obviously,from the assumption of orientationalcumulativeness, namely, that earlierlearning conditions later learning and thatactors tend to seek orientational conso-nance. The first allows some room foradult socialization and resocializa-tion-but not much. The second makes

unlikely the internalization of piecemealorientational change that might increasedissonance.

But if change in culture patterns andthemes were categorically excluded,political culture theory must immediatelybe thrown out as obvious nonsense:changes happen, including culturalchanges. The saving grace of culturalisttheory here is that continuity is, so tospeak, an ideal-typical expectation-onethat holds in an abstract, parsimoniouscultural world. It is an expectation akin tothat of inertia in the Galilean conceptionof motion. Physical inertia does not ruleout changes of direction or rest, accelera-tion, and deceleration. It does make suchphenomena depend on contingent factorsthat may or may not impinge on objectsin motion. Continuity is the inherent(lawful) expectation and so, therefore, is

resistance to change of motion: excep-tionally great forces are needed to inducegreat changes in direction or velocity. Thenotion of continuity as inertia in motiva-tions (the psychological counterpart ofphysical motion) thus opens the door toculturalist accounts of change.

Through that door, however, the tend-ency toward improvised, post hoc ac-counts of political change may enter-may be bound to enter. If one's preferredtheoretical approach implies a strong biastoward the continuity of culture or resist-ance to cultural change, then it is always

"special" conditions, or adjustments inconcepts or theory to handle occurrencesof change-especially major change. If,say, theoretical difficulties arise from ern-

phasizing early socialization, then whynot just relax that emphasis and assignmore scope for late socialization or adultresocialization? If the assumption of atendency toward orientational conso-nance makes it awkward to explain cer-tain observations, then why not simplyposit more toleration for dissonance? Orwhy not redefine consonance? In that

way, however, one is likely to end withthe term continuity meaning nothingmore than "not completely (or instanta-neously) changeableu-which drains theterm of all reasonable meaning. This is ex-actly the point of Rogowski's criticism ofhow culturalists have in fact accountedfor political change.

The remedy is to develop an explicitgeneral culturalist theory of change, con-sistent with culturalist assumptions, inorder to prevent ad hoc tinkering withculturalist postulates and their implica-tions. Such a theory should state, prior toexplanations of specific changes, thecharacteristics of change that the politicalculture approach can logically accom-modate and those that do not fit its con-straints.

To formulate such a theory, I will con-sider two broad types of cultural changes:

those arising "naturally" from changes insituations and structural conditions andthose that result from "artifice1'-deliber-ate attempts to transform political struc-tures and behavior.

Situational Change

Pattern-Maintaining Change

Actors must often face novel situationswith which their dispositional equipmentis ill suited to deal. The world changes or




familiar for other reasons (say, thepenetration of peasant societies by market

forces). The unfamiliar is encounteredroutinely in maturation, as one proceedsfrom family to school, from lower schoolsto higher ones, and from schools to par-ticipation in adult institutions. At the

level of society and polity, novel situa-tions arise from internal "development,"however development may be conceived.Novel situations also arise from sociallyinternal discontinuities (economic crisesor political disruptions, like those caused

by governmental instability or collapse,or from changes brought about by protestmovements), or from externally imposedchanges. Immigration brings actors intounfamiliar situations. So does internalmigration and social mobility. The en-counter of novel situations will, no doubt,occur much more frequently among indi-viduals than on the macro level, but italso occurs in groups and societies.

Novel situations may be short-livedresults of ephemeral upheavals. In that

case no cultural adjustments are needed,nor are they likely to occur. What, how-ever, should one expect if such situationspersist?

If cultures exhibit inertia then it shouldbe expected that changes in culture pat-terns and themes will occur so as to main-tain optimally such patterns and themes;that is to say, changes in culture are

perfectly consistent with cdturalist postu-lates if they occur as adaptations toaltered structures and situations and if thefunction of change is to keep culture pat-terns in existence and consonant. "Pattern

maintenance" (Parsons' concept) can takethat form just as well as strict culturalcontinuity.

The French have a half-facetious adage

for this sort of pattern maintenance: Themore things change, the more they remain

the same. The saying no doubt fits (usedto fit?) France. The pragmatic masters atpattern maintaining change, however,

British working class voters and interestsare the usual case in point. Their func-tion-sometimes 'latent" but in the caseof Disraeli's Tory democracy quite ex-plicit-was to maintain Tory hegemonyin the face of considerable sociopoliticalchange through the maintenance of asmuch as possible of what the YoungEngland Circle considered the feudalisticvirtues: the disposition to defer to one'sbetters and action by the betters on behalfof the lower orders. The point applies toreforms of the suffrage and also to the less

well known role of the Tories in theevolution of the British welfare state,which Tory governments not only havekept virtually intact but much of whichthey pioneered.

An alternative to pattern-maintainingchange is to subject unfamiliar experienceto procrustean interpretation in order toobviate cognitive or normative change."Perceptual distortion" has turned up fre-quently in experiments on how individualcognitive dissonance is handled (seeBrehm and Cohen 1962).We know atleast a little about the same way of dealingwith the unfamiliar on the political macrolevel. To give just one example: partypolitical elections in Northern Nigeriawere initially regarded as a version oflong-familiar elections to chieftaincy, inwhich the "candidates" were a smallnumber of ascriptively defined eligibles

(Whitaker1970).The extent to which per-ceptual distortion can be adaptive to un-familiar experience no doubt is highlylimited. However, where institutions likeelections to chieftaincy exist in traditionalcultures, the adaptation of dispositions toother kinds of elections should be easierthan in other cases.

Change Toward Flexibility

Highly modern societies have traits thatmake it especially likely that actors and



--Political Change

front novel situations. Social mobility,

vertical and horizontal, is the most ob-

vious cause. Because any changes indispositions are costly (dysfunctional) inthe culturalist perspective, one should ex-pect as a correlate to the expectation ofpattern-maintaining cultural change, thatthe more modern societies are, the morethe elements of their cultures will begeneral, thus flexible. No doubt there areconsiderable limits upon how general and

flexible orientations can be and still per-form their functions of making experience

meaningful, actions economical, and in-teractions predictable. In more modern

societies one should not expect culture tochange as readily as situations and struc-tures. Situational and structural changetend to occur with great frequency and

rapidity in modern societies, and theassumption of orientational inertia postu-lates resistance to frequent, swift reorien-tation. Rather one should expect that the

rigidity of cultural prescription will relax,so that culture can accommodate muchsocial fluidity.

The tendency toward cultural flexibilitycan be regarded itself as a way to main-

tain cultural patterns and themes. Associeties become more changeable, theelements of culture increasingly become"forms" that can subsume a variety of"contents." It is probably no coincidencethat some sociologists early in the twenti-

eth century (especially Simmel [1950])adapted the Kantian distinction betweenform and content to social analysis. Durk-

heim argued much the same point direct-ly. In early societies, he wrote, "the col-lective environment is essentially concrete. . . [and] the states of conscience thenhave the same character." ("Culture" isnot a bad translation of his notion of a

conscience collectif.) As societies develop,

the "common conscience" is obliged torise above diversity and "consequently tobecome more abstract. . . .General ideas

necessarily appear and become dominant"

I want to make three other points perti-

nent to the expectation that cultural

abstractness and flexibility will grow withsocial development. First, the dispositionto act "rationally" introduces just the kindof general and flexible culture trait that in-herent social fluidity requires. (Durkheim

[I9601 already associated rational at-titudes and behavior with the abstractnessof thought necessary in highly developedsocieties.) The rationalization of modemlife-which Weber considered to be itsgoverning trait-thus may be an accom-

modation to structural conditions ratherthan, contra Weber, their underlyingcause.

Second, the obviously difficult problemof finding a proper trade-off between twowarring imperatives in modem societies,that of cultural flexibility and that of

cultural fixity, is bound to be a practicaldifficulty, not just a theoretical one.Reconciling fixity with flexibility,

abstractness, and formality may be acrucial element in what has widely beenperceived as growing malaise in highlymodern societies. Anomie will follow notonly from lack of internal guides to actionbut from guidelines too general and looseto serve in the relentless particularity ofexperience. Highly modern society thusmay be intrinsically acultural and, forthat reason, transitory or susceptible tosurrogates for culture-including cults

and dogmas.The expectation of cultural flexibility,

finally, should apply to all highly modernsocieties. It thus pertains to polities initial-ly based on rigid dogma (like communistsocieties) that have successfully pursuedmodernization. In such societies, the firstexpectation, that of cultural inertia,should hold. Old culture should resist

new dogma. The expectation of pattem-

maintaining change (or perceptual distor-tion) should hold as well. So one shouldexpect also that as culture changes in suchsocieties, it will change toward greater




tions of dogma that make it increasinglypliable.

Cultural Discontinuity

Contextual changes can be so consider-able or rapid or both that neither pattern-maintaining changes nor changes that

gradually relax cultural rigidity to dealwith social fluidity are possible. Rapid in-dustrialization is the case in point usuallycited. Changes resulting from war or fromthe formation of new polities also general-ly involve upheavals in social contexts.Such upheavals may result as well fromeconomic traumas like the great inflationof 1923 in Germany (which led to fargreater social disruption than the GreatDepression-or possibly even the BlackDeath). And traumatic change sometimesstrikes special segments of society ratherthan the whole.

We must deal, therefore, with social

discontinuity, as well as "normal" change.Culturalists have tended either to avoidthe matter or, worse, to treat cases ofsocial trauma simply as "deviant cases" inwhich the theoretical constraints of their

perspective are off-not least, the expec-tation of cultural inertia.

Obviously, traumatic social discon-tinuity will have cultural consequencesdifferent from contextual stability or lessrapid, less pervasive change. Even in such

cases, however, we may not simply im-provise. If the assumptions of culturalistsare correct, then traumatic social discon-tinuity should have logically expectableconsequences, no less than other change.

The one consequence of social trauma

absolutely precluded by culturalistassumptions is rapid reorientation. Social

upheaval may overcome cultural inertia,but if so, actors should be plunged into a

collective infancy in which cognitions thatmake experience intelligible and norma-tive dispositions (affect, evaluative

schemes) must be learned again, and

expect, for instance, a democratic politi-cal culture to form, in a few short years,

in a society like Germany after WorldWar 11, or "national" orientations to formrapidly in postcolonial tribal societies. In-stead, changes in political cultures thatoccur in response to social discontinuity

should initially exhibit considerable form-lessness. For formlessness one may

substitute other terms, like Durkheim'sanomie or Merton's deinstitutionaliza-tion. The essence of the matter is thatculture loses coherent structure. It

becomes highly entropic.

The idea that rapid, large-scale contex-tual changes are personally disorientingand culturally disruptive is hardly new.Lipset (1960) argued a generation ago thatrapid economic development is associatedwith political "extremism" ("anomic pro-test movements" like anarchism and syn-dicalism), despite the fact that high levelsof such development are related to politi-

cal stability. Huntington (1968) latermade much the same point, and Olson

(1963) has probably developed it most co-gently.

To say that formlessness under condi-tions of socioeconomic discontinuityshould be "considerable" is not mere

hedging. Cultural entropy can never becomplete. If it were, no patterned actionor interactions would be possible at all. Inany case, social discontinuity never istotal-intimate social units, like the fami-ly, survive the greatest upheavals (may,indeed, be strengthened by them, as

refuges of predictable order); so too dostructures that are supposedly merely in-strumental-for example, bureaucracies.As well, if learning is cumulative, olderpeople should exhibit a good deal oforientational inertia even when traumatic

socioeconomic change occurs. We may

surely suppose that the more ingrainedorientations are and the more they areconsonant systems, the less susceptiblethey are to "disorientationu-the more



--Political Channe

be used to invest experience with ac-

customed meaning.Governmental authority will, of

course, survive cultural discontinuity. Infact, it is likely to become more powerfulto the extent that internalized dispositionscannot govern actions and interactions.How then do people act politically ifpolitical culture is highly formless?

We can get useful clues to answers fromthe growing literature on an analogous ex-perience: how children adapt to novelsituations that they enter in highly dis-

continuous ways: going to school, for in-stance, or going from one to another typeor level of schooling. Much of the liter-ature on this subject (like Wakeford 1969and Woods 1979) has been informed byMerton's (1949) path-breaking study ofthe bases of deviant behavior, which dealtin general terms with behavior undermore or less "anomic" conditions.

Under conditions of cultural discon-tinuity, conformity with authority is still

likely to occur, but it will tend to havecertain characteristics. In Merton's tech-nology, it will tend to be ritualistic orelse self-serving (opportunistic and of

dubious morality, as general culturedefines morality). Ritual conformity iscompliance without commitment. Onedoes what the rules or rulers prescribe,not for any discernible reason but (quot-ing from a lower-class British pupil inter-

viewed by Woods) "because I behavemeself . . . I just do what I'm told . . . I]ain't got much choice." Conformity ofthis sort may be supposed to occur fre-quently in cases in which the formerpolitical cultures and subcultures pre-

scribed high compliance ("subject cul-tures," as Almond and Verba calledthem). Self-serving, opportunistic con-formity bends norms and rules for privateadvantage-including that of getting

ahead in the competition for politicalpower. Charles Dickens observed a lot ofthat sort of behavior in his travels in

America as he reports them in his Ameri-

can Notes. Thus, in regard to a very suc-cessful businessman, " 'He is a public nui-sance, is he not?' 'Yes sir,' . . . And he isutterly dishonest, debased, and profli-

gate?' Yes, sir.' 'In the name of wonder,then, what is his merit?' 'Well, sir, he is asmart man' " (1957, 246). I mentionDickens because one should especially ex-pect "smart" conformity in immigrantsocieties or immigrant segments of socie-ty, where (as in schools) discontinuity oc-curs through movement into an un-familiar but intact culture. Perhaps one

should expect it even more in culturesgreatly unsettled by upheaval. Thus,Burke presciently remarked (in 1790) thatwhen cultural constraints are off, "theworst rise to the top" (1923, 45).

More commonly than conformity, oneshould expect what Merton called retreat-ism under conditions of cultural disconti-nuity. Retreatism involves withdrawingfrom the "alien" larger society into thesmaller, more familiar worlds of family,

neighborhood, village, and the like. InAlmond and Verba's scheme of concepts,it should show up as increased "parochial-ism." In the small worlds of schools, re-treatism tends to involve self-imposedisolation-for instance, into remoteplaces and daydreams or what Woodscalls removal activities-"unserious pur-suits which are sufficiently engrossing . ..[to make participants] oblivious for the

time being of [their]actual situationu-orboth.Rebellion against, and intransigent

resistance to, authority are also likely

responses to the experience of culturaldecay. A volun~inous literature linkssocial, economic, and political disconti-nuities to political violence-from Mam

to Moore and Skocpol. Rebellion and in-transigence, however, are always likely tobe costly and call for much energy; re-

treatist behavior into parochial worlds orritualistic conformity are thus more like-ly, especially where governing power-ifnot authority-is strong.



Am erican Political Science Review Vol. 82-What should follow over time from

contextual and cultural discontinuity? If

economy of action and predictability in-deed are imperatives in individual andcollective life, one should expect newculture patterns and themes to emerge.But if dispositions are formed by cumu-lative learning, they should emerge onlyslowly (over generations) and, in the tran-sitional period, at great costs resulting

from raw power, withdrawal, and(because of withdrawal) forced mobiliza-tion and rebelliousness against it. Thus,

the process of reformation of political cul-tures should be prolonged and sociallycostly. Thts is all the more likely to be thecase if parochial units remain intactrefuges from discontinuities in society,economy, or polity.

The expectation is logical also if olderpeople, as is likely, cling to long-fixeddispositions even in face of strong forcesthat might unsettle inertia. We might thus

posit as a general expectation that in theprocess of cultural reformation consider-able age-related differences should occur.In fact, age, in cases of pronounced dis-continuity, might even be expected to be amajor basis for subcultural differentia-tion. If indeed this were found to be so,the cultural perspective upon theorywould be enormously strengthened overalternatives. Empirical work pertinent tothe expectation, however, is oddly lack-

ing; and as culturalists have built adultlearning increasingly into their approachin order to accommodate ill-fitting facts,the incentive to inquire into age-relatedcultural differences, in both establishedand transitional contexts, has regrettablydeclined.

I want to make another point about thereformation of dispositions and culture

patterns, more briefly. As the youngshould be more susceptible to reorienta-tion than the old, so one should expect to

find in social macrostructures particularsegments that have traits especially con-

"conducive traits" I mean structural ordispositional traits readily accommodated

to new culture patterns or, indeed, antici-pations of them. In Western traditionalsocieties, for instance, there always ex-isted a large island of achievement in a seaof ascription-the celibate clergy, whichhardly could be ascriptively recruited.

The clergy, in fact, played a considerablerole in the emergence of modern politicalinstitutions-despite its stake in the distri-bution of traditional privileges. Similarly,socially "marginal" groups-groups that

occupy the fluid interstices of establishedcultures-should be highly susceptible toreorientation, thus "vanguards" in the re-orienting of unsettled societies. There is agood deal of literature making the casethat this is indeed so (e.g., Rejai andPhillips 1979 and Wolf 1973).

Political Transformation

By transformation I mean the use ofpolitical power and artifice to engineerradically changed social and politicalstructures, thus culture patterns andthemes: to set society and polity on newcourses toward unprecedented objectives.Transformation, typically, is the objec-tive of modem revolutions. It can also bethe objective of military conquerors andof nation builders or other modernizers.

Revolutions, however, provide the mostunambiguous and dramatic cases. I willtherefore confine my remarks to them-though what is said about them should

also apply to transformation attempted inother ways.

Hannah Arendt (1963) undoubtedlywas right in arguing that attempts atrevolutionary transformation are distinc-tively modern-that revolutions as we

think of them (not mere rebellious attackson authorities or their actions) begin withthe French and American revolutions. As

long as political and social structures were



Political Chanee

or simply the ways of a folk, the idea oftheir deliberate transformation hardly

could occur. "History" then could only beendless repetition or an intrinsic progresstoward a preordained end. Societies andpolities could no more be "transformedthan the heavenly bodies set upon new or-bits. One of the decisive traits of modemsocieties then is the belief that a "newbeginningu-a felicitous and not redun-dant expression-could be made in politi-cal and social life.

Initially, making a new beginning did

not seem to call for much artifice-nomore, perhaps, than a proper constitu-tion. Achieving liberty or equalitythroughout society simply called for set-ting polities and societies on their in-herently right course-right, given humannature. For reasons not necessary tosketch in the age of the "God that failed,"really making revolution-not seizingpower but the accomplishment of trans-

formation-came increasingly to be seenas a task, and a difficult task, for politicalartificers. Unfortunately, systematicstudies of that process are few, althoughthe exceptions often have been notable:for instance, Massell's study of Soviet at-tempts to bring Soviet Central Asia intomodernity (1974) and Kelley and Klein's

study of the effects on inequality of theBolivian Revolution of 1951 (1981). In-quirers into revolution still are hooked on

the issue of their etiology.Since revolutions are themselves major

discontinuities and since they generallyoccur in periods of social or political up-heavals, not least governmental break-down (Edwards 1927; Brinton 1965), theexpectations listed in the preceding sec-tion should apply to transformation. But Iwant to state here some expectations thatfollow from the culturalist perspectiveespecially for processes of revolutionarytransformation. Intrinsic interest and con-

temporary relevance aside, these proc-esses seem to me especially critical for

bases. After all, transformative processesinvolve not only adjustment to necessitybut also the deliberate engineering ofgreat change, and they are typicallybacked by great power and control.

As a first expectation we may posit that

revolutionary transformation is strictlyimpossible in the short run. Revolutionscertainly bring upheaval. They may also

be expected to bring about movement inthe direction of their professed goals byreadily accomplished actions-institutingwide suffrage, kicking out the landlords

and redistributing land, ending feudalprivileges and obligations, and the like.But if discontinuity begets "formlessness"of culture, then revolutionaries can hard-ly do much to reorient people in the short

run (say, in a generation or so). Reorien-tation is, of course, the less likely themore intact is the prerevolutionaryculture: the more it provides parochialrefuges from transformative power or in-stitutional centers of resistance to it. Buteven if revolution only reflects discon-

tinuity instead of engendering it, the ex-pectation stated still should hold.

If the conventional norms and practicesof political life are disrupted by revolu-tion, what can be put in their place? Wemay posit the answer that revolutionarytransformation will initially be attemptedby despotic or legalistic means. What,

after all, can "order" societies and polities

in place of conventional, internalizedculture? Only brute power, or else the useof external legal prescriptions as a sur-

rogate for internal orientational guides tobehavior. "Revolutionary legalism" wasin fact a device used early after theBolshevik seizure of power, and it over-lapped a good deal (even before Stalin)with attempts to "storm" society(especially its more backward parts) withhead-on "administrative assault ."Neither, according to Massell (1974), ac-complished much toward the realizationof transformation; responses to it, he




participation," "evasion," 'limited retri-bution," and "massive backlash."

"Legalism," it might be noted here, islikely to be a general response to massivecultural disruption, whether revolution-ary or situational or both. Indeed, it canbecome, in highly unusual cases, a per-sistent surrogate for normative dture-indeed, a culture form. I have argued thiselsewhere (1979b), defining 'legalist"cultures as cultures in which legal rulesare widely known, such rules are widelyused (instead of justice or prudence) to

justify political standpoints or decisions,legal actions are the normal mode of deal-ing with conflicts and disputes, and there-fore laws deal in highly detailed-if pos-sible comprehensive-ways with socialinteraction and tend to be punctiliouslyadhered to. Durkheim (1960) argued theeven more general, related propositionthat in the course of development civillaw (which regulates social interactions)constantly grows, while criminal, orrestitutive, law declines. His argumentmakes sense if indeed development'loosens" normative cultural prescription,as I argued, and lessens cultural simili-tude, as Durkheim argues.

The case I used to make this argumentis contemporary West Germany. That,we should note, also is the case Rogowski(1974) mainly relies on to argue that re-orientationcan occur rapidly-the crucial

point in his critique of culturalist theory.Rogowski seems to me to miss the real im-port of "deviant cases1'-that throughtheir very abnormal characteristics theycan be used to shed light upon the factorsthat condition typical cases.

What of the long-run prospects ofrevolutionary transformation? I suggestthe expectation that the long-run effectsof attempted revolutionary transforma-tion will diverge considerably from

revolutionary intentions and resemblemore the prerevolutionary condition ofsociety. The expectation is not that littlechange in "content" will occur: in who

holds power, gets privilege, and so on. Noinevitable Thermidorean Reaction is

posited. The argument is somewhat lesscategorical: reconstructed culture patternsand themes will diverge widely fromrevolutionary visions and will tend todiverge from them in the diiection of thepatterns of the old society and regime.The degree to which the expectation holdsobviously depends on the extent to whichthe old culture was already in disarray.

Several points made earlier lead to thisexpectation. Culture must still be learned

on a comprehensive scale, as in allsocieties; and although revolutionaryteaching can no doubt play a considerablerole in shaping the young, it can hardlyreplace socialization in small parochialunits. Nor are teachers or role modelslikely to be, extensively, the sort ofmarginal individuals who are steeped inrevolutionary dogma as a surrogate forconvention-or people for whom therevolutionary vision has much meaning atall. Sheer cultural inertia will also play arole in the process of revolutionary decay;so will the tendency toward turningchange into pattern maintenance-per-haps by a progressive transformation ofrevolutionary visions into mere revolu-tionary rhetoric; so-to the extent thatthe new rulers succeed in modernizing-will the tendency of modern cultures to begeneral, abstract, and (especially perti-

nent here) flexible; so will "retreatist" and"ritualist" responses to discontinuity; andso will the tendency of opportunistic con-formists to get ahead, by scheming or ap-proval, in unfamiliar contexts.

In fact, it may well be the case that theshort-run effects of attempted transfor-mation are greater than the longer-run ef-fects. More can be done in upheaval thanwhen life again acquires fixity. Kelley andKlein (1981) have argued precisely this

point, on the basis of generalizing the caseof the Bolivian Revolution of 1951.

Whether all this also entails the expec-tation that in the longer run incremental



Political Change

change will accomplish more than at-tempts at radical transformation we can

perhaps leave an open question here. Butnote that the rulers of the Soviet Unioncame increasingly to view the achieve-ment of cultural change as a matter forwhat they called "systematic socialengineering" for-as Massell (1974)

describes it-"a pragmatic commitment torelatively patient and systematic social ac-tion, wherein at least as much time and ef-fort would be devoted to the building ofbridges to traditional society . . .as to ac-

tual and direct confrontation with thetraditional system."

Conclusion

It may well be the case that the politicalculture approach has been used to explainpolitical changes in the sort of ad hoc andpost hoc manner that saves-and thus

weakens-theories rather than testing andstrengthening them. Culturalists hardlyhave a monopoly on such theoreticallegerdemain-certainly not when com-pared to rational choice theorists-whendiscomfiting facts confront them. But Ihave tried to show here that culturalistsmust have a strong propensity toward im-provised theory saving when dealing withpolitical change, since their assumptionslead, necessarily, to an expectation of

cultural continuity-at any rate in a"pure" (abstract, ideal-typical) culturalworld, where all matters falling under"ceteris paribus" are in fact "equal."

Nevertheless, it should be evident that acogent, potentially powerful theory ofpolitical change can be derived fromculturalist premises. The theory sketchedhere specifies that changes in dispositions,in response to contextual changes, should

be patten-maintaining changes or-if thecontextual changes involve moderniza-tion-changes toward normative general-ity and flexibility; that in response to

positions should, for a considerableperiod, be "formless"-incoherent in in-

dividuals and fragmented in aggregates;that in such cases retreating into intactparochial structures occurs, while con-formity should become ritualistic or op-portunistic; that revolutionary artificecannot accomplish cultural transforma-tion in the short run; that such transfor-mation will be attempted by despoticpower or (mainly hopeful) legal prescrip-tions; and that, in the longer run, at-tempts at revolutionary transformation

will tend to be regressive or at least havequite unintended outcomes. Note,however, that nothing here rules outengineered change, so to speak-attempt-ed structural reforms of politics. In themodern world, political tinkering, onsmall or grand scales, is endemic. Thetheory simply states what should resultfrom such tinkering.

The problem of testing the theoryagainst experience obviously remains, asdo problems of operationalizing conceptsfor that purpose. But obviously theorycomes first.

If the power of a culturalist account ofpolitical change is to be compared withthat of different approaches to politicaltheory and explanation, then general ac-counts of change, derived from non-cultural postulates and similar to that pre-sented here, are needed. Political-culture

theories, admittedly, have not heretoforemet the challenge of developing a generaltheory of change; but neither have others.

Appendix: Culture

The term culture, unfortunately, has noprecise, settled technical meaning in thesocial sciences, despite its centrality inthem. The variable and ambiguous u'seof

key concepts generates unprofitable argu-ments that are merely definitional. HenceI append a note that places my use of theterm, as sketched in the first section, in its




Figure A-I. Interaction in the Action Frame of Reference

Situation r *Ego

1ognition Culture

Cathexis

internalization

institutionalization =(roles an d sanctions)

__ 1 1

God Orientations

(Includes tFacilities) Communicationst---, signs (symbolic systems)

My use of the term culture tries to makeexplicit, at the axiomatic level, what is im-plicit (occasionally almost explicit) in theworks of Almond and his various col-

laborators (Coleman 1960; Powell 1966;Verba 1963; Verba 1979). Their use of theconcept seems to be based squarely onTdcott Parsons' "action frame of refer-ence." Parsons first worked out that"frame of reference" as a way of synthe-sizing four apparently diverse, all highlyinfluential, early modern social scientists:Marshall, Pareto, Durkheim, and Weber(Parsons 1937). He and collaborators

developed action theory in a large seriesof works, the most useful of which prob-ably is the multiauthored book, Toward aGeneral Theory of Action (Parsons and

*

The action frame of reference is based,at the microlevel, on Parsons' notion ofan interaction, societies being complexesof interactions (some earlier sociologists

called them acts of "sociation"). The no-tion is depicted on F i e A-1. In brieftranslation, (1) ego (an actor) is in a"situation"-an objective context; (2) egocognitively decodes that context and in-vests it with feeling (cathexis)-thus thecontext comes to have meaning for the ac-tor; (3) the manner of investing situationswith meaning is acquired through sociali-zation, which consists mainly of early

learning-this imparts the modes ofunderstanding and valuing prevalent insocieties or subsocieties or both. In aggre-gate, these ' may be called a society's



Political Channe

ternalization of cognitive and affectivemeanings (viz., the cultural becomes per-sonal) and their institutionalization (thedefinition of expected behavior in socialroles and that of sanctions in case of

deviation from expected behavior-thesemake smooth and regular patterns ofinteraction possible; (5)cognitions and af-

fective responses to them define goals andways to pursue them; (6) cognitions, feel-ings, and goals are communicated to alter(another actor) through the use of "signs"(symbolic expressions of culture that

make ego's actions intelligible to alter)--but actions also depend on objectivefacilities that are part of any actor's situa-tion and that independently affect thechoice of goals; (7) alter responds, chang-ing the situation in some respect, so thatthe process resumes.

Note especially that the action frame ofreference emphasizes neither subjective

nor objective factors but rather how thetwo are linked in interactions. Culturalistsfocus on the matters in the box on theright, but they should also bring that onthe left into interpretation and theories.This I have tried to do throughout thisessay, emphasizing how culture condi-tions change in varying contexts of objec-

tive change.Alternatives. to the notion of culture I

use come chiefly from cultural anthro-

pology. I use the plural intentionally,

because the meanings of culture vary agreat deal in that field. One can probablysubsume these meanings under four cate-gories: (1)culture is coterminous withsociety: it is the whole complex of theways of a "folk," of human thought andaction among particular people-Park

(1937) comes close to that view; (2) cul-ture is social life in its subjective aspects:the knowledge, beliefs, morals, laws, cus-toms, habits of a society-one finds thismeaning (and these illustrative words) inthe seminal work of Tyler (1871) and,

later, Benedict (1934) and Kluckhohn

societies from one another, for the pur-pose of idiographic description but also

for theorizing through comparisons ahdcontrasts (agreements and differences)-Itake the seminal work here to be Malin-owski's (1944); (4) culture is the distinc-tive, variable set of ways in which socie-ties normatively regulate social behavior(Goodenough 1968; Sumner 1906).

The fourth set of meanings comesclosest to that used here. My use of theconcept of culture here seems to be justi-fied by usage in political science and,

more important, by its suitability totesting theories through the catholicdeduction of unknowns once it postulatesare explicitly stated. Anyway, my versionof the concept is that about which theoret-ical conflicts have thus far occurred inpolitical inquiry.

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Harry Eckstein is Distinguished Professor of Political Science, University of Cali-fornia, Irvine, CA 92717.



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A Culturalist Theory of Political Change

Harry Eckstein

The American Political Science Review, Vol. 82, No. 3. (Sep., 1988), pp. 789-804.

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Persistence and Change in Political Systems, 1800-1971

Ted Robert Gurr

The American Political Science Review, Vol. 68, No. 4. (Dec., 1974), pp. 1482-1504.

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Rapid Growth as a Destabilizing Force

Mancur Olson, Jr.

The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 23, No. 4. (Dec., 1963), pp. 529-552.

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a culturalist theory of political change

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