Compliance Ideologies: Rethinking Political Culture

by Richard W. Wilson

Overview

Drawing on a broad range of literature in the social sciences, this book deals with one of the most elusive subjects in the study of politics and society: the role of culture. Wilson first develops a definition of political culture and a theoretical argument about how political cultures are formed and how they evolve. He emphasizes the roles of social knowledge and technological development as engines of cultural change and the dialectic between individual reasoning and social norms in the shaping of political values. Stressing the need to understand the interaction of individual and societal factors, he develops the concept of compliance ideologies, which he argues are the mechanisms through which a dominant culture is established and maintained. Wilson then applies this conception of compliance ideologies to the study of how political cultures in various societies have changed in the shift from agrarian, family-centered social organizations to industrialized societies characterized by complex social institutions. The differences between the political cultures of capitalist and communist systems are also examined, and in the conclusion likely developments in various contemporary political cultures are sketched.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521144841
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/24/2010
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	236
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

Table of Contents

Preface; Introduction; Part I. Compliance Ideologies: 1. Political culture as ideology; Part II. Theoretical Issues: 2. Psychological limits; 3. Phases of development; 4. Contractual and positional compliance; Part III. Compliance in Changing Societies: 5. The end of harmony; 6. Equality and the technobility; Part IV. Change in Compliance Ideologies: 7. Equality and conflict; 8. Utopian visions; Selected bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...an illuminating, historically informed treatment of compliance ideology and social change that is concluded on a hopeful note where issues of social justice and equality are concerned." Choice

From the Publisher