Book Review: International Politics and Economics: Political Culture and Political Development
| Date | 01 September 1966 |
| Published date | 01 September 1966 |
| Author | Stephen Clarkson |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206602100309 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Book
Reviews
International
Politics
and
Economics
POLITICAL
CULTURE
AND
POLITICAL
DEVELOPMENT.
Edited
by
Lucian
W
Pye and
Sidney
Verba.
1965.
(Princeton"
Princeton
University
Press.
Toronto:
Saunders.
x,
574pp.
$10.00)
Here
is
one
of
those
large
American
publications
that
quite
justifies
its
weight
in
your briefcase and
is
almost
worth
its
price
as
an
exciting
and
important
reinforcement
for
the
cause
of
comparative
political
analysis.
On
the
model
of
Coleman
and
Almond's
Politics
sn
the
De-
veloprng
Areas
it presents,
between
a
conceptual
introduction
and
conclusion,
ten
individual studies
on
a
broad
sample
of
countries:
Japan,
England,
Germany,
Turkey India, Ethiopia,
Italy
Mexico,
Egypt
and
Soviet
Russia.
The
value
of
such
an
enterprise
in
collective
com-
parative
research
depends
on
the
theoretical
contribution
of
the work
as
a
whole
and
the
participants'
application
of
the
conceptual
frame-
work
to
their
particular
area
of
specialization.
This work
is
a
con-
siderable
success
on
both
counts.
The
book's
major
achievement
lies
in
the
editors'
convincingly
justifying
the
significance
of
"political
culture"
as an
essential
tool
for
identifying
the
distinctive
traits
of
a
political
system.
This
is
a
notion
both
more
specific
and
more
general
than
that
old
catch-all,
National Character:
more
specific,
because
it
underlines
the
role
of
conditioned
beliefs
or
values
in
determining
types
of
political
activity,
more
general,
for
it
makes relevant
to
political
analysis
such
factors
as
the
role
of
tradition,
the
coherence
of
national
identity
and
public
attitudes
to
government. Political
culture
thus
becomes
a bridge
relating
the
neighbouring
disciplines
of
sociology
and
psychology
to
the
study
of
political
systems.
The
fruitfulness
of
this
approach
is
best
demon-
strated
by
Myron
Weiner's
interpretation
of
the
Indian
political
system
in
terms
of
the
Llitist
culture
of
the
utopian
national
leadership
largely
divorced
from
the
local
political
culture
of
the
Indian
village.
It
is
over "political
development"
that
both
editors and
contributors
come
to grief.
Though
Lucian
Pye points
out
in
his introduction
the
differing
meanings
inherent
in
the
concept,
he
does
not
propose
a
solution to
this
ambiguity
In
his
treatment
of
Germany
Verba
raises
the
question
of
the
possible
relation
between
political and
socio-
economic
development
but
fails
to
provide
any
answer
either
in
con-
nection
with
Germany
or
in
his
general
concluding
chapter.
Richard
Rose's
unenlightening
treatment
of
British
political
culture
avoids
the
problem
by
calling
it
"traditionally
modern.
For
his
part,
Frederick Barghoorn
uses
the
label
of
"socio-economic
backwardness"
in his
rambling
essay
on
Soviet
Russia
without
attempting
to
identify
the
meaning
of
political
development
under
communism.
Despite
its
title,
this
volume
thus
does
nothing
to
rehabilitate
a notion
that
has
recently
caused
more
confusion
than
clarity
in
political
science.
But
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