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Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture

Page 7

by Farhan Mujahid Chak


  of ‘mixed nature’ being the magic of democracy is reflected in the idea that

  democratic cultures are pre-eminently ‘allegiant’ and participatory in nature.34

  To explain, the allegiant component of a democratic culture serves to promote

  a general sense of identification with, and loyalty toward, the political system.

  It generates a sentiment of popular trust and a willingness to permit those in

  positions of political authority to administer the affairs of state and to decide

  on issues, which have ramifications for the populace at large. However, in

  keeping with their premise that a balance between political culture typologies

  is imperative to sustain democracy, allegiance does not translate into mass

  complacency in political authority. It coexists with the participatory dimension

  of democratic culture, thus ensuring political accountability and public control

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  of those in positions of power and authority.

  Welch, while not critiquing Almond and Verba’s definition of political culture

  typologies, admonishes them for their support for the modernization theory of

  political development and their confusion of comparative and sociological

  political culture research. 35 By associating political culture with democracy and liberal values they fail to teach us how to understand it. Similarly, Brands

  agrees that a liberal/democratic definition of political culture had become ‘in

  vogue’ in Europe, and was used to describe successful political development.

  Analysis on political culture, then, always used those values as a benchmark.

  Further explaining, he critiques European attitudes towards political culture

  Deconstructing political culture

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  as following a threefold developmental pattern: ‘First, the era of natural

  classification and hierarchy in societies – ‘all anchor’; second, the period after

  World War II: paradigm of universal development – ‘all sail’; third, our con-

  temporary period, both ‘sail and anchor’.36 In other words, for the achievement of a prosperous, democratic polity, it reads: (a) we can, you can’t; (b) we all

  can; (c) or, lastly, some might and others might not.

  To explain, Brands definition of political culture and development in the

  pre-World War II period – ‘all anchor’ – reveals descriptive tendencies that

  rely on static social characteristics. One needs to ‘simply glance at a pre-war

  encyclopaedia to notice how strong the immutability of social characteristics

  was still considered to be’. 37 At that time, notions of active and passive races were pervasive: ‘races that were making history and those who were only

  considered to be objects for the others; people being by innate quality fit for

  self-government and those who needed to be ruled by others’.38 Interestingly, those that ruled were always ethnic Europeans and this tendency to promote

  their view of political culture and development is a vital cultural reality pre

  World War II.

  By compiling a collection of statements by European scholars and politicians

  during the ‘inter-bellum’, it is easy to discern this thinking among leading

  intellectuals. Commenting on this, Brands argues that one only has to read

  Christopher Thorne’s Allies of a Kind, which details ‘American and British

  cooperation during the war against Japan and reveals the deeply ingrained

  racist ideas manifested on both sides of the Atlantic’. 39 Gunner Myrdal and Sissela Bok’s book The American Dilemma deals with the same issues, though

  in an American context. 40 So pervasive were these ideas that Hegel proposed

  ‘the entire nature of the Negro race is such as to preclude the existence of

  any … political constitution’. 41 These racist ideas flourished during the

  ‘interwar years’. 42 The power structure in the world and in Western society did not encourage giving up the idea of a ‘natural hierarchy’ of peoples and

  of their corresponding political culture.43 That would, though, soon change with the transformation of European intellectual society following the

  destruction of Nazi Germany.

  The effective destruction of Nazism, and their ideas of racial superiority, led to

  Brands’ second classification of political culture and development, namely ‘all

  sail’. ‘Never before had ideas about the inequality of peoples, races, individuals

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  been as strongly discredited as by the experiences of the Third Reich … the

  Nazis being so strongly in favour of ideas of natural inequality, most strongly

  helped the revolution of equality … ’44 Added to this, the discrediting of the natural division of labour and a favourable climate of change was soon to

  sweep political fields. Resultantly, this transformation came with an enthusiastic

  naiveté concerning optimistic universal development; all could prosper, albeit

  through embracing liberal values and democracy.

  Economic development and political self-determination became not only

  political goals, morally substantiated through United Nations declarations,

  but also the paradigm the social sciences worked with. Commonplace theories

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  Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture

  of natural impediments to development, including climate, geopolitical situation

  and demography, were swept aside by the optimism of universal development

  heralded by modernization theories. 45 Of course, those theories did not give much attention to the diverging values, traditions and culture of people. In

  fact, Brands adds that while economic development was considered essential

  for ‘political modernization and modernization of values … these theories

  were implicitly and explicitly strongly “Americano-centric”; they referred

  to the development of, broadly speaking, American society or aspects

  thereof ’. 46 Critics did warn, however, against the doctrine of developmental universalism – the belief that each new nation-state deserves and can achieve

  a developed economy and a working democracy with a participatory political

  culture. Those warnings, though, went unheeded because vested interests,

  both economical and ideological, were too strong.

  Now, in the final and present stage, the past counts again and the world is

  becoming less new than many theorists expected, or even wanted. Those who

  believe in racial hierarchy, and others who believe in the universality of liberal

  democracy, persist. Yet what is argued for by this study is the need for an

  alternative, rather than a one-size-fits-all, theory of political culture and

  effective governance. Many historical elements that were previously ignored

  are now recognized as critical in our ‘post-industrial’, ‘post-materialistic’,

  ‘post-humanistic’ and postmodern society. A considerable reorientation of

  political ideas is taking place, which incorporates indigenous attitudes to

  knowledge. That appreciation recognizes the diversity of political culture

  definitions, shifting by methodology and usage. Hence, our aim here is to

  effectively understand the dynamics of political culture in Muslim polities,

  citing Pakistan. The following section will shed light on how this study proceeds

  to accomplish that.

  Political culture research

 
Political culture research is a ‘scholarly jungle, tangled and cacophonous’ and

  can only loosely be divided into neat, mutually exclusive categories. 47 Often, considerable overlapping occurs and it has more to do with what is being

  studied than what it is itself. Now this may seem confusing, since undertaking

  political culture research reveals that definitions shift according to the objectives Downloaded by [University of Connecticut] at 18:26 09 January 2017

  of inquiry. Yet those shifting definitions permit the astute scholar to decipher

  the motivation for political culture research and recognize the importance of

  its environment. In other words, it accounts for and explains particular

  orientations to political objects in society.

  To begin with, Welch describes political culture research as entailing two

  methodologies: the behavioural and the interpretivist.48 This study, instead, characterizes them based on the manner in which they are used, namely

  ‘hegemony’ and ‘clash’. Hegemony occurs in a behavioural, quantitative

  research method that encourages positivism and universality of values. It may

  give way to either comparative or sociological studies, or a combination of

  Deconstructing political culture

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  the two. Conversely, ‘clash’ occurs as a result of a culturally relative, qualita-

  tive research method that gives way to interpretivism and idealist tendencies.

  Both methods are inadequate to accurately define political culture in a given

  context. Consequently, Welch argues for the ‘phenomenological’ method,

  which construes meaning as that described by participants themselves. Below,

  Figure 2.1 reveals the dominant trends of political culture research.

  Hegemony

  The ‘hegemonic’ tendency in political culture research first found fertile soil in

  the ‘legal-institutional’ approach, which ‘focused on the importance of political

  institutions, the constitution, the judiciary … and the interaction between these

  and the masses’.49 This approach was excessively narrow, restricting its attention to formal rules and institutions and overlooking informal behaviour.50 Its most striking inadequacies were its inability to account for and incorporate indigenous perceptions and values toward understanding political structures. In

  other words, it focused on institutions as opposed to peoples’ engagement

  with them. By doing so, it neglected the struggle of various classes in society

  with one another and with the political system. These deficiencies led to the

  development of ‘behaviouralism’ in political culture research.

  Behaviouralism was only a slight improvement on the legal-institutional

  approach. It did, however, expand political culture research to include informal

  elite behaviour, voter behaviour and, finally, mass attitudes and conduct beyond

  the space of electoral participation. Yet this approach, too, is fraught with

  ambiguity since it adopts a positivist outlook on political culture. It purports to

  show the ‘development of a science of the political process’ and ruses as a

  ‘major step forward for the naturalization of political science as a science … a

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  Figure 2.1 Graphic representation of the two dominant trends of political culture

  research and their trajectories

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  Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture

  probabilistic theory of politics’. 51 Essentially, this method joins a scientific study of politics with a methodology that appears to make that aspiration

  achievable, quantitative survey methodology.52 In other words, it is characterized by the scientific aspiration of value-neutrality, expressed in survey

  methodology, with a concomitant subjective or psychological definition of

  political culture.53 Now, this expansionist tendency and claim for value-neutrality is misleading since it imposes meaning on its objects of study. To

  impose meaning, naturally, restricts the explanatory validity of the concept of

  political culture, whether it is for comparative or sociological ends. This,

  thereby, warrants the accusation that behaviouralism is used to justify particular

  patterns of political orientation while disregarding others. That, in turn, leads

  to its description as hegemonic.

  To further explain, the comparative use of political culture research is

  dedicated to the relationship between modernity and the modernization

  theory of political development; a defence of democratic forms of political

  institutions and behaviour.54 By subscribing to certain set values, asserted as universal, and the attitude that ‘if it’s good for me, it’s good for you’, it is

  hegemonic. Of course, the comparative use of political culture aims to identify

  why certain nations are more stable and susceptible to democracy than others.

  However, it does so poorly by suggesting, simply put, that most countries are

  not literate enough to share ‘Western’ values and, until they do, they will not

  progress. The discrepancy between where a people are and the modern,

  democratic ideal that they are meant to be at is explained as a result of an

  intriguing idea, namely ‘cultural lag’.

  The idea of ‘cultural lag’, invented by William Ogburn, was intended to

  describe a situation ‘when one of two parts of culture which are correlated

  changes before or in greater degree than the other part does, thereby causing

  less adjustment between the two parts that existed previously’.55 It was meant to describe internal sociological disproportionality within a culture. But Almond

  and Pye used it to justify the modernization theory of development and ratio-

  nalize their understanding of a stable political society, founded on a certain

  political culture. This led to Welch’s contention that ‘political culture

  research, then, in its comparative use has been invoked precisely to save

  modernization theory from accusations of illegitimate teleology. Cultural lag

  is the means by which the rescue is attempted’.56

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  Therefore, the comparative use of political culture research is not simply

  manipulative when comparing nations, but precisely so by its manner of

  explaining differences in national political outcomes and structures. Still, the

  difference between the comparative and the sociological is not only one of

  methodology or definition. It is a distinction that is drawn clearly at a given

  level of putative explanation, or for given units of comparison. 57 For instance, let’s compare various nations and their political cultures with a view to

  explaining divergent political outcomes. Clearly, this is a comparative use of

  political culture. The problem arises when it is used to defend certain

  assumptions about development that are, blatantly, sociological. Under

  Deconstructing political culture

  25

  these conditions, a behavioural, comparative use of political culture becomes

  hegemonic.

  Alternatively, a sociological approach to understanding political culture

  focuses on examining the relationship of variables in it, such as interpersonal

  trust and group-forming propensity. Rosenbaum’s three categories of socio-

  logical uses of political culture research include ‘orientations to governmental

  structures, orientati
ons toward others in the political system, and orientations

  to one’s own political activity’. 58 Here, once again, we are dealing with values that externalize in the form of orientations. Continuing, he defines ‘rules of the

  game, as an individual’s conception of what should be followed in civic life;

  which may or may not be consistent with prevailing law and other norms

  supposed to govern civic conduct’.59 Now, the question for us remains as to the best method to extract those ‘rules of the game’? And what happens when

  prevailing law is contrary to those rules?

  With the inclusion of sociology in political culture research, we are better

  equipped to understand those rules of the game. By doing so, we arrive at a

  new explanatory theory in which individuals, not nations, are the units of

  comparison. And, by focusing on the individual, the ever-important values and

  ‘rules of the game’ are better manifest. However, there are two drawbacks. First,

  even though it claims to assess the relationships among complementing and

  conflicting forces in a nation-state rather than between them, it is repeatedly

  used to substantiate democratic values. Values that are, often, contrary to the

  culture studied. This, then, leads to faulty analyses and a lack of legitimacy.

  Moreover, advancing contrary ideals may, too, be hegemonic since it implies

  a derogatory attitude toward prevailing indigenous attitudes. Second, socio-

  logical sophistication renders untenable the generalizations that are necessary

  for cross-national comparisons. This is, especially, true when considering

  intra-national aspects such as gender, education levels, trust-formation, values

  and beliefs.

  Clash

  The ‘clash’ tendency in political culture research is largely based on embracing

  ‘cultural relativity’ and recognizing the global diversity of political values. 60

  Moreover, it has confidence in qualitative research methodology to ascertain

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  those values, giving priority to the thoughts of those under investigation.

  Granted, appreciating the diversity of orientations to political objects is

 

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