9 - Political culture

Summary

Political culture is defined as a set of memories and identities, norms and values, beliefs and preferences, and practices and habits present in a certain community of people. Thus defined, political culture is a patterned approach to thinking about politics. Politics, in turn, is defined as who gets what, when and how, or as the authoritative allocation of values. In this way political culture is shaped and shared by a certain group of people with common memories and experiences. This chapter will first focus on Japanese political culture in terms of variations and diversity. Key themes include social capital, pacifism, authoritarianism, postmodernism and political ideologies. Sociological attributes by which variations are assessed include region, generation, class and uncertainty. The chapter will then outline a very long-term view of change in Japanese political culture since the late medieval period, focusing on a few noted artists in terms of individualist and collectivist orientations. Since collectivism is widely regarded as a key component of modern Japanese political culture, historically contextualising collectivism in Japanese society is a task of high importance. Further, comparisons will be made between Japan's political culture and that of other countries, most notably those of East and South-East Asia and Western Europe, using the survey data of the AsiaBarometer Survey and the Asia-Europe Survey.