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Cultural Prerequisites to a Successfully Functioning Democracy: A Symposium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Ernest S. Griffith ,
John Plamenatz  and
J. Roland Pennock
Ernest S. Griffith
Affiliation:
Library of Congress
John Plamenatz
Affiliation:
Oxford University
J. Roland Pennock
Affiliation:
Swarthmore College
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Extract

The problem of sustaining and strengthening democratic institutions is of the first magnitude. The stakes are high.

“Democracy,” whatever else may be included, implies free discussion and popular election of governors, with alternative choices available. Presumably the governors will include a representative element, normally in the form of a legislative or policy-adopting body.

The term “cultural prerequisites” is less easily defined. The sociologists have an approach that sheds light upon that for which we are searching. They speak of the mores, those modes of thought as well as behavior by which men live and institutions are sustained. The mores are those elements of a culture which are regarded as essential for survival of the society itself. As regards democracy, our question is basically, “What is its cultural and psychological underpinning?” What cultural attitudes or mores will sustain democracy? In part they must do this by assuring its success in satisfying the psychological necessities of its citizens, in part by giving it and its institutions an emotional content which will make its survival a fighting matter for those who love it.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , March 1956 , pp. 101 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1956

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References

page 114 note 1 Cook, Thomas I., “The Prospects of Political Science,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 17, pp. 265–74 (May, 1955)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 115 note 2 Note its shortcomings under 1, 3, and 7 above.

page 130 note 1 It will be noted that I have shifted the discussion from “the desire to be self-governing” to “political apathy” and thence to “political interest.” I am not unconscious of the change. It may well be that if I were to adhere to the original concept further discussion would be unnecessary and the proposition would hold true that the greater the desire to be self-governing the better. The trouble is that precisely the series of shifts just pointed out is often made unconsciously, with the result that an argument that begins with perfectly sound propositions winds up with statements about political apathy or political interest that are not supportable.

page 131 note 2 Whether the conscience need find its source in religion I do not know. It would certainly be a mistake to assume that men of good conscience are always religious. As to the specific question of the relationship between Christian beliefs about the individual and democratic individualism, I refer the reader to Plamenatz's remarks on this matter.

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