Political Culture, Values & Cleavages
- Define political culture and distinguish it from ideology
- Explain how social cleavages shape politics in the core countries
- Analyze how cross-cutting and coinciding cleavages affect stability
Political culture vs. ideology
Political culture is the set of widely shared attitudes, values, and beliefs about government and politics that a society transmits across generations — the "rules of thumb" citizens hold about authority, participation, and national identity. It differs from ideology, which is a more explicit, structured program for how society should be organized. The UK has a strongly participatory, rule-of-law civic culture; Russia carries a statist tradition of strong central authority; China blends Confucian respect for hierarchy with Communist Party legitimacy. Political culture shapes which institutions feel legitimate and how citizens engage with them.
Social cleavages
Social cleavages are the divisions that separate a society into groups with different political interests — based on ethnicity, religion, region, class, or language. These cleavages structure conflict and party competition. Nigeria is deeply divided by ethnicity (Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, Igbo) and religion (a largely Muslim north and Christian south). Iran has ethnic and sectarian divisions beneath its Shia majority. Mexico has regional and indigenous cleavages. Russia and China contain restive ethnic minorities (Chechnya; Uyghurs and Tibetans). Understanding a country’s cleavages is essential to understanding its politics.
Cross-cutting vs. coinciding cleavages
The arrangement of cleavages matters as much as their existence. Cross-cutting cleavages occur when divisions overlap in ways that put people on different sides depending on the issue — a person might share religion with one group but class with another, which tends to moderate conflict and stabilize politics. Coinciding (reinforcing) cleavages occur when divisions stack on top of one another — the same people are separated by ethnicity and religion and region at once — which tends to intensify conflict, because the divisions all pull the same way. Nigeria’s overlapping ethnic-religious-regional divides are dangerously reinforcing.
In one country, ethnicity, religion, and region all divide the population along the same line, so the same groups oppose each other on nearly every issue. Assess the likely effect on political stability and identify a core country that illustrates this.
- 1.Identify the cleavage pattern: ethnicity, religion, and region all separate the same groups, so the divisions reinforce rather than cross-cut.
- 2.Recall the effect of coinciding cleavages: when divisions stack, the same people are opponents on every issue, deepening distrust and raising conflict.
- 3.Predict stability: reinforcing cleavages make compromise harder and can fuel violence or separatism, threatening stability.
- 4.Match a country: Nigeria fits, where a Muslim north/Christian south divide coincides with ethnic and regional lines.
Cross-cutting cleavages tend to have which effect on political conflict, compared to coinciding (reinforcing) cleavages?
On cleavage questions, state both the type and the effect: cross-cutting → moderates conflict; coinciding/reinforcing → intensifies conflict. Then anchor it to a country (Nigeria for reinforcing ethnic-religious-regional divides) for full credit.
A researcher describes "the widely shared, long-transmitted attitudes a society holds about authority and participation." This concept is best labeled as:
Keep culture and ideology apart: political culture is the broad, inherited "climate" of civic attitudes; ideology is a specific, argued blueprint (liberalism, communism, Islamism). A country has one culture but can contain many competing ideologies.
Answer the 2 checkpoints as you read.
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