The American Voter: US Political Culture Explored

I worked really hard on this post and wondered if I would finish it by the US presidential elections of 2012. Luckily for me it is done well before. So here it is: some reflections on the American voter, backed with numbers and fancy sources. This post is not so much on ordeal, rather it functions as a set of ideas that frame the upcoming elections. Feel free to feel inspired and please share any thoughts! :p

Political culture is hard to define, yet it offers an attractive explanation for national differences concerning political behavior such as voting. 'The French are such', 'Americans do not think that way', etc. I am confident you have heard some like those before. There are indeed a lot of differences, but they are in my opinion not given. First of all political culture is dynamic: it can change over time (see the graph below). This is evident from the declining trust in political institutions with Americans. Second, the creation of and changes in political culture are the result of historical development. The trust is influenced by education levels, economic climate and central figures with their vigor or scandal.

Now how unique is the American political culture? Ronald Inglehart, famous amongst political scientists, was a driving force behind thinking about post-materialism: a value pattern focussing on self-realization relative to self-preservation. By adding traditionalism/secularism as a second dimension, Inglehart identified different cultures. He found an Anglo-Saxon value pattern which scores very high on self-realization and moderate on the second dimension. This is expressed in various features of American political culture: the perceived exceptionalism, the belief in popular judgement and the typical conception of freedom. All these elements are rooted in the history of the American state and society: fleeing religious or political persecution, resistance against the English crown, the autonomy of the states, etc.

(It needs to be said that the dominant political culture in the United States is perhaps more of an imposed value pattern rooted in the Anglo-Saxon and Protestant inheritance. Values differ along various lines, of which ethnicity might well be one. In how far the political culture is shared by say Afro-Americans or Latinos is hard to say. Even more difficult is it to draw conclusions as to how 'American' American political culture is.)

'American' political culture: a combination of influences or
the dominance of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant values?

The above should enable us to situate the American political culture and place it in its historical context. On to the voter now, as the upcoming election is the essence of this article. United States politics is largely spared from the increasing fragmentation that has Europe in its grip. Even in the UK they need to form coalitions now, despite the majoritarian mode of voting. This does however not mean that voting behavior didn't change in the States. Like everywhere in the West, identification of the voters with a single party has been diminishing. The electorate is increasingly motivated by what is called 'retrospective voting': casting your ballot based on specific issues, the image of parties/leaders and the economic climate.

Studies from the sixties up till now show that only up to a fifth of the American population is motivated by ideological reasons when casting the vote; about 40% defines politics in terms of group interests (classes, ethnicity, etc.) and 25% rewards or punishes the establishment based on the general tendency of the economy and society as a whole. The others are, sadly, apathetic: they don't give a ----. Furthermore, an overwhelming eight out of ten voters show no temporal stability in their ideological preferences. However in times of crisis and change the electorate becomes more ideological in its thought than its leaders, pushing for extremes. If these results don't seem to tell you anything, read this paragraph over once again whilst thinking about Obama's success in 2008. Now repeat that exercise with the possible Republican nominees for this year in mind.

Sources:

Converse, P.E. (1964). The nature of belief systems in mass publics. In D.E. Apter (Ed.), Ideology and discontent (pp. 206-261). New York: Free Press.

Hague, R. & Harrop, M. (2010). Elections and voters. In Comparative government and politics: An introduction (pp. 179-202). Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Hague, R. & Harrop, M. (2010). Political culture. In Comparative government and politics: An introduction (pp. 121-137). Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Inglehart, R. (1997). Modernization and postmodernization: Cultural, economic and social change in 43 countries. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Inglehart, R. (1999). Postmodernization erodes respect for authority, but increases support for democracy. In P. Norris (Ed.), Critical citizens: Global support for democratic governance (pp. 359-392). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Putnam, R. (2002). Democracies in flux: The evolution of social capital in contemporary society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sears, D.O. & Funk, C.L. (1990). The role of self-interest in social and political attitudes, Advances in experimental social psychology, 24, pp. 1-91.

The WTO: A Brave New World?

Often mentioned in my posts is the World Trade Organization, WTO for short. Mostly it is in a complaint about the negative side-effects of its policies and actions. The WTO was established in 1995 as the successor to the GATT-negotiations. Its goal was to realize global free trade. I noticed however that more and more the organization is used as a battleground for the resolution of national interest conflicts. The big trading blocs - United States, European Union and China - are pursuing their economic self-interest, disguising it as concerns of free trade, ecology or fair trade.

One of the first big clashes was between Europe and the Cairns Group. The latter attacked the agricultural policy of the Union. Of course this was a genuine case of protectionism versus free trade. But when Europe masked its subsidies as support for environmental development, things got really nasty. The WTO was expected to decide on the legitimacy of environmental and other 'progressive' arguments, something it had no mandate for. Indeed the WTO assesses mostly in favor of free trade. Two clear-cut cases are the Banana War and the dispute about Europe's unilateral guarantee of free trade to its poorest trading partners. In both cases Europe had nothing to gain financially itself, but the WTO ruled that such practices are 'against the spirit of freeing up world trade'. I wonder what will become of the Union's aircraft carbon tax...

With its one-sided focus on free trade the WTO can
only serve capital. There is no attention for legitimate
concerns regarding the environment or free trade...

The WTO was created in a moment that everyone believed capitalism had triumphed. A brave new world dawned, a world in which free trade was good trade, best trade. In this spirit the rules of good practice were enshrined in legislation that could only be changed by unanimous vote of the WTO members. This gave rise to what political scientist Stephen Gill calls the new constitutionalism of disciplinary neoliberalism: governments across the world have to abide the rules regardless of their orientation, resisting or retreating equals economic suicide. Truly globalization at its best here, or should I perhaps say at its worst?

Nations sometimes win, sometimes they lose. The real winner in this game is capital: it enjoys the freedom to exploit without the hinderance of border, it is free to set up governments against each other. Who gives the biggest tax cut? Who provides the juiciest subsidies? Who doesn't care that the world dies tomorrow if we can feast today? The one-sided stress of free trade is the real tragedy of the WTO. When we have global exchange we need global regulation. Not the kind of night-watchman authority the WTO provides. Perhaps the resolution lies in the blockage the organization is currently in: being stuck halfway between painful fines and equally painful import taxes can only cause irritation with the WTO's members.

What lies beneath: Implicit attitudes and emancipation

In the previous post I addressed the issue of traditional gender roles. Inspired by a publication of the Belgian Institute for the Equality of Woman and Man, I argued that gender roles are constraining to the personal freedom. Here I want to illustrate this point more thoroughly: Gender roles are a mostly social phenomenon, while it is often portrayed as a natural order. This makes that any deviant behavior is considered abnormal, even when superficially tolerated. There always exists implicit psychological pressure to adjust to the norm, regardless of whether explicit social pressure accompanies it. The psychological bias is deeply ingrained within our minds, as I will show. I can however not do this without first mentioning the illicit nature of this pressure and thus of the constraints. We are not sufficiently aware of how indoctrinated we truly are. And, as stated in the previous post, it is in this subtlety that lies the real danger.

On to the proof now, as big declarations about brainwashing make me sound more like a lunatic than I am comfortable with. A key notion in need of understanding is that the human brain is the ultimate instrument of deceit: we succeed to fool ourselves with the most powerful illusions time and time again. People can say that they oppose traditional gender roles, even believe that they do, while subconsciously they have a positive attitude toward them. As long is this conflict does not surface the person in question doesn't notice. A quick example: people can speak noble of tolerance toward homosexuality until their son 'needs to say something'. Same so with multiculturalism and the daughter introducing her new boyfriend Ali.

That people are not aware of implicit attitudes is widely accepted in social psychology. An instrument has been designed to measure such attitudes, the implicit association test (IAT). The test was created by Harvard psychologists in 1998 and caused a real revolt in methodology. I suggest not to find out how it works untill you have taken one yourself. It is a solid instrument though and some stunning results have been discovered using it:

The above image illustrates the preference of whites over blacks (left) and the attitude toward traditional gender roles (right). Both measured once by self-observation trough a list of questions (explicit) and once using IAT (implicit). Apparently women are not as emancipated as they themselves claim to be. Sure they are free, they have made their own choices, etc. Subconsciously they are still compelled to follow the gender roles though. Socialization at its best here. I included the example of blacks and whites in the United States because it shows that even blacks have a more positive attitude toward whites than toward their in-group. Seemingly the black community is based on a contrast with whites, a socially produced (!) contrast that places blacks at the bottom end of the comparison. A contrasts blacks too agree upon, albeit without being aware of it.

IAT research strengthens my view that there is a merit in stressing the harm done by the less visible or even invisible dynamics. We must acknowledge that the continuous portrayal of socially produced inequality as natural blocks the way to true emancipation. We must expose the triggers of mental oppression and fight them openly. To end this post I wish to thank J.J. Ekins for his comments on the previous post. They were a genuine stimulus for me to build upon. To all other readers: feel free to engage, to formulate your own thoughts, etc. A little polemic makes my blog more than an exercise in writing.