Political culture refers to broadly shared values, beliefs, and attitudes about how the government should function. Shared American values include the values of liberty, equality and democracy and these are central to Texas values as well. However, cultural differences between the states can and do shape attitudes about the role of government and there are noted differences. Daniel Elazar, in his book, American Federalism: A View from the States, divided the country into three political cultures: moralistic, individualistic, and traditionalistic. He explained that as the early settlers migrated across the country, they took with them their ideas about the role of government and their religious beliefs. Each of these groups had their thoughts about the role of government, citizen involvement and the role of political parties. One can see the migratory patterns of the three different groups in Map 1.2.2.
The moralistic political culture developed among the Puritans who settled the New England colonies in the seventeenth century saw government as a means to better society and promote the general welfare. In America, they intended to create “a city upon a hill,” as Puritan leader John Winthrop put it, so that the world could see their righteousness.\(^2\) New England reflected the Puritan culture, promoting government as a means to improve society in the same way that Puritans embraced a lifestyle of pious, consecrated actions. As generations passed, the settlers continued westward all across the northern boundary of the U.S. Immigrants from Northern Europe and from the Scandinavian countries shared Puritan values and joined with them as they continued through northern portion of the Midwest and finally along the West Coast. The moralistic political culture, citizens expect their elected officials to be honest and to put the needs of the people they served above their own interests. This culture puts a positive spin on the political process, believing they are working to better their community rather than profiting financially from their service. They would embrace the idea of bigger government and creating new programs to solve the problems of the society. Political engagement and citizen participation is expected from the citizens. In this society, citizens would relish donating their time and their resources to elections and it would be their duty to turnout to vote. According to Elazar, there are two reasons for this. First, states should make it easy for the citizens to register to vote and then actually vote because it was the right thing to do. Second, they expected that elections would be contested with competition in each of the races. Therefore, it was an honor to participate and it was a worthwhile endeavor. Elazar also believed that in a moralistic culture, those running for public office would do so because of their qualifications, not party loyalty. They certainly would be more open to third parties. Supporting the community was more important than supporting the party.
According to Elazar, the individualistic political culture originated with settlers from non-Puritan England and Germany. The first settlements were in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey eventually spreading to the middle portion of the United States from Ohio straight to Wyoming. As the name implies, government in this culture should address the issues that matter to us as individuals. Government is expected to provide needed services and in return, the officials would be compensated for these efforts. It is no longer about serving the community as a whole but rather meeting the interests of individuals. Once government receives support from the voters, then they serve the needs of those individuals. In this culture, citizens will get involved and participate only if they have a personal interest or if they expect certain benefits from government. Many times the citizens will expect some type of reward such as a political patronage appointment, perhaps even with financial compensation. Politics is not seen as a noble profession as in the moralistic culture. Citizens are much more tolerant of corruption in their political leaders in this culture. They are not necessarily looking for candidates with great ideas, but only remain loyal to the candidates with the same party affiliation as themselves. Candidates running for political office outside the mainstream political parties find it difficult to find success in this individualistic environment.
Elazar associates traditionalistic political culture with the southern portion of the United States, where it developed in the upper regions of Virginia, the first of the southern colonies. It then spread to what we refer to as the Deep South (Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi) and on into the Southwest. Slavery was prominent in these states so government was necessary to maintain the existing social order, the status quo. The elites would dominate politics, so any new policies would reinforce the interests of those in power. In this traditionalistic political culture, voter turnout tends to be lower, in part because there may be more barriers to participation. History has shown us that the southern states have more consistently reduced voter turnout by the use of tactics like poll taxes (fees charged for voting), among others, to diminish the minority vote. Today, barriers to voting could include the requirement to produce a photo ID at the time of voting. Voting in a traditionalistic political culture was considered more of a privilege for those that met the qualifications. Competition will be between the factions within the dominant party. Between the 1870s and the 1970s, the Democratic Party dominated Texas state politics and the competition was between the urban and rural Democrats. After the civil rights movement and the Republican realignment that took place in the South, Republicans are the dominant party in Texas today. Now, the competition is between the moderate and the far right Republicans.
This page titled 1.2: Political Culture of Texas is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Andrew Teas, Kevin Jefferies, Mark W. Shomaker, Penny L. Watson, and Terry Gilmour (panOpen) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.
