Contact: [email protected]
U.S. Governors: New Political Culture Sweeping the World
As new governors and elected officials prepare to take office at the beginning of the year, people may notice that many have new outlooks on politics that vary from the conventional attitudes politicians have had in the past. They are part of a new political culture, detailed in a new book, The New Political Culture, by Terry Nichols Clark, Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. Here are some recent examples of what the new political culture is bringing to the country:
ï Victories by the Bush brothers in Florida and Texas, and by George Ryan as Governor of Illinois, show that Republican candidates who take socially liberal issues can win many votes from African-American and Hispanics, and build a new majority based on new issues.
ï The surprise victory in the race for Governor of Minnesota by a genuine "political outsider" over the favored candidates of both parties refutes the view that "third party candidates can never win". Rather, it shows the deep dissatisfaction of many voters with the traditional issues of both major parties, and their searching for new types of candidates.
ï The victory of five women in the five top state offices in Arizona, following years of scandal and corruption by men in these offices, illustrates the broadening of support for women candidates generally, and in Arizona at least, the success of women candidates in championing issues of good government.
ï The defeat of affirmative action in Washington state shows a decline in support for race and ethnic specific-policies.
ï The success of referenda medicalizing marijuana shows support for social tolerance and moderate individual liberties.
Democracies around the world are being swept by this new form of politics guided more by issues than by traditional distinctions between liberal and conservative positions, contends Clark.
The new orientation has led to election victories for U.S. President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schrˆder. Each of the men came from traditionally leftist parties but gained victory by adopting less ideologically rigid positions than the parties had previously held.
In The New Political Culture (Westview Press), Clark identifies common characteristics of the new political culture:
ï The classic left-right dimension is transformed as the left becomes increasingly identified with social issues and less often with traditional class-politics issues.
ï Social and fiscal/economic issues are explicitly distinguished.
ï Social issues rise in importance relative to fiscal/economic issues.
ï Market individualism and social individualism are growing.
ï The welfare state is being questioned.
ï Issue politics and broader citizen participation are increasing while the power of hierarchical political organizations is declining.
ï Younger, more educated and affluent individuals and societies are more likely to exhibit the new political culture.
In The New Political Culture, Clark and colleagues analyze global urban data concerning political changes in advanced democracies. The book is based on data gathered by the Fiscal Austerity and Urban Innovation Project, the most extensive study of local government in the world to date. Clark is coordinator of the $15 million project.
Researchers began noticing the emergence of a new political culture in the 1970s as traditional boundaries of politics changed with the arrival of a new generation of voters and other changes in society.
"Concerned mostly with consumption and lifestyle, the new politics emerges fully in cities with more highly educated citizens, higher incomes and more high-tech service occupations," Clark said. "Leadership does not come from parties, unions or ethnic groups, but rather, shifts from issue to issue: leaders on abortion are distinct from leaders on environmental issues."
The emergence of the new politics is particularly responsible for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley having a more inclusive governing style than his father, Richard J. Daley, who depended on party hierarchy and conventional Democratic constituencies as sources of his power, Clark said.
The changes in political orientation have also led to more women being elected to office and to ecological issues becoming important, he added.
Some other examples of changes brought on by the new political culture include:
ï A drop in the percentage of people who identify with a political party. In the United States, for instance, the number of people who consider themselves independent rose to one third of the electorate during the 1980s.
ï The heightened, sometimes heated, importance of ethnic, linguistic and regional cleavages in Western European countries as well as the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union.
ï New anti-immigrant elements in many European parties.
ï The rise of religious fundamentalism.
ï New social movements for more democracy, decentralization, and individual freedom.
ï The rise of demcoracy and regional issues in China, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Eruope.
Changes in political culture are encouraged by the media, Clark points out. Broadcast media have the ability to bring ideas to many people. The Internet goes much further: it has become a very popular way for people to bypass traditional power elites and get information directly. These newly informed people use e-mail to create virtual communities around their individual interests.
The media also have played a role in exposing examples of corruption, and as a result, have inspired people to overturn regimes based on patronage and machine politics in nations as different as Japan and the United States. "Critics have had dramatic impacts: in deposing the entire political leadership in Italy and in undermining traditional 'rules of the game' from Taiwan to the Clinton White House to Mayor Daley's Chicago," Clark said.
The New Political Culture is one of three books Clark has written or edited that deals with the movement. The other volumes include Urban Innovation: Creative Strategies for Turbulent Times (Sage Publications) and Citizen Politics in Post-Industrial Societies (Westview).
The Fiscal Austerity and Urban Innovation Project collects data on local officials in approximately 1,000 U.S. municipalities with a population greater than 25,000. In some 38 other countries, studies are in progress, and data from those studies were used for the books.
###
RSS