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and prevalent Green and social democratic forces? Donnerstag 12:19, 20 February 2006 (UTC)=0

[edit] What Political Culture is and what is not

Political culture is about shared beliefs, values and feelings on the political system and political life, domestic and foreign affairs of the country, which is dominant among large sections of the public and is particularly shared by political elite groups. Everyone can give an alternative definition but political culture is certainly:

• not "welfare government" but rather attitudes to government;
• not "prevalent Green and social democratic forces" but environmentalist or socialdemocratic attitude to state politics;
• it's also not the issue of imigration but attitudes towards the issue.

Of interest for a student of political culture is not the wealth gap between East and West per se, but if there are differing political cultures between East and West.

• It's more than obvious that political culture is also not what "some coservative politicians" do on an issue.

Most of these issues have been addressed in the literature. On Germany I can cite the works of P.J.Katzenstein and an International Organization case study by J.S.Duffield (53, 4, Autumn 1999, pp. 765–803). Drawing from Duffield, emphasis should be put on: the dominant political orientation of antimilitarism/pacifism and multilateralism. Examples from the Iraq crisis of 2003 and citing of more recent sources would be helpful.

In my opinion an article should be reworked to focus on political culture and not individual ideologies and to make reference to the literature. Donnerstag 11:38, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reply/Suggestions for the article

I agree with Donnerstag. Here is a list of some points that should go into the article:

• A culture of public debates
• Fairly strong party affiliations among voters, more so among elected representatives
• "Wehrhafte Demokratie", i.e. a democacy that actively looks for and defends against challengers, both ideologically (using debate and information/propagande), using the legal system (outlawing of the KPD and various right-wing parties), and by maintaining a strong law enforcement apparatus.
• Cooperation of many different parts of society (unions/parties, unions/industry, parties/churches...)
• Striving for consensus
• Strong European integration and strong aversion to using the military
• The persistance of whining ;-)

--Stephan Schulz 12:24, 7 May 2006 (UTC)