Compliance Ideologies
Rethinking Political Culture

This book examines developments in social science and integrates them into a theoretical explanation of historical changes in political values.

Richard W. Wilson (Author)

9780521144841, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 24 June 2010

236 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.35 kg

"...an illuminating, historically informed treatment of compliance ideology and social change that is concluded on a hopeful note where issues of social justice and equality are concerned." Choice

Originally published in 1992, this book is about political culture. It examines developments in the social sciences and integrates them into a theoretical explanation of historical changes in political values. The starting point is the premise that political culture is rooted in the interaction between individual thinking and social norms. Through discourse, individual conceptions of social life are transformed and, interactively, social norms and cultural orientations as well. The first two parts of the book explore these issues theoretically. The second two examine them empirically by showing the ways that political cultures have changed over time. In the modern period the differences in the political cultures of capitalist and communist systems are contrasted; although both coneptualize social life in terms of property accumulation, they utilize different cultural orientations to reduce institutional transaction costs. The way the tensions between these two systems can be resolved is also explored.

Preface
Introduction
Part I. Compliance Ideologies: 1. Political culture as ideology
Part II. Theoretical Issues: 2. Psychological limits
3. Phases of development
4. Contractual and positional compliance
Part III. Compliance in Changing Societies: 5. The end of harmony
6. Equality and the technobility
Part IV. Change in Compliance Ideologies: 7. Equality and conflict
8. Utopian visions
Selected bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB]