Political Culture

Front 1

Americanism

Back 1

A belief that Americans consider themselves bound by common values and common hopes.

Front 2

civic competence

Back 2

A belief that one can affect government policies.

Front 3

civic duty

Back 3

The belief that citizens have an obligation to participate in civic and political affairs.

Front 4

class consciousness

Back 4

The tendency to think of oneself as a worker whose interests are in opposition to those of management and vice versa.

Front 5

culture war

Back 5

A split in the United States reflecting differences in people's beliefs about private and public morality, and regarding what standards ought to govern individual behavior and social arrangements.

Front 6

efficacy

Back 6

Self esteem, competence or mastery.

Front 7

equality of opportunity

Back 7

An economic value in American culture which maintains that all people should have the same opportunity to get ahead but that people should be paid on the basis of ability rather than on the basis of need.

Front 8

external efficacy

Back 8

The belief that the political system will respond to citizens. This belief has declined in recent years because of public sentiment that the government has become too big to be responsive.

Front 9

internal efficacy

Back 9

Confidence in one's own ability to understand and to take part in political affairs. This confidence has remained stable over the past few decades.

Front 10

orthodox (social)

Back 10

One of two camps in the culture war that believes morality is as important (or even more so) than self-expression and that moral rules are derived from God.

Front 11

political ideology

Back 11

A comprehensive set of political, economic, and social views or ideas concerned with the form and role of government.

Front 12

political culture

Back 12

A distinctive and patterned way of thinking about how political and economic life ought to be carried out.

Front 13

political efficacy

Back 13

The sense that citizens have the capacity to understand and influence political events.

Front 14

progressive (social)

Back 14

One of two camps in the culture war that believes personal freedom is more important than traditional rules and that rules depend on the circumstances of modern life.

Front 15

rights

Back 15

A preoccupation of the American political culture that has imbued the daily conduct of politics with a kind of adversarial spirit.

Front 16

secular humanism

Back 16

The belief that moral standards do not require religious justification.

Front 17

work ethic

Back 17

A tradition of Protestant churches that required a life of personal achievement as well as religious conviction; a believer had an obligation to work, save money, obey the secular law, and do good works. Max Weber attributed the rise of capitalism, in part, to this ethic.