DIMENSIONS OF POLITICAL CULTURE

Definiranje dimenzija političke kulture nužan je uvjet u razradi teorije ove pojave i za njezino sustavno empirijsko istraživanje. Pokazano je kako Almond-Verbina zamisao o dimenzijama političke kulture, u obliku matrice tri orijentacije (kognitivne, afektivne i evaluativne) puta četiri politička objekta (“sustav”, “input-objekti”, “output-objekti” i “ja” kao objekt) nije plauzibilna. Ako se politička kultura definira kao niz vjerovanja o politici, a ona to upravo jest, tada je jasno da svako vjerovanje sadrži teško razmrsiva znanja, emocije i vrijednosne sudove istodobno. Zbog toga je teško dimenzije odrediti prema navedenim orijentacijama. To kao da je osjetio i G. Almond u jednom svom znantno kasnijem radu. Koristeći njegovu recentniju ideju o tome, mi smo ovdje dimenzije političke kulture definirali prema “objektima” politike, a ne obrnuto, prema orijentacijama u odnosu na te “objekte”. Tako smo razradili tri osnovne dimenzije prema tri temeljna objekta politike — “sustavu” kao općem objektu, “procesu” kao dinamičkom objektu politike, te “vladanju” kao načinu odlučivanja, sadržaju i rezultatu vladavine. Utvrđeno je da svaka od ovih temeljnih dimenzija političke kulture ima čitav niz svojih subdimenzija, a sve tri zajedno oko 25 takvih subdimenzija. Sigurno je da se ovaj predložak može dopunjavati ili možda korigirati, ali se u svome osnovnom rješenju neće moći eliminirati. On je svojevrsna mapa političke kulture.Defining the dimensions of political culture is a precondition in the elaboration of the theory of this phenomenon and for its systematic empirical study. It has been demonstrated that Almond- Verba\u27s concept of the dimensions of political culture, in the form of a matrix of the three orientations (cognitive, affective, and evaluative) times four political objects ("system", "input-objects", "output-objects" and "I" as an object) is not plausible. If political culture is defined as a set of beliefs about politics (which it indeed is), then it is clear that each belief at the same time contains an intricate mix of knowledge, emotions, and evaluations. This makes it difficult to determine the dimensions according to the mentioned orientations. It seems this was sensed by Almond himself in one of his later works. Using his more recent concept, we define the dimensions of political culture according to the "objects" of politics and not vice versa, according to the orientations in relation to these "objects". Thus we have elaborated on the three fundamental dimensions according to the three fundamental objects of politics: the "system" as a universal object, the "process" as a dynamic object of politics, and the "conduct" as a manner of decision-making and the outcome of governing. It has been found that each of these basic dimensions of political culture has a series of subdimensions (a total of about twenty-five). Surely, this matrix may be added to or perhaps amended, but basically it is unassailable, since it represents a sort of a map of political culture