Political Culture, Post-Communism and Disciplinary Normalisation: Towards Theoretical Reconstruction

Abstract

This chapter mounts a critique of much of the study of post-Communist political culture, suggesting its theoretical development is inadequate and that method has substituted for theory. The inadequacy of theory is traced to the failure to exploit the original interdisciplinarity of the concept. That characteristic was displayed most vividly in a set of divergent conceptualisations and uses that developed in political culture research within Communist studies, but these were not themselves adequately substantiated theoretically. Moreover a ‘normalisation’ of study has occurred in the currently prevalent mode of political culture research. The potential of interdisciplinary investigations to address the theoretical elaboration of political culture is illustrated by a discussion of some work in social psychology.