METHODOLOGICAL NOTES ON THE STUDY OF POLITICAL-CULTURE

Defining political cultures as those discursive practices associated with the power-related facets of evolving human relations and social movements, the paper presents some methodological principles, inspired by the structurationist approach, to overcome existing impasses in political culture research. In general, it is argued that empirical research in political culture must integrate theoretical, ethical, and practical concerns. More specifically, the case is made for greater depth in the treatment of the individual and consciousness in the process of cultural production, for an extension of empirical investigations beyond the legal-institutional aspects of politics, for a more thorough exploration of the relationship between social scientific and lay understandings, and for a more sophisticated treatment of time and space in political cultural analysis.