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Teaching and Taking: A Seminar on Cultural Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2015

Aaron Wildavsky
Aaron Wildavsky*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
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Extract

The proposal and syllabus that follow are primarily concerned with the content of a seminar on cultural theory. I would like to preface these materials by saying a bit about teaching.

Because of the vast confusion surrounding the concept of culture, a seminar is an ideal place to work on clarification.

The version of cultural theory being discussed departs from ordinary modes of thought and raises many questions, albeit in a more political direction: What sort of people, organized into which cultures, would act in certain ways (accept or reject blame, tax and spend high or low, participate a little or a lot, etc.) in order to do what matters most to them—support their way of life and discomfort their opponents? Hence time for questions in the seminar is essential. Hours and hours of discussion do more to straighten out thought than any amount of reading.

Application of this cultural theory is also essential. Doing is different than thinking. I have found that 1,000-word essays on such subjects as the Comanche Indians (competitive individualists to the core) or the Khmer Rouge (radical egalitarians) enable seminar members to come to grips with the theories they are trying out. Immersion in this material, bolstered by continuous discussion, sharpened by several short applications, greatly facilitates writing a research paper. The idea is to take a paper already written, or about to be written, derive a problem from it, and see how one cultural theory compares to others.

Type
For the Classroom
Information
The Political Science Teacher , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , Winter 1988 , pp. 3 - 5
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1988

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References

I. INTRODUCTION Week 1: Theories of Political Culture

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II. CULTURAL BIASES Week 2: Hierarchy

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Week 3: Individualism

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Week 4: Egalitarianism

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Syllabus on Culture Week 5:

Write a 1,000-word paper discussing Ruth Benedict's Patterns of Culture.

III. INSTITUTIONS Week 6: Leadership

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Shack, William A. 1979. Politics of the Free Spirit: The Sacred and the Secular in the Gurage Polity. In Shack, William A. and Cohen, Percy S., eds., Politics in Leadership: A Comparative Perspective. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 169–89.Google Scholar
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Knott, Jack, and Wildavsky, Aaron. Winter 1977. Jimmy Carter's Theory of Governing. The Wilson Quarterly, pp. 49–65.Google Scholar
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Week 7: Why Do Governments Grow?

Wilensky, Harold L., et al.December 1983. Comparative Social Policy: Theories, Methods, Findings. Paper prepared for a joint Science Center Berlin/Stanford University Conference on Cross-National Policy Research, Berlin.Google Scholar
Castles, Francis G., and McKinlay, R. D.. July 1979. Public Welfare Provision, Scandinavia, and the Sheer Futility of the Sociological Approach to politics. British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 9, pp. 157–71.Google Scholar
Tarschys, Daniel. 1983. The Scissors Crisis in Public Finance. Policy Sciences, 15:205–24.Google Scholar
Wildavsky, Aaron. 1986. Why Government Grows. In Budgeting: A Comparative Theory of Budgetary Processes, revised 2nd ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press, pp. 357–393.Google Scholar

Week 8: Media

Evans, Fred J. March/April 1984. The Politics of the Press. Business Horizon, Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 22–29.Google Scholar
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Mazur, Allan. No date. Mass Media at Love Canal and Three Mile Island. Typescript.Google Scholar
Altheide, David L. 1984. Media Hegemony: A Failure of Perspective. Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 48: 476–90.Google Scholar
Wildavsky, Aaron. Summer 1987. The Media's “American Egalitarians.” The Public Interest, 88:94–104.Google Scholar

Week 9: Why Is There No Socialism in America?

Lowi, Theodore J. 1984. Why Is There No Socialism in the United States? A Federal Analysis. In Golembiewski, Robert T. and Wildavsky, Aaron, eds., The Costs of Federalism. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, pp. 37–54.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1977. Why No Socialism in the United States? In Bialer, Seweryn and Sluzar, Sophia, eds., Sources of Contemporary Radicalism. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 31–149.Google Scholar

Week 10:

Jackson, Karl D., ed. Rendezvous With Death: Democratic Kampuchea, 1975-1978. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Yathay, Pin. 1980. L'utopie meurtriere. Paris: Robert Laffont. Review article of this book by Ferenc Feher, in Telos, No. 56 (Summer 1983): 193–205.Google Scholar
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IV. CULTURAL CHANGE Week 11:

Wildavsky, Aaron. Nov. 1985. Change in Political Culture. Politics, Journal of the Australasian Political Studies Association, Vol. 20, No. 2:95–102.Google Scholar
Rayner, Steve. The Politics of Schism: Routinization and Social Control in the International Socialists/Socialist Workers' Party. Typescript.Google Scholar
Finkelhor, D. 1984. Sexual Abuse as a Social Problem. In Child Sexual Abuse: New Theory and Research. New York: Free Press, pp. 1–22.Google Scholar

Week 12: Political Change in the United States

Wilson, James Q. Feb. 1979. American Politics, Then and Now. Commentary, Vol. 67, No. 2:39–46.Google Scholar
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Wildavsky, Aaron. Fall 1982. The Three Cultures: Explaining Anomalies in the American Welfare State. The Public Interest, No. 69:45–58.Google Scholar
Polsby, Nelson W. Winter 1981–1982. Contemporary Transformations of American Politics: Thoughts on Research Agendas. Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 96, No. 4: 551–570.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour Martin. Fall 1975. The Paradox of American Politics. The Public Interest, 41:142–165.Google Scholar

Week 13: Risk

Douglas, Mary, and Wildavsky, Aaron. Can We Know the Risks We Face? Risks are Hidden, Risks are Selected, Scientists Disagree, Assessment is Biased, The Dialogue is Political, Risk is a Collective Construct. In Risk and Culture, pp. 1–82, 174–198.Google Scholar
Cotgrove, Stephen. 1981. Risk, Value Conflict and Political Legitimacy. In Griffiths, Richard F., ed., Dealing with Risk. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, pp. 122–140.Google Scholar
Thompson, Michael. 1985. To Hell With the Turkeys: A Diatribe Directed at the Pernicious Trepidity of Current Intellectual Approaches to Risk. In MacLean, D., ed., Values at Risk. New York: Rowe and Allenhead.Google Scholar
Wildavsky, Aaron. 1986. Doing More and Using Less: Utilization of Research as a Result of Regime. In Dierkes, Meinolf, Weiler, Hans, Antal, Ariane Berthoin, eds., Comparative Policy Research. Learning from Experience. Aldershot, England: Gower.Google Scholar
Ames, Bruce. Nov. 11, 1985. Testimony to the Chairman of the State Senate Committee on Toxics and Public Safety Management, Sacramento, Calif.Google Scholar
Rothman, Stanley, and Lichter, S. Robert. June 1987. Elite Ideology and Risk Perception in Nuclear Energy Policy. American Political Science Review, Vol. 81, No. 2:383–404.Google Scholar

Weeks 14 and 15:

Presentation of student papers. Copies are to be made available to all students and to the instructor two days before the seminar. Students are expected to read and to write comments on the papers.