Search

The widespread existence of political passivity and apathy among the citizens of the democratic nations is deeply disturbing to many people. The concept of an enlightened citizenry exercising its franchise in pursuit of its rights and interests is so basic to the theory of the democratic state that the flagrant failure of a sizeable portion of the electorate in Western societies even to take the trouble to vote appears to challenge the essential validity of the ideology of popular government. Most of what people know about the passive citizen comes from studies of the vote and most of this information comes from election statistics. Evidence from many different countries has given a general picture of the sociological characteristics. When people seek to understand the motivational situation, which underlies political passivity, they feel the need of information going beyond their knowledge of the sociological characteristics of non-voters. Knowing a person's social status, people can infer something about the political forces that may be acting on him, but this is only moderately satisfying. Psychological analysis requires an understanding both of the person and the psychological world around him. Sociologist Kurt Lewin originally stated the proposition that behavior depends on the state of the person and his environment. In order to understand or to predict behavior, the person and his environment have to be considered as one constellation of interdependent factors. The bulk of this paper is devoted to a consideration of those characteristics of the person and his environment, which may be thought to underlie political passivity.

The article focuses on the role and participation of intellectuals on public affairs. In ancient Greece, particularly in Athens, unlike other cities, Athens expects every citizen to take an interest in public affairs. As a matter of fact, most Athenians have some understanding of public affairs. This is also the secret of Athens' greatness in, the greatest days of Greek civilization. This in a real sense is the reason for the suspicion held in some quarters of America for the intellectual. The intellectual in America is tested by his society in the same way as anyone else, by his ability to perform the tasks he undertakes.

This study, investigated relationships between variables related to "nationality," interpersonal values, attitudes, and personal contact with the disabled. its major hypothesis was as follows: The values and attitudes of Ss in the three nations of the report parallel an underlying postulated continuum of socioeconomic-educational modernization, from modern to traditional in the following order-United States, Colombia, Peru. There were 103 Ss from Wichita, Kansas; 67 from Bogota, Colombia; and 38 from Lima, Peru--all professionals from the special education and rehabilitation speciality. The predicted order was confirmed for seven of the 10 variables. Of the three variables not confirmed, rapid and violent changes within Colombia were thought to be the primary determinants. The Colombian reversals may also have reflected either an overacceptance of progressive values or an ambivalence toward changes that have been' accepted but not meaningfully articulated within the culture. Generally, the data supported the hypothesis that the disabled are viewed more positively in modern than in traditional societies'. There was also support for the hypothesis that progressive attitudes toward education are. positively related to the "modern" end of the socioeconomic-educational continuum of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a study, which focuses on the authoritarian character structure. A fascist cannot be defined by his geographical location, his nominal national citizenship, the language he speaks, his religion, his skin color or other racial characteristics, his economic class, or even social caste. Any of these determiners may be involved in any individual case, but none of them will serve for all cases. To make the situation worse, one cannot even trust what people say or do, for personal expediency as well as covert loyalties may cause the most astounding shifts in policy or in behavior. It may be pointed out finally that in the last analysis even the conscious belief of the subject about himself is not altogether trustworthy, for there are many who tend unconsciously in the authoritarian direction. The psychologist now has available data and principles that can certainly help in clearing up these confusions, so that by making basic issues more clear, he can help in the task of separating friends from enemies in own country as well as others.

Democracy refers in some rough way to the degree to which power and influence over significant decisions for a society is diffused throughout that society. Political participation, therefore, will increase the extent to which a nation is democratic only insofar as such participation involves at some point influence by the participant over governmental decisions. Participatory acts whose function is to express support for the government are important, but not as crucial to democracy as are acts that involve influence. The data on differences among social groups in citizen competence suggest that it makes a great deal of difference who you are within your own country whether or not you believe yourself able to influence a local regulation. If you have more education, a higher status or are male, you are clearly more likely to consider yourself competent. In this sense, one's self-perceptions of one's role as a citizen vary greatly with one's social position within a nation. But whether or not the local competent believes that his friends and neighbors are available to help him in a situation of this sort depends relatively little on his social position within a nation, but depends heavily on what nation he happens to be in. Political competence, thus, grows with higher education or occupational status, but the style of political competence seems to be rooted more in general political culture.