Texas Political Culture Essay

Political culture are broadly shared ideas about how the government should run and operate. Political culture is important because it establishes the backdrop against which politics unfolds. It establishes the outer limits of what is possible, or even probable, in the political realm. There are three main political culture categories which are traditionalistic, moralistic, and individualistic. These three cultures are different in many aspects such as how they developed, the focus of each culture, and how the government should run. Traditionalistic culture rooted in plantations which contain values of social hierarchy. The focus of a traditionalistic culture is focused on tradition and maintaining existing social order. Politics are engaged

by the wealthy families. Moralistic culture is rooted in New England Puritanism. The common good is everyone’s concern. Government should promote the public good. The last political culture is the individualistic. The individualistic culture focuses more on commercial success. Individualistic cultures believe that government should provide order and protect property. They also believe that the bureaucracy is an interference. Individualistic culture also has less concern participation in politics. Texas can also be considered to have a mix of two cultures as well. Texas can be a traditionalistic- individualistic culture as well. Texas’s political culture can be hard to define for numerous of reasons.

One reason is that Texas is undergoing many changes. Texas is also a large state making it hard to define the political culture of Texas. Texas is also diverse and has many political or subcultures within its borders. Texas is harder to generalize due to the historical origins and development of the state. There are large cities, borders, rural areas, and so on. Texas is also a one party state. The Democratic Party has dominated Texas for over a century. The problem with the political culture of Texas is that it may change overtime. One person may say that Texas is a traditionalistic culture, while another may say that Texas is an individualistic culture. Texas is best described as a traditional individualistic culture. There are three patterns that make Texas a traditional-individualistic culture. These three patterns are Texas is a one party state, provincialism, and business dominance. Texas has been a one party state for many centuries. For a century after Reconstruction, the Democratic Party enjoyed electoral dominance on all levels of state government and in the Lone Star State's representation in the national

government. The Democratic Party no longer dominates Texas. The Republican Party now dominates Texas. We do not know how long Republicans will keep dominating Texas. Another pattern of that makes Texas a traditionalistic-individualistic culture is provincialism. Provincialism is a narrow, limited, and self-interested view of the world. Provincialism is associated with Jeffersonian notions of limited government and rural values. The result often intolerance of diversity. The social services and education expenditures were low. Today we do not see provincialism instead there are expenditures for education and social services.

The growing minorities, women, gays, and urbanization have cut provincialism. The third pattern that makes Texas a traditionalistic-individualistic culture is business dominance. There are rarely any labor unions in Texas only in the oil refineries. Consumer and environmental concerns not especially influential. Business groups are also play a key role in campaign contributions, interest groups, and lobbyist. Texas’s political culture can be defined as traditionalistic-individualistic based on three pattern which are the one party state, business dominance, and provincialism. These three patterns will either keep or change the political culture of Texas. Texas’s political culture is always changing based on these patterns and is one reason that makes it hard for Texas to have one political culture. These ideals and patterns of behavior develop over time and affect the political life of a state, region or country. The history of Texas politics also is, in part, the story of how the various strands of Texas political culture have been combined to form periods of stability, as well as jarring, discordant moments of deep seated tension, rupture, and sharp

change.