NATIONALIST POPULISM AND POST-COMMUNISM

any deeper changes in the Central European countries since 1989, regardless of the establishment of a new institutional design and the intensive actions of external factors (represented, for example, by NATO or European Union). Among other values, the ones related to the ethnicity, religion or nation display a lasting durability and are resistance to change. Due to this resistance to deeper changes, the process of the development of the “civic” type of political culture, in the sense used by Gabriel Almond and Sydney Verba in their work The Civic Culture , is far from finished in Central and Eastern Europe. 14 An interesting approach to studying political culture is based on a political discourse analysis. A study of both qualitative and quantitative changes in the political discourse and political language of particular political leaders can be perceived as one of the most appropriate methods of identifying the continuity of the political culture in a particular country. Political culture, as G. Almond said, is neither a completely independent nor a dependent variable. 15 It underpins the political institutions, and at the same time it is sustained by them. I have taken Almond’s assumption as a convenient one and have also adopted it with regard to the relationship between political language and political culture. The aim of this research is to study continuities and changes in the political discourses and, analogically, to assess the prospects for a change in the political cultures of particular societies. 2.1.2. Mass and elite political culture The concept of national political culture as the political culture of a particular country is rather general and requires further specification. As Lucian W. Pye pointed out, there is no society with a single political culture. 16 Pye writes that: 14 According to Almond and Verba’s typology, there are three basic types of political culture. A “Parochial” political culture is associated with groups that have no knowledge of how the political system works, as well as no affective orientations towards it, and no desire or capability for participating in that system. A “Subject” political culture is one in which individuals have an affective orientation towards the political system, or some knowledge of how its policies are enforced, but little awareness of how its policies are made, and again have no desire or capability for participating in it. The previous ideal types are contrasted with the “Participant” type of political culture, in which the citizens are informed, make normative judgments and act on their beliefs. Almond and Verba’s “civic” culture is a type of political culture that is the most favourable for democracy; it is based on a congruency of the political culture with the political structure. See G. Almond, S. Verba The Civic Culture . (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963). 15 G. Almond, S. Verba The Civic Culture . (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963). 16 L. W. Pye, “Introduction”, L. W., Pye, S. Verba Political Culture and Political Development. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1965).

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