"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you."
Pericles
Political culturePolitical culture is defined by the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences as the "set of attitudes, beliefs and sentiments that give order and meaning to a political process and which provide the underlying assumptions and rules that govern behavior in the political system". In other words, is the way you see politics and the different groups on it, and whether or not you feel identified.
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Transportation and political culture in texas
Transportation in Texas is very influenced by the state’s political culture, which is a mixture of traditionalism, individualism, and moralism. This variety of thoughts and ideologies of people usually tends to make difficult to achieve effective solutions that please everyone, and this is easily seen in the public transportation area. People not only disagree in the problems that need to be addressed, but also over what is the best way to deal with them, and that leads to a very slow response in adopting public transportation solutions.
MoralistS perspective
Moralistic political culture views government as a positive force, one that values the individual but functions for the benefit of the public (wtamu.edu). Following this ideology of commonwealth, public transportation policies would be very similar to those of the top cities in this area. These cities are Hong Kong, Zurich, Paris, and Seoul, and all these cities have in common policies that moralists would undoubtedly adopt (Forbes). Every citizen will pay taxes to improve public transportation, regardless of how much they use it so that when anyone needs it, public transportation would be cheap and effective. The government would also control the most part, if not all, of public transportation, to guarantee everyone gets the same benefits and treats.
INDIVIDUALISTS PERSPECTIVE
Individualistic culture, unlike moralistic, sees government as an institution that the less they interfere in people daily life, the better (wtamu.edu). As they don’t trust the government and firmly believe that the marketplace will keep functioning if the government gives more freedom to private enterprises, public transportation would not be the exception and would be controlled by these private entities. Therefore, there would be no taxation, and people will only pay if they use these resources, making it more expensive, but if you don’t use it at all then you won’t pay anything. This idea would be perfect for individualists, because only 4% of Houston's population uses public transportation, as the majority have cars and they don't need this resource (SmartAsset). As we can see, this is a closer approach to this political culture, which the book describes as a one with a higher focus on personal and individual interests, rather than the commonwealth.
TRADITIONALISTS PERSPECTIVE
Traditionalist culture as the middle point between Individualism and Moralism (wtamu.edu). Traditionalists believe in a good government that is necessary to maintain the dominant social religious values, but at the same time, they don’t feel they are part of it, because it consists only of an elite class. Due to this, traditionalists would hardly involve in government issues and policies, even if they affect them like in this case. Most of these traditionalists belong also to some minorities, like African-Americans and Latinos, and paraphrasing the book, the main thing that limits the political influence of these minorities is the low participation in elections. So, if this statement is true, we would see it in reality, and we actually can. “Fewer than 5 million of Texas’ 11 million Hispanics are eligible to vote. That’s only 20 percent of the state population and about 30 percent of all registered voters” (Houston Chronicle).
So which perspective is the best?
This answer is more complex than it seems. Each point of view has positive and negative aspects, so it is very difficult to determine which one is the best. But what we can do is to find which of these political cultures have more influence on the state and therefore which projects or bills are most likely to be well-received in Texas.
In Texas, the majority of the population support conservative ideas, they share a belief in a limited role for government in taxation, economy, and of course, transportation (Maxwell, Crain, Santos. Texas Politics Today, p. 2). Therefore individualist ideas would be stronger and more likely to be accepted not only by population in general, but also by Senate and the House if this type of bills are discussed.
In Texas, the majority of the population support conservative ideas, they share a belief in a limited role for government in taxation, economy, and of course, transportation (Maxwell, Crain, Santos. Texas Politics Today, p. 2). Therefore individualist ideas would be stronger and more likely to be accepted not only by population in general, but also by Senate and the House if this type of bills are discussed.