The Formation of the German Political Culture by Institutional Orders

Abstract

Political culture is, as any prevailing orientation for social action, the result of socialization processes through which people learn certain patterns of beliefs, value relationships, and perceptions of social order. Value orientations for political behavior are specified by a general framework of institutions and are developed by experiencing the consequences of institutions. Political culture and political institutions strongly influence each other: Without legitimizing values, institutions cannot prevail, and without institutions, value orientations cannot gain validity. The Federal Republic of Germany began as a “democracy without democrats.” The model of an authoritarian political culture had dominated the Weimar Republic, was poisoned by National Socialism, and delegitimized by the consequences of war. Institutional innovations in the early post-war years that were related to the construction of a democratic order had a strong influence on the German political culture. These innovations were the party-system, federalism, the system of industrial relations, and constitutional justice. The new institutional order was essential for integrating all political elites in a process of complex interest mediation and for providing orientation for the population as a whole. Today, institution-building in a form that preceded socialization processes in a political culture have come to an end, and Germany has become a country with its own characteristics of a basic democratic political culture.

Translated from German with permission from Springer. Original publication: Lepsius MR (1990) Die Prägung der politischen Kultur der Bundesrepublik durch institutionelle Ordnungen. In: Lepsius MR, Interessen, Ideen und Institutionen. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, pp. 63–84. Translated and edited by Claus Wendt, University of Siegen/Germany, wendt@soziologie.uni-siegen.de.