Politics, Policy, And Culture

This new set of original case studies is designed to offer an empirical counterpart to Cultural Theory (Westview, 1990 ), the landmark statement of political culture theory authored by Michael Thompson, Richard Ellis, and Aaron Wildavsky, and to extend and challenge the analysis developed there. Here, the theoretical concepts laid out in that book

Preface and Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Public Policy -- Ideology, Culture, and Risk Perception -- “This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land”: Cultural Conflict in Environmental and Land-Use Regulation -- Cars and Culture in Munich and Birmingham: The Case for Cultural Pluralism -- Cultural Influences on Policies Concerning Mental Illness -- History -- A Cultural Analysis of Populism in Late-Nineteenth-Century America -- The Social Construction of Slavery -- Cultural Theory and Historical Change: The Development of Town and Church in Puritan New England -- Theory -- Culture, Rationality, and Violence -- Cultural Theory and the Problem of Moral Relativism -- Conceptualizing and Operationalizing Cultural Theory -- The Theory That Would Be King

Dennis J. Coyle is assistant professor of politics at the Catholic University of America. Richard J. Ellis is assistant professor of political science at Willamette University.