A Comparative approach to American and Balkan Political Cultures from a romanian perspective

ABSTRACT The American culture has teen constantly placed by both American and foreign scholars in a close relation with the political foundations of that society. Starting with Alexis de Tocqueville, illustrious scientists have emphasized the strength of the civic bond in that culture and its centrality in the development of the American society. These aspects were to be admirably cumulated in the concept of civic culture, as the political culture of democracy, by Gabriel Almond and Sydney Verba in their reputed Civic Culture - Political Attitudes And Democracy In Five Nations. The United States were to be given as an example of a participative political culture and this impression did not change until Robert D. Putnam managed to demonstrate with a metaphor now famous that Americans were more and more 'bowling alone', meaning that the civic bond was loosening. In this paper, I approach these theories from the double perspective of, on one hand, statistical data on similar developments in Romania and, on the other hand, a different understanding of the very word political in the syntagma political culture. Consequently, this thesis aims at studying the results of a different interpretation of indicators of value regarding the American political culture when fundamental concepts involved are judged in substantially modified practical and theoretical contexts.