Contemporary Political Culture Politics in a Postmodern Age

Many dramatic changes have taken place recently in European politics which have neither been predicted nor successfully explained. These changes include the widespread popular reception of "new right" ideas, the success of conservative parties, the decline of consensus politics and corporatist cooperation, and the increasing power of the new media and information systems. Contemporary Political Culture explores these phenomena and concludes that fundamental long-term changes in the contours of European political culture explain the rise of the new politics and recent political events. The contributors re-examine and re-evaluate the concepts of political culture and cultural change in a pioneering application of the theory of postmodernism to Western political behavior and political science. This provocative volume offers a critical analysis of traditional theories, models and accounts of political culture, and--in exploring the changing forms and styles of political activity--an evaluation of the two contending contemporary explanatory models, postmodernism and postmaterialism. A wide-ranging study of contemporary political culture, this volume will be of interest to political scientists and theorists, political philosophers, sociologists, cultural analysts, and media specialists.Gibbins, John R. is the author of 'Contemporary Political Culture Politics in a Postmodern Age' with ISBN 9780803981775 and ISBN 0803981775.