Political culture research and culturalist social science : the story of a hesitant rapprochement

Abstract

The article analyzes the relationship between the mainstream of political culture research in political science and the more recent culturalist approaches in other social sciences. The author argues that their closer collaboration is prevented by the fact that the mainstream's positivism cannot be unified with the post-positivism of culturalist approaches.

The rejection of rational choice theory and macro-structural theories is insufficient as a common ground for a synthesis.

Keywords

• political culture
• cultural turn
• rational choice
• political epistemology