Measuring Political Culture and Values in Comparative Perspective: Operationalizing Group-Grid Cultural Theory

Abstract

As a means of measuring values and culture, Cultural theory (CT) has enjoyed a remarkable increase in scholarly and public attention in recent years, both within and beyond the United States. At the same time, there remains considerable debate within scholarly circles about a range of issues related to this approach. This panel seeks papers that develop new insights into the measurement, origin and consequences of CT’s core concepts of group and grid affiliation. Some of the important questions that papers might examine include: What is the best way to measure (and conceive of) the core scales identified by CT? How well do these conceptualizations travel across space and over time? How well suited are they to explain conflict and coalition building over the range of contemporary political issues currently debated in the public sphere? To what extent do group and grid affiliations interact with other individual and contextual level characteristics? And how might insights from CT be combined with other approaches to offer a fuller account of politics and political outcomes? Analyzing these questions and others, papers in this panel are based on a variety of conceptualizations and approaches, applied to different political contexts, and make important theoretical, empirical and methodological contributions to the literature on measuring political culture and values.

Title	Details
Operationalizing Cultural Theory in Survey Research: Assessing the Validity of Different Approaches to Conceptualisation and Measurement	View Paper Details
Regional Identities, Culture and Risk: Applying Cultural Theory in Canada	View Paper Details
The Utility of Cultural Theory in Light of the Futility of Social Science?	View Paper Details