Concepts of Political Culture in Polish Political Science

The text presents theoretical problems related to the concepts of political culture raised by political scientists in Poland. Among others, the following questions are posed: Is the concept of political culture cognitively promising enough to be used in situations of its ambiguity? How should the concept of political culture be defined or what scope it should cover? Should it be merely descriptive or value-oriented? In what relations should it remain with the scopes of other concepts (such as politics, political system, culture)? How, by means of distinguishing which types of political culture, should its diversity be presented? How, by means of which methods, should political culture be studied? Answers given to these questions are the subject of this text. In the most general terms, it can be said that the vast majority of researchers are in favour of applying the concept by giving it a descriptive character. As far as the scope of the concept is concerned, four approaches can be distinguished: concepts seeking to narrow down Almond’s approach, concepts that are broader than Almond’s approach but fall within the realm of consciousness (behaviours are not part of the scope of political culture but constitute its indicator), concepts that add behaviours to the elements of consciousness and concepts that include multiple elements and approach or overlap with the scope of “politics”. Several different typologies of political culture have been developed and views on the methods of studying it are diversified.