Political Culture in Latvia: Features and Tendencies

All countries where participant political culture exists can reach stable legitimacy. To create such political culture in Latvia the ideology of democracy needs to make more dialogues with individuals, families, educational institutions and of course use mass media to inform society about political processes.
Political scientists use the term political culture to describe people’s psychological orientation. Political culture is a pattern of orientation to political objects such as parties, government, constitution, expressed in beliefs, symbols and values. Political culture differs from public opinion in that it is fashioned out long term values rather than simply people’s reactions to specific policies and problems. However, in Latvia political culture is not the best at all. I think there are three main points, which influence political culture in Latvia: geopolitics, historical experience and electoral system. Latvia is the oriental country, through its history the dominance took totalitarian regime and nowadays proportional electoral system allows parties to make coalitions to defend their own interests and also get more seats in the government. These three features and the fourth – economical crisis – will not well affect political culture in Latvia. It will get worth and worth. But still there is a hope to make dialogues with society using mass media.
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