ABSTRACT
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND THE CULTURE

OF MODERN DEMOCRACY: A STUDY OF DEVELOPMENTAL
PROCESSES AMONG COSTA RICAN STUDENTS

By

Hugh Montgomery Clark

Socio-economic development is frequently assumed to be associated
with "modernization" of political culture. To examine this proposition
the author gathered questionnaire data from 734 Costa Rican high school
students, in 1958. Respondents were segregated into three groups
according to the level of economic development of region of residence.
The data analysis indicates no consistent support for the assumption
that cultural modernization is associated with economic development in
a continuous way when the former is measured among a relatively elite
(student) population. The relationships which result include both
negative and mildly positive significant relationships of developmental
factors to cultural factors, but for the most part relationships failed
to attain statistical significance.

However, the attempt to explain systematic variations which do
appear, by introduction of control variables produces results which
suggest that socio-economic development is very much related to cultural
modernity, but that the relationship are far more complex than expected.
The striking fact is that the relationships between control variables
(particularly social status and traditionalism of general belief pat-
terns) and a wide-range of dependent variables (political attitudes

generally said to be characteristic of "modern" political cultures

 

—HughLClark_w

including efficacy, trust, etc) do not remain constant among the
regions. That is, the relationships among control and dependent
variable, vary among levels of the independent variable (regional
development), rather than providing an "explanation" of variance
associated with the dependent variable.

The factor "traditionalism" of general cultural belief patterns
appears to provide a partial explanation for the varying relationships.1
In Costa'Rica, the less developed a region, the more culturally tradi-
tional its students. Moreover, to take the most striking example of
this logic it is among highly traditional persons of all regions that
social status has its strongest impact on political attitudes.
Apparently the assumption that status carries with it political
influence, prevails only where stratification remains rigid among
persons who accept a traditional world view, including ascriptive
recruitment criteria.

In short, the impact of socio-economic development is primarily
manifest in its impact on general cultural values, and only secondarily
on political attitudes. Development appears to be a social force
which produces a redefinition of general cultural beliefs as a people
moves from a state of agrarian rural society to that of industrial
metropolitan society. The meaning of social characteristics and
socialization processes across the lines of developmental levels is
not constant. Thus predictions of the political impact of variables
such as social status must be redrawn with the crossing of spatial

or temporal lines of variant development, at least when it is known

“W;

 

Hugh Clark

that traditional belief patterns distinguish the less from the more

developed regions.

 

1David Smith and Alex Inkeles, "The OM Scale: A Comparative
Socio-Psychological measure of Individual Modernity," Sociometry,
(December, 1966), pp. 353-377.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND THE CULTURE
OF MODERN DEMOCRACY: A STUDY OF DEVELOPMENTAL
PROCESSES AMONG COSTA RICAN STUDENTS

By

Hugh Montgomery Clark

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Political Science

1972

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As is true of most social survey studies, the list of adknow-
ledgments which should be made is totally unmanageable. Special thanks
go to my committee for overseeing the work of an obdurate student, and
to Sr. Eugenio Fonseca, Director of the Department of the Sciences of
Han at the University of Costa Rica who provided invaluable on-the-
scene advice. Without the assistance of Sr. Rafael Villegas Antillon,
the study would have been completely impossible. His encouragement

and skillful expediting, very simply, made this work possible.

11

Chapter

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

I 0 INTRODUCTION 0 O O O O O O I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 1

Part I.

Part II.

The Political Cultures of Mbdernity
andDemocraCy..................1

The Relationship of Attitudes to System
Performance

Empirical Evidence

Operationalization and Specification of
Cultural Factors to be Studied: Modern
and Democratic Aspects of Political Culture

Attitudes and Behaviors Related to Political
Participation

Attitudes Toward National Institutions and
Their Components

Behavioral Dimensions of Participation

Attitudes which Establish Parameters of
Legitimate Action

Questionnaire Construction and Administration,
Practical Aspects

The Associations of Socio-Economic Development
With the Growth of the Cultures of Modernity
AndDemocraCYeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee19

Socio—Economic Development as Associated
With Democratic Forms of Modernity

The Within-System Study of variation in
Political Culture

An Alternative Perspective on the Relation-
ship Between Development and Modern
Democratic Culture

Summary

Footnotes, Chapter I

II. COSTA RICA: TRANSITIONAL DEMOCRACY AND RESEARCH SITE. . . 36

Sampling Procedure

The Capital Cities and variation in
Economic Development

Center and Periphery: Explaining Ecological
Correlation with Individual Variables

Summary

Footnotes, Chapter II

iii

AAA-cl'l‘lllll'l'

Chapter Page

III. REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND STUDENT ATTITUDES TOWARD
MODERN FORMS OF POLITICAL BEHAVIOR. . . . . . . . . . . 72

Regional Location and the Culture of
Modern Political Participation

Pre-Citizen Competence and Developmental
Factors

Status

Traditionalism

Socialization Process: Participatory Role
Playing in the Family

Developmental Variables and the Expectation
Of Equal Treatment by Bureaucratic
Authorities

Conclusions

Footnotes, Chapter III

IV. REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND STUDENT ATTITUDES TOWARD
DEMOCRATIC FORMS OF POLITICAL PROCESS . . . . . . . . . 125

Center-Periphery and the Bivariate
Relationship to the Procedural Norms
Of Democracy

Social Status, the Regions, and the
Spread of Democratic Norms

Traditionalism

Participant Role Playing in the Family
And the Development of the norms of
Democracy

Conclusions

Footnotes, Chapter IV

V. CONCLUSIONS: SEVERAL HYPOTHESES AND A NUMBER OF
SPECULATIONS O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 1 57
Changing Environmental Factors and the
Revision of Developmental Theory
Propositions Derived from the Data
Summation
Footnotes, Chapter V
BELImRA-PHY O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 1 7‘

APPmm. O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 187

iv

Table

Table

Table

Table

Table

Table

Table

Table

Table

Table

Table

Table

Table

Table

Table

2.1

2.2

2.3

2.4

2.5

2.6

5-1

3.2
3.3
3.4

3.5

3.6

3.7

3.8

3.9

LIST OF TABLES

Demographic/political characteristics of Costa Rican
Provinces

Rank order average standard deviation from mean and
trichotomous grouping of the seven provincial capitals
on selected indices of socio-economic development

Center-periphery index to social status

Occupation for respondent's father, grandfather and
self, as reported by respondent

Center-periphery dimension to traditionalism index

Centerbperiphery dimension to participant role playing
experiences in family decision making

Gamma coefficients for relationship of center-periphery
regional development index to modern political attitudes

Center periphery to pre-citizen competence
Center~periphery index to expectation of equal treatment

Social status to pre-citizen competence, controlled for
center-periphery index

Traditionalism to pre-citizen competence controlled for
center-periphery index

Social status to traditionalism controlled for center-
periphery dimension

Participant role playing in the family to pre-citizen
competence controlled for centerbperiphery index

Social status to expectation of equal treatment, con—
trolled for centerbperiphery index

Social status to expectation of equal treatment by

page

55
58

61
65

69

76
78
82

94

102

106

110

114

administrative authorities, controlled for traditionalism118

and center-periphery index

page

Table 4.1 Relationship between center-periphery index and
selected procedural norms of democracy 128
Table 4.2 Social status to democratic values, controlled for
centerbperiphery index 135
Table 4.3 Traditionalism to democratic values, controlled
for center-periphery index 139
Table 4.4 Traditionalism to democratic values, controlled
for social status and center-periphery index 142
Table 4.5 Participant role playing in family decisions

to belief that elections ought to be regularly
scheduled, controlled fer center-periphery index 147

Table 4.6 Role playing in family decisions to support for
regular elections, controlled for traditionalism
and centeruperiphery index 149
Table 4.6 (Cont'd) 150

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Political and physical map of Costa Rica 38

vi

CHMPTER I
INTRODUCTION

Part I The Political Cultures
Of Modernity and Democracy

various authors have discussed the notion that there exist
universal cultural prerequisites to democracy. ‘With a number of
specific differences, but with a similar logic among them, scholars
from Hannheim to Lasswell to Pye argue that modern or democratic
behavior presupposes widespread existence of personality traits which
support both the tendency of men to participate in politics and the
reasons (or unconscious inhibitions) for which they moderate their
behavior.1 They argue, with variations in the precise connotations
of the attitudes they are discussing, that both self confidence which
extends into social and political matters, and a pervasive sense of
"faith in others” are necessary components of the "democratic personality."
Mannheim suggests that the cooperative spirit required cannot exist in
the presence of severe status insecurity.2 Pye suggests that generalized
”social trust" is the essential ingredient which enables persons to
act together in the impersonal organizations which are said to be the

3

basis of modern (pluralist) democracy. In turn, Lasswell argues that
the "democratic citizen” must possess an "open ego" which enables him
to relate to others on a basis of trust in their intentions, and to

utilize his potentialities for participation to the fullest degree.4

Conversely, Inkeles argues that the totalitarian man.will have
exaggerated faith in leaders, an uncommon hatred of outsiders and
deviants, "excessive projection of guilt and hostility," suspicion
and distrust, dogmatism and rigidity.5 These are highly complex
psycho-cultural characteristics, and even if the obstacles to survey
research were not so great in totalitarian systems, would be extremely
difficult to cperaticnalize. This is also true of the amorphous concept
"open ego" discussed by Lasswell.

The difficulties with utilization of these concepts as theoretical
undergirdings of the culture of democracy are more than practical, however.
There are at least two fundamental difficulties which must be clarified.
One ought, first, to question whether the norms which these and other
authors have related to democracy in particular, are not more likely
to be related to political modernity in general, regardless of its
specific form, democratic at one extreme and totalitarian at the
other. Furthermore in this respect, one may ask whether the idealized
characteristics of totalitarian and democratic personalities and
cultures discussed by these authors are not strongly related to cold
war mental sets regarding the relative perversity of national enemies,
and not to the essential relationships between institutions and the
human psyche. Secondly, one must consider the fundamental question of
whether it is valid to assume that the study of attitudes and culture
provides any meaningful information about a political system at all.

ThOBO questions require extended consideration.

The Cultures of'nodernity and of Democgggy
A modern political system is characterized by high levels of

individual and group participation in political processes, by high

levels of contact between individuals and the administrative processes
of national regimes, by administrative and elite recruitment processes
which are relatively achievement oriented and impersonal. Thus modern
systems tend also to be characterized by considerable mass political
equality when contrasted with traditional regimes.

Therefore, if one assumes that a population's attitudes must
be roughly consistent with the individual and group behaviors required
for a stable, predictable existence in the institutional setting in
which they live, then a modern polity, (in an institutional sense)
must exist in a cultural milieu which supports individual and group
participation by the maximum number of persons in political affairs.

The democratic variant of the modern political system requires
that political participation take certain forms which avoid extreme
elite domination of masses, and domination of one elite segment over
others to the extent that no competition for the exercise of power
or the expression of opposing political views is possible. That is
the existence of democracy requires that the initiatives of competing
elites and their ability to attain power peacefully by appeal for
mass support, must be protected. In the western experience this has
usually meant an emphasis on choice among competing elites in regular
elections and the protection of the rights of opposition elites to
seek and wield power.

This is the case not only for reasons of what is widely assumed
in the west to constitute "justice,” but more fundamentally because
it is by the maintenance of the openness of the political process
that the democratic version of modern politics serves its function

as a forum or setting in which conflict can be peacefully resolved.

If this image appears a bit idealized, it is nevertheless the approxi-
mate ideal to which most democratic-leaning transitional nations
appear to be striving. This is certainly true in the Costa Rican
Case.

In part, therefore, the culture of democracy in the modern era
must be characterized by an awareness on the part of politically
active sectors of the population that it is necessary for them and
legally constituted authorities to follow established legal procedures
for providing opportunities for challenge from oppositionists by
appeal for mass support.

It is probable that many other factors of a cultural nature are
also necessary to the maintenance of stable modern democracy. Perhaps
the "open ego" discussed by Lasswell, a low level of conceptual
rigidity or dogmatism or other factors more deeply rooted in the
personality than beliefs about desirable and necessary operating pro-
cedures, are also requirements of the fully democratic culture. To
determine the full extent of such factors, however, would involve
research far beyond the more modest scope of this paper, and well
beyond the intent of the author. my intention is more simply, to
examine the relationships between developmental factors and some
cultural factors which we may agree are distinctly democratic in the
Costa Rican context. Thus a pragmatic approach will be followed here
which will focus on the procedural norms of democracy and leave the
more abstract components of the democratic culture to future research.
This approach will also make a general distinction between norms sup-
portive of democratic, and those supportive of modern behaviors.

Admittedhythe distinction is not entirely perfect, for there exists

some overlap between the categories. However it is a useful distinction
for organizing ones thoughts about political culture in transitional
systems.

To take an example of this distinction, we may refer first to
Pye's work. If he is correct in his assertion that social trust is
a necessary cultural ingredient for the operation of impersonal
political organizations on a stable, effective basis, then he has
given a prescription which applies equally well to the success of
parties and bureaucracy in a totalitarian or a democratic system.6
Similarly, if status insecurity is the enemy of political stability
and moderated conflict in a democracy, as Mannheim argues, there is
no reason to assume that it will not also be so in a totalitarian
system.7 Even the belief that the institutions and elites of the
political system.will in some way respond to his needs and expressed
desires, at least in the long run, cannot be without a variant in
the citizen of a totalitarian system unless elites are willing and
able to utilize repression as a constant tactic, or unless the ideology
of self sacrifice for national ends is utterly effective.

In contrast, the belief that the manner in which elite responsive-
ness to mass needs and desires is to be maintained by protection of
the opposition and maintenance of its right to seek power in a non-
violent manner by electoral appeal to mass publics is compatible
only with the democratic style of politics as I have defined it.

To summarize, the culture of modern democracy appears to be
composed of two reasonably distinct elements. Of these, one supports
individual and group participation in the political institutions of

mobilized societies in general. The other establishes parameters

of procedure within which political participation must be conducted.
In short, it defines legitimate political participation and provides
a cultural inertia which helps assure the continuence of democratic
forms of participation.

Objection may be raised to the position that support for the
procedural norms of democracy is a factor of any importance in
maintenance of a democratic system. It is widely known that citizens
of the United States, as a mass, do not show a high frequency of
support for "civil liberties" or the democratic processes I am here
arguing are necessary components of a democratic culture. Yet we
normally consider the United States to be a relatively democratic
system.8

It would seem that firm insistence on the maintenance of these
parameters cannot be expected of the mass public which is unlikely
to be educated in the niceties of self limitation for the common
good. Hewever, if a democracy is to maintain its essential procedures
of peaceful conflict resolution, freedom of speech and press for the
opposition and freedom for the opposition to contest elections, it
would appear that the politically active segments of the population -—
i.e. the middle and upper middle classes of a society in particular -
must be aware of the need for such limitations and insist on their
application. If this elite fails to grasp the essential rules of
the democratic political process, it seems likely that little stability
or durability of those processes can be expected, especially in the
absence of a mass committment to those values.

It is in part for this reason that I am concerned here not with

the attitudes of a mass population, but with those of an elite and

near-elite sample. Thus we are dealing with persons whose conduct
as adults will be crucial to the maintenance of democracy.

Denton maintains that among present elitesin Costa Rica, a
general consensus exists on the norms of democratic process.9 This
agreement was forged in the bloody but decisive victory of the Social
Democrats and their allies in the civil war of 1948, and the subse-
quent consolidation of their gains by the reinforcement of democratic
institutions, disbanding of the national army, and in particular, the
maintenance of democratic elections.

The question, then, is to what extent this elite has been
successful in infusing the socialization process, and‘thus new genera-
tions of elites, with these norms. And to what extent have processes
of socio-economic development enhanced or obstructed their efforts
at not only passing'democratic norms on intergenerationally, but also

extending'them.throughout the more traditional areas of the nation?

The Relationship of Attitudes to System Performance

The second objection.which may be raised to the cultural
approach utilized in this paper is that it may not be valid to
assume that in fact public attitudes have an important influence on
system level functions. The difficulty is that while the logic of
this assumption is quite clear, it is difficult to provide convincing
empirical evidence to demonstrate its validity.

If one conceives of political institutions as sets of customary
and legal parameters in which political participation occurs,then
it is also reasonable to assume that institutional stability can
exist only when behaviors which are consistent with the "structure”

of those institutions characterize the population. ‘without such

consistency either the institutions or the behaviors must change.
Further, unless an exogenous factor such as terror, group pressure

for social conformity, strong tangible incentives, or other external
factor prevents it, attitudes - which are predispositions to react to,
i.e. behave toward, objects in given.ways - will be an important
factor in determining behavior. Taken in the aggregate as ”culture,”
then, attitudes will help shape the mass behaviors which in turn

alter or maintain the institutional forms of a system.

Egpirical Evidence

'Voting studies and other studies based on mass survey research
hare demonstrated rather conVincingly that even in non-laboratory
situations attitudes have an observable influence in shaping individual
behaviors. The American Voter, for example, shows, among other things,
that persons with high scores of "political efficacy" tend to be more
participant in politics than persons with low scores.10 Similarly,
V. O. Key's secondary analysis of much of the SRC data indicates
that a number of attitudes are regularly associated with certain
political behaviors, particularly voting, but also with other types
of political participation.11 These works are exemplary of a host
of materials which hays demonstrated relationships among opinions,
attitudes and behaviors.12

fibre problematic is the relationship which attitudes bear to
the functioning of total political systems. The major work to date
which brings empirical evidence to bear on this question is the
inic Culture.13 In that work the authors designate five nations,

on a priori grounds, as democracies. Subsequently they examine the

mass attitudes, or "political cultures," which are associated with
such systems. In many ways this is an informative design, but it
cannot be said to provide a logical demonstration that similar systems
could not exist with other sets of attitudinal configurations, or
that dissimilar watems could not exist with precisely the same atti-
tudinal characteristics. Even from an inductive perspective, their
work cannot be taken to be a satisfying "proof” that the cultural
characteristics studied are actually necessary conditions for the
existence of the particular structures and styles of politics of
democratic systems. The sample is simply too small and too western.14

On the other’hand, however, neither can one say that their
results are inconsistent with the assumption that there must exist
rough ”congruence" or consistency between institutions and political
cultures to maintain stability of either. Thus, if this assumption
cannot easily be accepted as definitive or entirely valid, neither
need it be rejected out of hand. Rather, given the inherent logic of
the arguments supporting it, one may well wish to elaborate upon it
and in.the meantime utilize it for'heuristic purposes under the
assumption that such usage will ultimately expose its strengths or
weaknesses indirectly by resulting in correct or incorrect predictions
of system level change.

Despite the lack of any perfect evidence to indicate that the
assumption of cultural and institutional congruence is valid, the
belief that cultural attributes must bear an important relationship
to system structure and process is so compelling that students of
political culture as renown and diverse as‘Msnnheim, Lasswell,

Eckstein, and Brinton have suggested that certain attitudes, sets

10

of attitudes, or distributions of attitudes, are a §_i_1_1_e_ qua Egg of
democracy or stable political systems of other types.15 While their
work has been largely nonpempirical, some researchers have utilized
quantitative technique to investigate the relationships involved.
An appropriate example is the work of Goldrich relating legitimacy
orientations of pre-elites in Panama and Costa Rica to the levels of
political stability in those nations in the 1960's.16 Mere recently,
in another study dealing with the attitudes of youth, Inglehart and
Abramson have examined the relationship of system affect in children
to the nature of symbols of national executive power, suggesting
implicitly a causal loop in which the attitudes which support the
maintenance of such institutions, also are in part a product of them.17
Thus some researchers other than Almond and Verba have utilized the
assumptions in question to useful purpose.

One means utilized by many researchers to reduce the risk
that the attitudes under study bear no real relationship to the
political system is the concentration on elites. Thus Goldrich
studied the "Sons of the Establishment” of Costa Rica and Panama.18
LeVine has examined only the Amhara of Ethiopia.19 Pye has dealt
only with the elites of the bureaucracy and parties of Burma.20
The study of such a select group of a population limits the scope of
a study to be sure, but it also gives additional confidence that the
attitudes or cultural attributes of the sample studied are in fact
related to the operations of the political system. In the present
study it will be assumed that the attitudes of the Costa Rican elite
and near elite are a significant force in shaping their individual

behavior and that their behavior in turn is influential in shaping

11

the actions of others and in maintaining or reshaping the "structures"
of politics.

Operationalization and Specification of Cultural

Factors to be Studied: ‘Modern and Democratic

Aspects of Political Culture

The final sets of dependent variables selected for study are
listed in Figure 1.1. With two exceptions, the variables listed
under the category of attitudes related to political participation
are fully compatible with the structures and processes of totalitarian
systems, as previously argued. The exceptions to this rule are pre-
citizen competence and trust of the political parties.

Pro-citizen competence is here defined operationally as the
belief that one can have an impact on the decisions of public officials,
particularly in the case of disagreement with a policy they are consider-
ing.21 Thus it assumes real lines of access to decisional processes
on the part of persons of the status of these students. Few democratic
systems could be expected to fully meet the institutional ideal in
this regard. However, a totalitarian system would presumably militate
against it, meeting the need for feedback from the public in other
ways.

The second exception is "partisan trust," or the belief that
the political parties can be trusted not to endanger the country.
Certainly a totalitarian system would require an analogous form of
public confidence in the capabilities and intent of the single party
which is typically a characteristic of such systems. However, this
attitude would be of a different order than the one discussed here
which allows for selective distrust of one or more of the several

major political parties.22

12

A. Attitudes and Behaviors Related to Political Participation23

l. Attitudes toward self assertive political and social actions
of self and others

a. pre-citizen competence

b. sense of personal effectiveness

c. generalized social trust

2. Attitudes toward system institutions and components

a. assessment of the general beneficiality of national
government

b. trust of politicians to be honest and to work for
the general wellbeing of the nation

c. trust of the political parties not to endanger the
country

d. expectation of equal treatment by administrative
officials
3. Behavioral dimensions of participation

a. interest in and attention to political news
b. political knowledge score

B. Parameters of Legitimate Participation
1. Democratic values in general (support for free speech
for the opposition, regular elections, universal suffrage,

free opposition press)

2. Government should not be allowed to postpone elections
regardless of how good a job it may be doing

With this introduction to the general themes to be examined
here, it will be useful to examine the dimensions of the modern
democratic political culture, as I have defined it operationally,
in more detail.

1. Attitudes and behaviors related to political participation
and modern political behavior in general: Self assertive
political and social actions of self and others

The components of one's view of himself as a participant in

the political life of a nation include a sense of political

13

effectiveness and a more generalized sense of personal effectiveness.
The former dimension is an adaptation from the subjective competence
scale of Almond and Verba.24 Because that scale is related to adult
political roles, the respondents in my study, being all students,
were asked to imagine themselves in their future adult roles as
political participants, and to guage the likely nature and effect

of their political behavior at that time. The result was a series
of items which combined by the method suggested by Ford into a

satisfactory Guttman scale with r a 94.9.25

Unfortunately, for
practical reasons adequate pre-testing was not possible, and in the
final tabulation, the projective questions proved too difficult for
about 40-45% of the sample to answer. However, the inability to

answer the questions posed is unrelated to the primary independent
variable (level of socio—economic development of region of residence),
and thus appears to have had little distorting effect on the final
results. It does, however, limit the scope of data analysis by
limiting the number of cases available to work with in several instances
in which further analysis might have been useful.

It is clearly important to study attitudes of political competence,
for this dimension, or a variant such as "efficacy," have been widely
reported to be positively related to levels of political participation.26

With regard to the second variable under consideration, sense
of personal effectiveness, one would be hard pressed to support the
contention that political behavior would be strongly related to its
scale scores, since many variables intervene between such a general

attitude and specific political behaviors. Yet the authors of the

American voter have shown that this general sense of personal effectiveness

14

is related to political efficacy which is in turn related to political
participation.27

moreover, it is desirable, in dealing with a youthful sample
especially, not to confine oneself to the study of variables which,
like pre-citizen competence, are directly political in the sense
that they relate to specific political actions and specific political
institutions. Rather, one ought to look beyond them and examine
attitudes which have less specific referents and are more "central"
to the personality structure. Broadening the concept in this way
helps to free the variable from the problem of being bound to
specific objects such as political institutions toward which one's
views and feelings may change with the experiences of adult roles.
Thus examination of such a general variable gives an opportunity to
examine an attitude which is less likely than the more specific pre-
citizen competence to change with the assumption in the near future
of adult roles by the respondents in the sample used here.

A series of four items was used to tap this dimension. The
items were adapted from the Minnesota Multi-phasic Personality
Inventory items. They combined into a satisfactory Guttman scale
according to the method suggested by Ford, with a coefficient of
reproducibility of 91.4.28

Both of the above variables are supportive of political activity.
Yet, as has been pointed out several times, participation alone does
not constitute modern political behavior. A moderate style of
politics is also required, a style which maintains nonaviolent,
stable processes of conflict resolution. Pye's caution should be

recalled, that high participation.without substantial social trust

15

is likely to lead to severe conflict.29 Moreover such attitudes of
trust can be assumed to comprise part of the general feeling of
tolerance which is surely as essential to the maintenance of the
rights of minorities and oppositionists as the procedural guarantees

discussed previously.

2. Attitudes toward national institutions and their components

As Goldrich points out, the attitudes of elites, including
young elites, toward the legitimacy of political institutions is
a critical factor in determining the continuation or loss of political
stability.30 One way to examine the attitudes of young elites
toward the institutions and personnel of national institutions is
to ask them whether they consider the "government of the Republic"
to be generally beneficial or not. Also, it is well to continue
with questions regarding major specific components of the national
regime, for the national government may receive support as a.matter
of national feeling despite waning confidence. In this case I have
examined the respondent's attitudes toward ”politicians" and toward
the political parties. Can the politicians be trusted to be honest
and to work in behalf of the general welfare (bienestar)? Can the
parties be trusted not to endanger the country? (For the latter
dimension each party is examined separately and the scores summarized
in an index score).

While students of survey research have come to expect a certain
amount of public cynicism about parties and politicians, it would
seem important that such cynicism.not be excessive, nor that it
lead to questionning of the legitimacy of the national regime itself.

For if this were to occur, it would become impossible to maintain

16

stable political operations for a long period of time without coercion
of a public which had lost its confidence in the government. Ehre-
over, it would appear important that where cynicism does exist, that
it be distributed in a fairly random manner, not systematically
among the regions of the country or other social groups. For a
systematic distribution of trust of governmental agents to arise
would indicate signs of developing regional or group conflict.
Finally, the citizen does not most regularly relate to the
input side of governing processes in a direct experiential way, but
with the administrative or output side. Thus it is of some importance
to examine one of the most critical of beliefs about modern administra-
tive agencies: Does the respondent expect equal treatment? Or does
he anticipate favorable or unfavorable discrimination? And when
expectation of unequal treatment does exist, is it systematically
concentrated in the less developed areas of a country? One item is

used for this purpose.

5. Behavioral dimensions of participation

Under the final category of cultural characteristics related
to participation of a general nature are two behavioral dimensions
directly related to the "interest" and "information" dimensions of
Inkeles' modernity schema previously discussed. Does the respondent
pay attention to political news? Is he interested in it? Can he
answer several simple questions about national politics, including
the naming of several present and past cabinet official and a
presidential candidate, and the terms of office of the president

and legislators? The "interest and attention” dimension is a simple

17

additive index of two items. The political knowledge score is a
composite score of the respondent's ability to answer the five questions
posed.
4. Attitudes which establish the parameters of legitimate
political action

These dimensions have been substantially discussed on previous
pages, and that discussion require little reiteration here. Suffice
it to say that democracy as I have defined it, requires an ability
of the general populace to exert control over the selection of elites,
usually by means of elections. ‘Moreover, it requires that real choice
be available, a requirement which necessitates guarantees of free
expression and electoral participation by the opposition. Thus a
general index of democratic values was constructed based upon freedoms
of speech and press and the nature of elections as regular and universal
in participation. Because the maintenance of regular elections became
the critical issue which sparked the 1948 civil war, and is such a
crucial factor in the establishment of democratic processes in much
of Latin.America, the item dealing with regular elections is also
reported separately from the index of democratic values of which it

is a part.

Questionnaire Construction and Administration,_Practical Aspects
Because time for pre-testing was severely limited for practical
reasons (ending of the school year), I could not hope to develop an
extensive number of original items to test these many dimensions.
Consequently, I relied for about 8Q% of the questions on survey

items which had previously been used in major surveys, and had

18

been protested and used in Spanish. Especially useful sources were
Almond and verba's Civic Culture questionnaire and the questionnaire
used by Goldrich in his Sons of the Establishment.31

When translation was necessary, it was provided by two bilingual
persons and later checked by observers, including two Costa Rican
sociologists, also bilingual. Finally, the items were subjected to
a brief pre-test in a student sample to determine clarity and discrimi-
natory powers.

The questionnaire was a closed response, paper and pencil
instrument, and in general posed no problems to the students who are
accustomed to mass testing procedures. The cooperation of the students
and their instructors was exemplary.

Administration to the final sample was conducted by the author
with a Costa Rican assistant, or by one of us alone. Comparison of
results of situations in which only one of us was present, indicates
that no differences were observable which were related to my presence.
We were assigned regular class hours to administer the questionnaire.
Administration required about thirty minutes. A uniform introduction
was read to each group before they began completing the questionnaire.
The sample will be described in a later section in full, but it is

totally comprised of high school seniors.

CHAPTER I

Part II The Association of Socio-Economic
Development with the Growth of The
Cultures of Modernity and Democracy

Modern industrial societies rely upon mass mobilization for
economic success. By contrast, traditional societies were based on
the cultural parochialism and social isolation of the masses, and
thus maintained socially static populations dominated by small, but
politically and socially active and powerful elites. The plantation
economies based on mono-cultural export or subsistence. agriculture
'which characterized much of traditional Latin America, made it
possible for very small segments of society to consolidate economic
and political control of the nations. One aspect of this pattern of
power was the great social difference between classes which resulted
from.the patterns of ownership and production. The latter required
either large scale ownership or manual labor. Except insofar as the
Church and the military provided such positions, relatively few
persons who could be called "middle class” in status could exist in
such a milieu.

The glacial shift of investment, and therefore labor, from
mono-culturally based export and subSistence agriculture and from
mining, toward diversified forms of commerce, toward the fabrication
for and sale in internal markets of industrial goods, toward services,

and toward prior processing of raw materials to be exported, has

19

20

begun to change these patterns fundamentally in Latin America.
Increasing economies of the area have attained a stage of transition
in which agriculture remains dominant, but in.which its dominance
is decreasing. (This is certainly the case in Costa Rica as will
be demonstrated in the following chapter.)

The result of such a process is not inevitably the demise of
an economy dominated by traditional elites, in terms of ownership
at least, as the Brazilian, Japanese, and even Costa Rican examples
make clear.32 In those cases a common pattern has been the transfer
of wealth garnered in traditional economies into modern industry with
somewhat successful maintenance of many traditional social patterns
of social status and deference. However, it is also quite clear
that the growth of industry in the modern era means also the growth
of what Johnson calls the "middle sectors."35 The middle sector is
an amorphous population grouping consisting of both manual and non-
manual elements with the common characteristic that they are not tied
to the land and have some marketable skills.34 With the growth in
numbers and prosperity of this group, and with the increasing depend-
ence of modern owners on its managerial and productive skills, it
has come, Johnson argues, to dominate the political realities of
many Latin American nations still in transition to modernity. (That
is not to say, of course, that this group is itself unified).

Thus, even where millions remain unemployed, or are involved
in traditional occupations, the structure of society is changing in

basic ways. The rural, isolated, non-industrial, subservient life
style is passing, and the modal social characteristics are becoming

urban residence and dependence on the vicissitudes of an industrializing

21

economy heavily controlled by the actions of government (and foreign
investors) rather than on the fortunes of an agricultural economy
determined by deity, fate, or, more likely, the local "patron."

Deutsch, in his seminal work on the dynamics of social mobiliza-
tion and political development, makes the interaction between these
processes of socio-economic development and cultural change a central
theme.35 In that work, he argues that modernization may be considered
the process of destruction of old cultural forms and their replacement
by cultural attributes related to the social and technological
processes characteristic of the industrial, mobilized society. To
the extent that the traditional economic processes are maintained,
traditional sets of opportunities for employment, social relations,
and communications are all maintained. Economic deveIOpment, in
short, not only affects the structure of socio-economic power by
altering patterns of control, but also sets the parameters of opportunity
in which new cultural norms are formed by socially active persons.
In sum, the opportunities and socializing experiences which undergird
a culture are themselves in a process of change during economic
transformation.

But what evidence of an empirical nature exists to support
the assertions offered here? Fortunately, substantial evidence has
been provided by a number of authors.

Inkeles has demonstrated that as opposed to control groups
who lacked such experience, factory workers, or persons involved
in similar roles structured by the needs of a modern economy, increase
substantially in the "modernity" of their attitudes in a given time

36

period. ‘Horeover, this finding is consistent among the six nations

22

he studied, indicating substantial cross cultural validity for the
hypothesis.

Lerner, in his classic, The Passinggof Traditional Society,
demonstrates that "empathy" is related to several (independent)
variables which represent aspects of socio—economic development,

37

such as media exposure, literacy and other variables. Empathy

is a major factor involved in the development of a peculiarly modern
set of perspectives on life, he finds, especially with regard to
awareness of the world, including the political world, beyond the
traditional village and family and one's potential to take part in
it.

Hie, Powell and Prewitt, in a recent reanalysis of the gizig_
Culture five nation data, have also demonstrated that persons they
designate as being modern in social type (middle class and belonging
to formal organizations) tend to be substantially more ”modern" in
their behaviors and in many cases in their attitudes, than persons
of other social characteristics.38 Thus insofar as socio-economic
development implies the growth of the middle class and of the properb
tion of persons who belong to various secondary groups, the culture
will modernize as development procedes.39

Rogers has conducted a study similar in design to my own
which has shown an association between economic development and
cultural norms. Comparing several Colombian villages which vary
substantially in scores of development measured with aggregate data,
he finds that the respondents in each of the towns manifest distinctive
patterns of attitudes, depending’on the level of development of the

town in which they reside.40 He argues that the varied environments

23

provide differing experiences among the towns, particularly with
respect to experiences with communications, and that such varied
experiences lead to differing attitudes.

There appears then, to be ample evidence that one can expect
variance in a number of attitudinal dimensions related to political
modernity in general, according to differences in level of socio-
economic development.

Socio-Economic Development as Associated With
Democratic Forms of Modernity

However, if the question of the develoPment of "modern” attitudes
has received substantial attention from empirical researchers, the
related question of the simultaneous development of a "culture of
democracy" with economic development has received scant attention,
though some work has been done which is indirectly related to the
question and which will suggest the approach to be followed here.

Lipset and Outright have both shown that some correspondence
exists between levels of economic development and democratic institup
tions, an association.which suggests a similar relationship of develop-
ment to democratic cultures.41 The most thorough critic of their work
has been Reubauer. He acknowledges that relatively democratic systems
tend to be developed economically.42 However, this association is,
he argues, only of the grossest sort. It appears to him to involve
the creation of the basic infrastructure needed to provide for minimal
levels of mass participation in politics, and for a mobilized papulation.
In short, socio-economic development makes mass democracy possible in
that it provides the facilities for it and the mobilised populations

which may utilize it.43 By the same logic, however, its result is

24

not necessarily democratic, but simply modern. The direction a
system.may take toward a totalitarian or democratic model of modernity,
he argues, depends largely on elite choices. Referring to the leaders
of the transitional systems, he points out that they ”are free to
choose from a variety of alternatives, their form of organizations."44
Neubauer's own research shows that within a sample of democratic
nations only, that differences in levels of development are not
generally associated with "degrees of democratic performance."45 The
only variable on which he obtains a significant correlation with
democratic performance, is "communications;"46 In short, once it

has decided upon a democratic form of politics, an elite will not
automatically be able to expect that the nation will become more
democratic with every subsequent increase in the level of development
after the initial infrastructure of social communication and interaction
has been laid.

If Lipset's and Cutright's arguments had been correct, the level
of development ought to have been associated with degrees of democracy
as well as with gross differences in democracy and non-democracy. The
fact that Reubauer has found that it is not generally so associated
suggests a need to be quite cautious in constructing hypotheses
relating development to democratic cultures in the present work.
However, it does not indicate that such relationships are not to be
expected.

First, Heubauer does report a substantial relationship between
communications facilities and democratic performance, as noted above.
Thus to the extent that the index of internal developmental differences

in use in the present study reflects the degree to which communication

25

occurs between the most developed and least developed areas of the
country a relationship may be expected. Furthermore, Neubauer

has dealt only with international variation among systems, not with
intrapnational differentiation. Where the latter is the case, it

seems to me, one may extend Reubauer's logic to suggest that elites
will take advantage of improving communications facilities to extend
the norms of democracy, which they have already effectively established
in an institutional sense in central areas, to the less developed

areas of the nation.

The Costa Rican elite seems committed to this type of extension
of democratic participation and belief. In 1953 universal suffrage
was introduced. Since then a system of universal registration through
the census bureau has been deve10ped. Programs to register persons
in the rural areas for voting purposes and to make polling places
accessible to them continue. Furthermore, the Supreme Tribunal of
Elections conducts regular sessions in the roles of democratic

47

citizenship in the public schools. Moreover its support for the
abstract idea of democracy was demonstrated in the civil war of
1948 and subsequent events, as noted earlier.

At a later stage of analysis, then I shall hypothesize that
given the apparent committment of elites to democratic styles of
politics, that one may expect the developmental differences among the
regions of Costa Rica to result in differing levels of support for
the procedural norms of democracy simply because the ability of the
elites to communicate such norms in the peripheral areas is relatively

limited, and because traditional authoritarian norms which may

militate against acceptance of such norms are likely to continue

2:

to exist in these areas. (These hypotheses will be further specified

and examined below in chapter four).

The'Within~System Study of variation in Political Culture

Although I am dealing in this study with only one nation,
the literature which is concerned with the sorts of problems of
interest to me here has most often been comparative between nations,
not comparative between regions of a single nation. How well do the
notions of mobilization and culture change lend themselves to the
study of within nation differences?

Linz, discussing regional differences in Spain, argues that
many of the political and cultural differences in Spain can be
accounted for by reference to theories such as mobilization-
development theory, usually applied to intersystem comparison.48
Although the political, economic and cultural differences among
regions of a single nation are likely to be less than differences
among’nations, they may nevertheless be substantial, particularly
when a nation is in a period of transition.

Lerner has observed that nations may be characterized as divided
between "center" and "periphery."l Center and periphery, according
to his usage, are distinguished according to several criteria including
extent of power and level of development. While the terms need not
necessarily refer to geographic entities, one reference, and the one
I shall employ here, is to regional differences in developmental
levels.

If one applies the center-periphery terminology to characterize

the spread of socio-economic development, he makes the implicit

27

suggestion that development has an epicenter from which lines of
influence flow or diffuse. This is an intuitively satisfying notion
not only for understanding diffusion processes on a world scale, but
also on an intra—national scale when development begins in a mono-
centric way as it has in most areas of Latin America including Costa
Rica.

Within nation differences in transitional societies thus carry
two implications (at least) for the researcher: They will often
enable him to rank-order regions on a developmental continuum in
order to test hypotheses utilizing "developmental level" as a continuous
variable; They imply a dynamic situation in which peripheral areas
are growing toward or changing in the direction of, the present state
of the central areas. The comparison of center and periphery on
the basis of relative levels of development, therefore, is theoretically
similar to a comparison of a single region over time, and thus a source
of prediction of the future conditions of the periphery, though not
of the center, which lacks a "future" reference point. Although a
host of exogenous variables ranging from.race-related sub-cultural
differences to economic failures many render such predictions highly
tenuous, some cautious speculations about the specific case may be
made.

An Alternative Perspective on the Relationship
Between Development and Modern Democratic Culture

Although it is an assumption made by most authors in the field
of development related research, are we justified in assuming that the
relationships between developmental factors and attitudes remain

constant through space and time? Despite the fact that most authors

28

simply do not consider this issue, the assumption is likely to prove
oversimplified at best.

The process of development is nowhere very uniform, even within
societies. With respect to processes of communications, for example,
the reliance of recipients of messages on a mediating, interpreting
authority to validate (or invalidate) media messages is likely to be
greater in the more traditional areas of a nation where word of mouth
communication and traditional authority figures continue to play a
more central role in social life.49 Thus the impact of a given unit
of media exposure in a traditional area is likely to be quite different
than in a more modern area, though without a knowledge of the pre-
conditions into which the communication was introduced, one could not
predict the nature of the difference.

Another example of the probability of differing consequences of
the introduction of influences of the industrial society is provided
by the variable, social status. His and his colleagues have argued
that one factor in developmental change is the increase in sheer
size of the middle class.50‘ The conclusion to be drawn from this
is that as the number of persons holding'middle class characteristics
increases with development, the culture of a political system "modernizes."
Yet the increasing size of the middle class involves not only changes in
sheer numbers, but also changes in the relationships among status groups.

The nee-feudal patronal system which continues even in its decline
to dominate subsistence and plantation agriculture in many parts of
Latin.America, implies a relationship of control and subservience
between higher and lower status groups. The growth of a middle class,

however, suggests the passing of this relationship and the rise of a

29

greater equality of power potential between the status groups. The
variable "social status" would thus become a less important source of
differentiation among people as development progressed. Unionization
movements and a trend toward dependence of industry on skilled labor
might be expected to have similar effects.

Frequently, then, in developmental research we may be dealing
with time continua across which predictions from one social or
psychological variable to another do not remain constant. When this
is the case, then, we must conceive of regions or nations at varied
levels of development as having not only differences in the proportions
of given characteristics in their populations, but also differences in
the impact that those characteristics may have. This view implies
that societies at varied levels of develOpment must be seen as rather
discrete units which are to be characterized not only in terms of
their aggregate characteristics, but also in terms of the relationships
among those characteristics.

In the case of the study of within nation differences, these
considerations may become even more complex because of the fact that
the institutions of national government are likely to be reasonably
uniform throughout a nation, at least legally. Yet the socialization
processes underlying participation in those institutions may differ
widely among areas which are very different in developmental level,
despite the unifying effects of growing national governments. Thus
the role of "participant" may be filled in different areas by persons
of differing backgrounds and experiences. In short, despite differing
attitudes, motivations, and social characteristics, the behaviors which

appear to be consequent to those factors (e.8. voting) may be fairly

30

constant, for they are in fact structured by the institutions of a
single national government.

Finally, the factor of reaction to change may befoul the notion
that the most educated and prestigious segments of society will also
tend to be most receptive to new ideas. While that is a common
prediction, the response of such groups to innovation in the political
sphere depends in part on the degree to which the innovation is threaten-
ing to the established position of such elite groups. Potentially
this factor could have the effect of reversing the predictions offered
by the lie hypothesis discussed earlier, in areas in which middle and
upper status groups of society find change threatening, despite the
fact that such persons may be most likely to be exposed to such ideas.

To some extent, therefore, as societies modernize they become
characterized by attitudes characteristic of modern cultures. However,
that phenomenon may often be more a halting development of new systems
of interaction among variables than a continuous and coinciding growth
of economic and cultural modernity. The primary difficulty of introducing
such a concept into the discussion of the relationship between develop-
ment and political culture is that it makes prediction of the attitup
dinal consequences of given levels of development virtually impossible,
at least in the short run, for it suggests that regions at each level
of development must be treated as separate entities. In sum, it
suggests that developmental level is not a continuous variable at all,

but rather a set of discrete categories with little in common.

m
In general, one may anticipate that with the development of

an industrial economy will come also the growth of a culture of

31

modernity. Furthermore when elites are committed to the extension
of democracy within their system, continued economic development

will enhance their ability to spread the norms of democracy, for they
will provide facilities for communication and interaction, and will
tend to destroy the pro-existing tendencies toward authoritarian
cultural patterns and social isolation. Within national systems,
such variation may be evident among*regions which differ in levels

of development.

It must also be considered possible that the interbregional
differences anticipated.will not appear but that the data will
demonstrate that the developmentally different regions actually
differ primarily in terms of the relationships among variables which
occur within them. In such a case developmental level could not be
said to be without effect. Yet neither would its impact on the
bivariate relationship between development and attitudes which
remains the core issue of this research, be predictable without a
very detailed knowledge of local variations in society and culture.

Thus where such differences are evident - and they in fact do
become a fundamental theme -— an opportunity will be provided not
only to reject the general hypothesis that with development increase
both the modernity and democratic tendencies of a political culture,
but also to attempt to develop alternative explanations of the rela-
tionship between development and political culture. However, that
task is best left to the stage of data analysis. The prior task is
the demonstration of processes of, and regional differences in,
development in the Costa.Rican setting. I shall turn to that task in

the chapter which follows.

CHAPTER I

FOOTNOTES

1Karl Mannheim, Freedom, Power and Democratic Planning (New York:
Oxford university Press, 1950), pp. 200-203 and 230-232.

Harold Lasswell, The Political Writings of Harold Lasswell (New
York: The Free Press, 1951), pp. 495-514.

Lucian w. Pye, Politics, Personality and Nation Building (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), pp. 51—55.

2Mannheim, Freedom, Power and Democratic Planning, pp. 200-203.
3Pye, Politics,gPersonalitypand Nation Building, pp. 50-55.
4Lasswe11, Political Writings of Harold Lasswell, pp. 495-496.

5Alex Inkeles, "Participant Citizenship in Six Developing
Countries," American Political Science Review,_December, 1969, p. 1123.

6Pye,nglitics. Personality and Nation Building, pp. 51-55. Pye,
in fact, makes a similar argument.

7Mannheim, Freedom,gPower and Democratic Planning, pp. 200-205
and 250-232. Also Inkeles discusses this point at length in: Inkeles,
”Participant Citizenship in Six Developing Countries,” pp. 1121-1123.

8Berelson, Bernard, et a1., VOting (Chicago: university of
Chicago Press, 1954), pp. 305-326.

9Charles F. Denton, Patterns of Costa Rican Politics (Boston:
Allyn-Bacon, 1971), p. a.

10Angus Campbel et a1., The American'Voter, (Abridged ed.; New
‘York: 'Wiley, 1964), p. 58.

11V. 0. Key, Public Opinion and American Democracy (New York:
Alfred Knopf, 19657:fpp. 182-206.

128cc for example the use of attitudes as intervening variable
between developmental factors and political participation in five
cultures in: Norman H. Nie et a1., "Social Structure and Political
Participation: Developmental Relationships, Part I," American
Political Science Review, June 1969, pp. 561-378, especially p. 565.
1156: iNorman‘H:iNie et a1., "Social Structure and Political Parti-
cipation: Developmental Relationships, Part II," American Political
Science Review, September, 1969, pp. 808-832, especially p. 811.

 

 

32

35

13Gabriel Almond and Sydney verbs, The Civic Culture (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1963).

14Almond and verba studied samples from the united Kingdom, the
United States, Germany, Italy and Hexico. They did not, for example,
consider the possibility that a unique set of cultural attributes
different from the civic culture may be required for the stable,
successful functioning in a culture which in the pre-modern era was
highly authoritarian, or in which present elites are committed for
nonpcultural reasons to the establishment of institutions of collective
decision making which are not of the legislative nature their political
competence scale seems to assume.

lsflarry Eckstein, Division and Cohesion in Democracy (Princeton:
Princeton university Press, 1966). Crane Brinton, The Anatomy of
Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1957). especially pp. 53-54.
Mannheim, Freedom, Power and Democratic Planning. Lasswell, Thg_
Political writings of Harold Lasswell.

16Daniel Goldrich, Sons of the Establishment (Chicago: Rand
Nblally, 1966).

17Paul R. Abramson and Ronald Inglehart, ”The Development of
Systemic Support in Four Western Democracies,” Comparative Political
Studies, January, 1970, pp. 405-418.

18

 

Goldrich, Sons of the Establishment, pp. 1-6.

19Donald H. Levine, "Ethiopia, Identity, Authority and Realism,"
in Lucian Pye and Sydney verbs, eds., Political Culture and Political
Development.(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), pp. 247-
249.

20Pye, Politics, Personality and Nation Building, particularly
part‘v, pp. 211-284.

21This concept is derived from the work of Almond and Verbs on
”citizen competence' among adults. See Almond and verba, The Civic
Culture, pp. 214-229. The items as adapted from their work appear in
full here in Appendix A, listed under "Pre-Citizen Competence,"
Pm 1‘0

22

See Appendix A, Part 2.c.
23See Appendix A for a list of all items used to construct these
indices and scales. The reader will note that this list is composed
of themes developed by other authors. It is heavily dependent on
the following: Inkeles, "Participant Citizenship in Six Developing
Countries,”: Almond and verbs, The Civic Culture: Goldrich, Sons of
the Establishment.

24Almond and verbs, The Civic Culture, p. 231, footnote no. 1.

34

25Robert N. Ford, "A Rapid Scoring Procedure for Scaling Attitude
Questions," Public Opinion Quarterly, Fall, 1950, pp. 507-532.

26A striking example of the significance of this attitudinal
variable in developmental research is given in: Norman R. Nie et a1.,
"Social Structure and Political Participation: Developmental Relation-
ships, I," American Political Science Review, June, 1969, p. 811.

27Angus Campbell, et a1., The American Voter (New York: John
Wiley, 1960), p. 517.

28The items used are similar to those used by the Survey Research
Center in 1956 and 1960. See John P. Robinson and Phillip R. Shaver,
Measures of Social P chological Attitudes (Ann Arbor, Institute for
Survey Research, 1969 . Originally they were adapted for the Costa
Rican student study from: F. Barron, "An Ego Strength Scale Which
Predicts Response to Psychotherapy," pp. 226-234; George S. Welsh and
W. Grant Dahlstrom, eds., Basic Reading on the MMPI in Psychology and
Medicine.

29Pye, Politics, Personality and Nation Building, pp. 125-51-55.

5OGoldrich, Sons of the Establishment, p. 10.

slIbid, pp. 104-125. Also: Almond and verbs, The Civic Culture,
pp. 526-549.

éZSamuel Z. Stone, Los Cafepgleros: Une Etude des Planteurs /
de Cafe au Costa Rica. These de Doctorat du Troisieme Cycle Presents
devant la Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines. Université de
Paris, 1968, especially p. 142. Seymour M. Lipset, "Values, Education
and Entrepreneurship," in Seymour M. Lipset and Also Solari, eds.,
Elites in Latin America, (new York: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp.
13-14. Robert E. Ward, "Japan: The Continuity of Medernization," in
Pye and Verba, eds., Political Culture and Political Development,
DP. 27‘820

33John Johnson, Political Change in Latin America, (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1958), pp. 1-14.

34Ibid.

35Karl‘w. Deutsch, "Social Mobilization and Political Development,"
American Political Science Review, September, 1961, pp. 493-514.

36Inkeles, "Participant Citizenship in Six Developing Countries,"
pp. 1130-1138 and 1141.

37Daniel Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society (new York:
The Free Press, 1964).

38Nie et a1., ”Social Structure and Political Participation,
Developmental Relationships, Part I.," pp. 366-378,

35

39Ibid.

4OEverett'M. Rogers et a1., Duffusion of Innovation Research
Department, No. 2, "Opinion Leadership in Traditional and Modern
Colombian Communities," (October 1964), mimeo, Department of Com-
munications, Michigan State University.

41Seymour'M. Lipset, "Some Social Requisites of Democracy:
Economic Development and Political Legitimacy," in Charles F. Cnudde
and Deane E. Neubauer, eds., Empirical Democratic Theory(Chicago:
Markham, 1969), pp. 151-192. Phillips Outright, "National Political
Development: Measurement and Analysis," in Ibid., pp. 193-209.

42Deane E. Neubauer, "Some Conditions of Democracy," in Ibid.,
pp. 224-235. Neubauer points out that although Outright does not
explicitly state that his work is a study of democracy, his measures
of "development" amount to an operational definition of development
as democratic development.

43;y;g,, p. 232.
44;p;g., p. 233.
45lpig., pp. 229-230.
452239,, p. 231.

47Interview with Sr. Rafael Villegas Antillon, attorney and
"vigilador" for the Supreme Tribunal of Elections, August 18, 1968.

48Juan J. Linz and Amando de Miguel, "Within Nation Differences
and Comparisons: The Eight Spains," in Richard Merritt and Stein
Rokkan, eds., Comparing_Nations (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1966), pp. 267-320, see especially p. 280.

49Daniel Lerner, "Some Comments on Center-Periphery Relations,"
in Merritt and Rokkan, ComparingLNations, pp. 259-266.

50Ithiel de Sola Pool, "The Mass Media in the Modernization
Process," in Lucian Pye, eds., Communications and Political Development,

PP. 234-253e

51Nie et a1., "Social Structure and Political Participation,
Developmental Relationships, Part I."

CHAPTER II

COSTA RICA: TRANSITIONAL
DEMOCRACY AND RESEARCH SITE

According to the theoretical position adopted in Chapter I,
economic development tends to be associated with the spread of the
culture of modern democracy where elites are committed to that
direction of modernizing processes, and where democracy is not
grossly incongruent with pro-existing cultural norms. This position
raises several questions which have only been touched upon to this
point and which require further examination for the reader unfamiliar
with Costa Rica, especially. Can we assume that Costa Rican elites
are committed to the maintenance of democratic political processes?
Does the economic system contain sufficient internal variation in
levels of deve10pment to be utilized as an independent variable?
And given the need to utilize limited resources carefully, what type
of sample will be used and what relationship does it bear to the
processes of development and the operations present and future of
the political system? This chapter is an attempt to answer these
questions.

Costa Rica violates many of the adages concerning the development
of stable democracy and many of the truisms concerning the nature of
politics in Latin America. It is a small underdeveloped country of

Latin culture. Its society is undergoing substantial changes involving

36

37

industrialization, restructuring of its social stratification system,

and very rapid population growth (82% growth since 1950). Yet the

gradual development of stable democracy has been seriously inter-

rupted only once during the past twenty years. That single major

disruption was a civil war touched off by a succession crisis and

involved the re-establishment of orderly, relatively democratic electoral

procedures. This relative stability and the normal exchange of political

power among the parties during elections sets Costa Rica apart from

most other Central and South America which face frequent succession

crises in which elections are marked by great disorder, or in which

elections are squelched by elites in power. On the other hand,

Costa Rica is not without many of the usual characteristics of Latin

American politics such as a high degree of personalism in her political

parties, and the preeminence of a few select families in politics.

Yet, Costa Rica has a relatively highly "developed" political system,

in the sense that despite these aspects of her political life, and despite

the rapid socio-economic change she is undergoing, she has a fairly

stable party structure, an orderly electoral process marked by wide-

spread popular participation and regular, rather fair elections generally

accepted as legitimate. It is thus a deviant case relative to many other

systems of Central and South America and to theories which relate political

stability and development to high levels of socio—economic development.
Physically, Costa Rica is small, about the size of west

Virginia. In 1965 the population stood at 1,459,000.1 Nearly

60% of that population is of less than twenty years of age, a fact

which indicates that among the primary problems of the government

during the 1970's will be the promotion of employment through

III II I l I II All 1' I I.||

.III I: 1| i

38

  
     

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"71 ' an

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JOCI4N

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Fig”. 2e1
Political and Physical Map of Costa Rica

39

industrialization, restructuring of its social stratification system,
and very rapid population growth (82% growth since 1950). Yet the gradual
development of stable democracy has been seriously intrrupted only
once during the past twenty years. That single major dusruption.was
a civil war touched off by a succession crisis and involved the re-
establishment of orderly, relatively democratic electoral procedures.
This relative stability and the normal exchange of political power among
the parties during elections sets Costa Rica apart from most other Central
and South America which face frequent succession crises in which elections
are marked by great disorder, or in which elections are squelched by elites
in power. On the other hand, Costa Rica is not without many of the usual
characteristics of Latin American politics such as a high degree of per-
sonalism in her political parties, and the preeminence of a few select
families in politics. Yet, Costa Rica has a relatively highly "developed"
political system in the sense that despite these aspects of her political
life, and despite the rapid socio-economic change she is undergoing, she
has a fairly stable party structure, an orderly electoral process marked
by widespread popular participation and regular, rather fair elections
generally accepted as legitimate. It is thus a deviant case relative to
many other systems of Central and South America and to theories which
relate political stability and development to high levels of socio-
economic development.

Physically, Costa Rica is small, about the size of West Virginia.
In 1965 the population stood at 1,459,000.1 Nearly 60% of that
population is of less than twenty years of age, a fact which indicates
that among the primary problems of the government during the 1970's

will be the promotion of employment through

40

further and faster industrial expansion, and provision of a rapid
expansion of the system of national education to maintain Costa Rica's
high standards of education and to serve the need of new industry
for skilled personnel.

About 53% of the total population reside in the central plateau

which is commonly called the meseta central by the natives and most

 

authors. The 922232, though it is the center of the nation's life
and contains the bulk of the population, contains only four or
five per cent of the nation's land area. The metropolitan area of
the capital, San Jose, which lies in the m, has a population of
about 325,000 and dominates the life of the mgsgt§_much as the latter
dominates the life of the nation as a whole. The next largest city,
Alajuela, also located in the E£§232.3r°3 has 20,000 inhabitants, a
fact which gives some indication of the totality of the dominance
of San Jose. Already San José has 7r% of the urban population and
is growing faster than the other areas. Thus it is likely that its
disproportionate size will be accentuated in the future. This problem
is familiar throughout Latin America as the capital cities or ports
industrialize and grow with migration from the interior, and is
not unique to Costa Rica.

Culturally the nation is characterized by a certain moderation.
One who deals with Latin American politics becomes accustomed to
numerous examples of societal breakdown in which the stresses of
social change apparently overwhelm the capacity of traditional
institutions to cope with them. The Colombian "boggtozo" and the

subsequent La Violencia come quickly to mind. Coups and riots in

 

Panama, peasant leagues in Brazil, Tupemaro terror in Uruguay, the

41

very widespread culture of poverty all bear witness to the existence
of widespread breakdown of traditional political and social structures
and norms. Costa Rica has experienced a major Civil war, a minor
invasion, a number of riots and political strikes of a relatively
minor nature since the late 1940's. However, there are few signs of
the massive social breakdown which is indicated by the violence and
anomic movements which have come to be expected of other nations of
the Southern American continent. In this sense, then, the society
appears to be adapting’reasonably well to the stresses of change
from a rural peasant economy to an urban industrial economy.
Economically, Costa Rica continues to have limited, yet in some
senses substantial success with development. The gross domestic
product per capita was 8451 in 1964 and higher than most in Latin
America.2 The aowth rate has been 6.4% annually. But when the
effects of inflation and particularly of population growth are
deducted, the rate falls to O.T% per capita - very little in terms
of increasing satisfaction of individuals.3 On the other hand,
increased employment opportunities depend not on per capita figures
but of total increase in production, and in this Costa Rica's economy
seems to have kept pace, though recent figures are not available. At
least this seems to be true of expansion of employment opportunities
for persons of some education such as those studied here. Danton
reports that virtually all high school graduates, even those who
fail in the examination for the bachillerato can expect to find
satisfactory employment.4 Unless the economy of the United States
recovers its strength soon, the Costa Rican economy may suffer a

severe setback for it depends upon the United States as an export

42

market. Again, however, the long range projection would appear to be
a growth rate which just keeps pace with population growth.

Although the economy is not forging ahead rapidly in terms
of growth, of equal importance to the present research is its gradual
change in composition. The manufacturing sector is growing most
rapidly, followed by governmental and service sectors of the economy.
While agricultural production has increased and coffee and banana
exports have remained important sources of employment and foreign
exchange the total percentage contribution of the agricultural sector
to the gross national product has declined from 44.8% in 1950 to
31.7% in 1964.5 Thus, despite theslow per-capita growth rate,
the econow is undergoing fundamental change. 6

Further evidence of the fundamental change in the economy is
found in relative growth statistics. In the period 1962-1964
manufacturing grew at a rate of 10% per annum while agricultural
output increased at only 5.27%.7 On the other hand, as was pointed
out above, this does not yet mean that agriculture has lost its
dominant position. By 1964, industry accounted for 15% of the GNP,
while agriculture accounted for 31%. (The public sector and "other,"
primarily services, comprised the remaining 54%). Also, of the
export sector, coffee, bananas, and cacao accounted together for
74% of total earnings. This figure is indicative of the nation's
continued dependence on an essentially mono-cultural export econonw,
a dependence which creates difficulties due to the falling world
price for coffee and the obvious need for foreign exchange to
maintain the pace of industrialization, and to maintain necessary

imports of foods and other commodities.8

43

For the moment, however, the transitional process is continuing,
and one quickly becomes accustomed to the typical anomalies of the
transitional areas such as delivery of goods to rail and air freight
services by horsedrawn vehicles, peasants listening to transistor
radios (frequently in nu experience to broadcasts of the debates of
the lational Assembly, though I may have been acquainted with unusual
persons of peasant stock). But all of the sights which at first
startle the visitor forcefully indicate a fundamental technological
and social transformation of a people.

As is true elsewhere in Latin America, the contrast between the
scenery of the national center, San Jose and the 93332 in general,
and the periphery is sharp. To those who have traveled through both
areas it will seem superfluous, even pedantic, to demonstrate the
contrasts with demographic data. That which appears to the traveller
as a contrast in climate, standard of living, racial type, life style,
between dependence on the horse and the use of trucks, buses and
automobiles, between a cosmopolitan urban center and tiny rural
towns, appears in the statistical abstracts as differing occupational
types, infant mortality rates, consumption of electric power, and
other variables.

Careful study of Table 2.1 indicates that in most cases the
provinces of Guanacaste, Puntarenas, and Limén, are consistently
rather low in rank if one rank orders the scores, with Alajuela
joining them in some cases because of its large rural population in
the northeast. In literacy and infant mortality the rates are
rather uniform, however, a commentary on the substantial success of

the national systems of hospital care and education in equalizing

44

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45

opportunities. The major exception to this uniformity is the very
high rate of infant mortality which occurs in Lim6n only. This
tragically high rate in a relative sense, indicates the isolation of
the people of Lim6n, and gives one pause, for Lim6n is the only
area of the nation with a virtually completely black population.

Linén lies on the Atlantic coast, serving as the Atlantic port.
Its population is primarily composed of imigrants from the West Indies.
The local language is a peculiar mix of English and Spanish. Many
of the residents are bilingual. If this is an advantage occasionally
to residents who migrate to San Jose, it nevertheless accentuates
the racial differences between the residents of Lim6n and the
population of the 22223.“. which is almost entirely European in origin.

Geographically too, Limon is isolated. Though the capital
city of the province (also called Lim6n) is the nation's only
eastern port, it is tied to the remainder of the nation only by an
ancient rail line and by air routes. No highway which would provide
more rapid and cheaper transport has yet been constructed, though
perpetual planning continues. A widespread comment of citizens of
Limon reported during a labor riot in Lim6n was that "We are a
separate country.” While that claim is an exaggeration, particularly
for a people which comprises only five percent of Costa Rica's small
population, Limo/n certainly does remain effectively isolated from
the mainstream of Costa Rican life.

Economically too, it is of the periphery. Deserted by the
United Fruit Company in the 1930's because of the ”Panasa Disease”
(which attacked the non-resistant strains of bananas grown there),

the area outside the port city is now one of subsistence farming

9

and some production of cacao for export. Recently banana cultivation
has been reintroduced, but it has not regained its former scale.

With Limén, Puntarenas shares a coastal, tropical location.
Hewever, it is located on the Pacific coast. Its capital, also
called Puntarenas, is the nation's only Pacific port. Culturally,
Puntarenas is somewhat more integrated into the national mainstream
being tied to the meseta central by rail, road and air. This is
especially true of the port city, and much less so of the rural
areas of the southwestern part of the province. Economically the
province is characterized not only by the activities of the port
city, but also by the ”factory farms” on.which two United States
firms produce bananas for the world market. This has given rise to
a tendency for workers there to be wage earners rather than persons
tied strongly to the land, though subSistence agriculture is also
verywidespread.10 Politically, this has led to the organizability
of many workers into labor organizations and to a certain political
radicalism in some parts of the province.

Guanecaste, the province which occupies the northwest sector
of the nation, is the only predominantly mestizo area of the country.
As is often the case, the superficial racial difference indicates a
cultural difference. The area is, according to informants from
San José, more similar in culture to Nicaragua than to the EEEEEE;
central in that it is an Indo-Spanish mix.

Economically the province is rather underdeveloped. Agriculture
is based on an hacienda system which profits the elite, and on
subsistence farming which sustains the laborer and small-holder.11

Except for the elite few who have access to motorized transportation,

47

transportation is primarily by foot, horse, or ex cart. Similarly,
farming is usually performed by traditional means of man and animal
power rather than by mechanization.

The remainder of the nation tends to be more developed economically,
however it too shares the common characteristic of the other provinces,
that the capital cities of the province are substantially more
prosperous and developed than the outlying areas. The provinces of
Cartago, Heredia, and Alajuela are particularly subject to this
contrast. Their capital cities lie in the meseta central while their
rural areas extend down from the plateau to the tropical lowlands and
are quite underdeveloped. Thus the differences between more and less
developed areas which characterize the nation as a whole, also
characterize the individual provinces.

A final word is in order concerning the racial differences
among the regions. Despite the fact that some racial differences do
exist, Costa Rica has not been cursed by the extreme racial division
of labor which has characterized many nations of South America since
colonial times. In most Latin American nations as in the United
States, Indian or Negro slaves, indentured laborers, or serfs were
used for labor and were brutalized physically and culturally. By
contrast in Costa Rica the land was not sufficiently rich to make the
importation of slave labor profitable. The Indians who occupied the
territory at the time of white exploration and colonization were not
amenable to servitude and either resisted white power or fled.

Today only about I% of the population is Indian, though a substantial
portion is mestizo (Indian-Caucasian), a fact which suggests that

the original settlers were perhaps guilty of genocide or at least

48

substantial forced migration, but which also means that the political
system does not face the enormous difficulty of integrating a large
indigenous and culturally abused and fragmented people which is
faced in most other nations of the Western HemiSphere.12
These are the main differences among the provinces of Costa
Rica. They are discussed here to acquaint the reader with the full
range of variation in a little known and small nation. The differences
in developmental levels are substantial. However, it would be
unrealistic to expect to find the sort of extreme cultural gaps between
the most and least modern sectors of society which one would expect
in, for example, Brazil or Peru. Rather one must expect to find
more mdld differences.
Furthermore, the sample utilized in this study (which will be
described in full later in this chapter) minimizes the variation in
two ways. It is a student sample, and the students are drawn from
the capital "cities" of each province rather than from the provinces
as a whole. Thus the variation by status and the ruralness of
residence which exists in the total population, is not fully reflected
in the sample. One might expect, in fact to find few substantial
differences among the provincial capitals which would be related
to levels of development and thus to cultural variables. Yet even
with the relative homogeneity of the sample, differences remain.
Transportation facilities, broadcasting facilities, proximity
to national political events and personnel, differences in the quality
of education and the urbanity of the teaching staffs, the extent of

manufacturing, the marketing practices, the bureaucraticization of

economic and political life all differ quite markedly among the

49

cities and can be expected to have some socializing impact upon even

a sample of equal education levels. At present one cannot travel

from the metropolitan area of San Jose to the towns of the periphery
and expect to find cultural homogeneity, though as deve10pment procedes,
ultimate near homogeneity is likely.

Thus the study is not one of within nation differences in
culture of the total population, but only of that part of the popula-
tion - the relatively well-educated and urban - most likely to
become politically active adults, and to pursue occupations which
are of a responsible nature and in themselves relate to the operation
of governmental and business activities. It is likely that this
articulate minority (4% at 5% of the population have completed high
school) will substantially dominate political initiatives for the
forseeable future.13 Thus the residual impact of regional differences
in dimensions of economic development may give some indication of the
difficulties faced in the political integration of elite and near
elite populations whose environments have differed substantially
during childhood and adolescence. At the same time these differences
may lead to further understanding of the relationship between the
spreading processes of socio-economio development and the culture

of modern democracy.

§ggplingyProcedure

For the purpose of studying attitudinal variation within the
so called "prestige class” (middle and upper middle class) along
lines of economic development, a sample was selected according to

14

the following criteria. Each province was included in order to

50

provide the widest variation possible in a relatively urban sample.
Each school selected was to be the ”best" public, nondvocational
high school of the provincial capital in which it was located.
Except in San Jose these schools represent the source of the highest
quality education available locally. (In San Jose there are also
rather small private schools attended by the sons of the very upperb
most elite; they are not included in the sample used here, but will
be discussed in a separate study now under way.) In all of the
provinces except San Jose, the "best public school" is coeducational.
In San Jose, segregation by sex is still maintained. For this reason
both the school for males and that for females were included in the
San José sample, giving a total of eight schools from the seven
provincial capitals.

The choice of schools was not a problem except in San Jose,
for there is only one public, nonwvocational high school in each of
the capitals. In San Jose, the judgement of informants was used.
Informants included the Director of the Department of the Social
Sciences of the university of Costa Rica and the'Vice Minister of
Education of Costa'Rica, and were verified by other less expert
informants.15

In cases in which it was not possible to administer the
questionnaire to all members of the senior class - only members
of this class were utilised - classrooms were selected at random.
Because the assignment of students to classrooms is alphabetic
rather than systematic in any way, the samples can be considered
random for the students of the fifth year ("senior class”) of each

school.

51

The Capital Cities and variation in Economic Development

In most transitional systems the focus of change, the vanguard
of industrialisation, is localized in one or two major cities. In
Costa Rica, San Jose is the unchallenged center of modernity.16
Innovation flows from San Jose to the periphery. Investment decisions
of business and government are made in San Jose. Broadcasting
facilities, the only university, the railroads, the bureaucracies
of business and government are all headquartered or completely
located in San Jose. Nor do there exist other cities which serve
as specific centers of activity for certain types of enterprise,
except Alajeula, which contributes land and labor to the international
airport which serves the San Jose area, and a Firestone plant which
is a major factory employing persons of both Alajeula and San Jose.
(The two cities are also connected by the only superbhighway).

From their headquarters in and near San Jose, banks, factories,
and commercial enterprises slowly expand their operations outward.
They do so timidly, cognizant of rural poverty, lack of mass markets
in close proximity, and mass trained labor pools. Often the dis-
advantages of location outside San Jose, force expansion of operations
within the city itself. Related to this tendency is a migratory
flow which steadily increases the size of San JosE. However, it is
also true that commercial enterprise is moving outward, diffusing
the process of economic development to the peripheral areas. In
short, development has a uni-centric focus in San José, but it is
slowly moving outward.

Despite the obvious first rank of San José in the level of

economic development, it was rather difficult to construct an index

by which to place all of the capitals on a dimension of general, non

52

political development. Many statistics which are usually used for
such an index were simply unavailable. For example, neither income
per capita, nor the figures on which that summary statistic is based,
are available distributed by capitals. ‘Moreover, the summary
statistics which are available do not necessarily reflect developmental
levels. For example, per capita income can be estimated from value-
of-production data. Bewever, value of production includes profits

and taxes as well as wages, and the former are very unlikely to be

left or reinvested in the peripheral areas. Rather those funds,
especially profits, will be exported (in the case of the United

Fruit Company) or reinvested in San Jose. Only where such funds

are actually invested in the area, will there be a substantial develop-
mental effect. Thus I have used, rather than income figures or earnings
figures, the value per capita of capital equipment in each city, as

the first of three indicators.

Other likely indicators which had to be rejected for various
reasons were literacy rates (equalized in large part by national
education) infant mortality rates (discussed previously), and percentage
of pggggg_in the population. The latter seemed an especially useful
bit of data, but had to be set aside, for it presented a totally
unrealistic picture. The data may be faulty for it suggests that the
larger the city the larger the proportion of 252225 (peasants) in
the population. This suggests either that the pgggg§_listed are
mdgrants no longer employed in agriculture, but not yet reemployed
or that the process of data gathering on the elusive, frequently
illiterate peasant is more effective in the relatively urban areas.

Whatever the cause of the relationship, the cause of empirical

53

research would not be served well by its inclusion.
With little recourse to other measures, then the following
three items were utilized:

(1) per capita value of capital equipment (buildings,
machines, and vehicles in each provincial capital).

(2) the absolute number of firms in each capital with an
annual production of 750,000 colones per year, in
1954.

(3) the absolute distance in kilometers from the national
Center (determined by highest score on first two
dimensions).

The second and third dimensions add to the first two slightly
different elements. The number of firms with a production as large
as 750,000 colones gives a strong indication of the degree of urbani-
sation. In the towns of the rural areas, one quickly observes that
a substantial number of persons who are essentially rural laborers,
make their homes in the towns. Thus, to rank the towns in terms of
size of population gives only a measure of size, and not of the
usual connotations of ”urbanization" which include the extent of
production. One witty critic has suggested that this statistic be
known as the "hustle-bustle” index; a realistic assessment of its
nature.

Finally, distance from the highest scorer on the first two
variables, which, of course, is San Jose. While distance is not
the best measure of the ease of diffusion of innovation from center
to periphery, it is a useful one in this case. This bit of data is
intended to express the relative isolation of the several towns or

cities from the processes of economic development. Perhaps the

best measures of such isolation would include measures of numbers

54

of communications of various sorts (data not available by town), or
ease of transportation (not quantifiable). However, if one examines
the simple distance statistic in the case of Costa Rica and compares
it to impressions of the ease of transportation, he will find a close
correspondence. For example it is thus useful in ranking the towns
of the ggggtg_other than San Jose. Cartago, which on the other
indicators falls far behind Alajuela, is benefited by the cheap and
rapid bus service from San Jose which makes substantial economic
intercourse possible. Moreover, it emphasizes again the isolation
of Lhmén, which not only is geographically distant, but also very
much isolated in terms of available transportation.
One final comment is in order regarding the methodology of
index construction. It was desired to have more than one town in
each level of the index in order to partially correct by averaging
any distortion that might be introduced into the data because of non-
developmental factors covariant with the index. Therefore, designation
of groupings was necessary. In order to maintain the a priori
criterion of two (minimum) towns per set a three place index had to
be used. Standard deviations were calculated for each of the towns on
each of the index items. The standard deviations were averaged. The
resulting averages, raw scores and groupings are as listed in Table 2.2.
The reader will note that the variable is titled, "Centeereriphery,"
after the notions of intra-netional differences discussed by Lerner
and Linz.17
Grouping was facilitated by the rather large differences
among the three sets as listed in Table 2.2. The placement of only

one town was questionable. Puntarenas, in terms of its score's

55

 

Table 2.2 ’ Rank order average standard deviation from mean and
trichotomous grouping of the seven provincial capitals
on selected indices of socio-economic development. *5

Capitals, rank Distance from Value per- Number of Standard

 

 

 

ordered and financial and capita of firms pro- deviations
grouped in communications capital ducing goods from mean
final form center (San equipment or services scores
derived from Jose) in miles. in dollars. with value averaged
data at right.* greater than across the
894.000 in three pre-
1964. H ceding indices.
Center:
an Jos‘ 0 112.5 144 3.70
Llajuala 14 113.0 55 3.44
Mid Range:
media 6 100.0 ' 11 1.81
Outage 14 105.5 14 1.80
Puntnenas V 72 72.5 11 -1.24
Periphery: ,
Linda 103 39.0 9 - 4.65
Liberia 130 33.0 1 - 5.41

 

* For purposes of comlational analysis which follows, the groupings were
assigned scores. The Center was assigned a score of 3, the mid-range, 2,
and the periphery, 1.

*" In colones (local currency) 750,000. The figure is used by the Costa
Rican Bureau of statistics to designate the lower bound of the second
largest category of producers. The next category is 1 million and above.
Both are included here.

see All intonation drawn from: Censo de Industrial y Manufacturer-as, 19643
and Anuario Estadistica de Costa Rica, 1966, and adapted by author.

56

proximity to other scores, clearly belongs with the center grouping,
since the criterion of assignment was the placement of each town

with the closest score. Yet it falls below the mean with Liberia
(capital of Guanecaste) and Lim6n. It was simply decided to adhere

to the original rule of assignment rather than be concerned with
deviation from the mean score. Since Puntarenas lies outside the
geggtg, and is generally considered by analysts of Costa Rican society
to be part of the low lying periphery, this assignment may be criticized.
Hewever, not only is it consistent with the original index criteria,

but Puntarenas itself occupies a position on lines of transportation
and social interaction (it is a resort for San Jose) which distinguishes
it from Liberia or Lim5n quite clearly to the traveler or merchant.

The resulting sets are assigned rank scores, the Center receiving
the highest score, 3, and the periphery the lowest, 1. The ranks are
utilized later in correlational analysis which follows.

Center and Periphery: Explaining Ecological
Correlation with Individual Variables

In Chapter I it was pointed out that although this would be
primarily a study of cultural differences related to environmental
differences among the regions, that it would also deal with the
problem of explaining the expected differences in terms of variables
which have a direct and measurable association with individual cases.
In part by arbitrary decision, in part by reference to existing
literature on development, the variables to be considered were
limited to three: Social status, traditionalism and the process of
participation in family decision making as a development-related

socialization factor. For the moment I shall simply examine their

57

relationship to the independent variable, development, as measured

by the Centeereriphery index.

germ;
It has become part of the historical commonplace spoken about

the industrial revolution to refer to the growth of the middle class

in the United Kingdom, France and the United States. Certain authors

have capitalized on this idea, applying it to the process of political

development in the Latin Americas and elsewhere. Johnson has argued

convincingly that with the growth of the middle ”sectors" as he

calls them, the style and substance of Latin American politics has

undergone profound change in the direction of increased popular parti-

cipation in politics, though not necessarily always more "democracy."18

Nie and his colleagues have shown that with middle and upper class

status are associated the attitudinal norms of modern political

19

systems. The question for the present research, then, is the extent
to which the factor status varies with development in the Costa Rican
setting and with the index of development being utilized.

Table 2.3 shows the relationship to be mild, though positive.
As is true of many of the relationships to be observed throughout
this data, the variation is not smoothly continuous from center to
periphery, but appears primarily between the center and the remainder
of the nation. At a later point of the analysis this observation
will prove useful, for it will be necessary to dichotomize the
regional dimension in order to preserve large enough sub-grouped
samples for observation.

Occupation of respondents' fathers proved to be the only

indicator of social status available. Income and styles of consumption,

 

58

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59

two potential suupplementary factors, proved in pre-testing to be too
sensitive socially to use with the expectation of cooperation of the
students. Moreover, objection to such questions was voiced by two
school administrators. Hewever, that occupation alone serves as an
adequate indicator for the general purposes intended here seems beyond
a reasonable doubt.

The sample, the reader should recall, consists only of persons
who are in the final year of high school. Thus they are likely to
be far more homogeneous socially than the remainder of the population.
Despite that, a substantial degree of variation appears in the sample.
This variation is a commentary on the relatively wide availability of
education in Costa Rica.20Whatever the social significance of the
status variance, it is clear that sufficient numbers of persons of
each social status group are included to make it possible to test the
relationships in which status is thought to be important.

Finally note also that the middle class of the San José-
Alajuela area is substantially larger than that of the non~Central
areas. Also notice that the non-Central areas contain not only
larger classes of "lower" status, but also somewhat larger groups of
persons of high - ownership - status. This relationship suggests
that in the less developed areas there continues to exist, even among
such a homogeneous population group as this one, the remnants of the
rural agrarian bi-class system.

This observation, as it happens, is perhaps the most important
single fact concerning this data. The reasons for this will become

clear in subsequent analysis.

(0

These tendencies are also visible in the population over time,
suggesting that the interbregional variation observed in this study
presents a reasonable approximation of an over-time comparison.

Table 2.4 shows the striking movement of the respondents' parents,
grandparents and of themselves (in their intended occupations) from
high and low status occupations into middle status occupations. The
movement has continued for two generations and will apparently continue
in the near future as the respondents themselves, with their relatively
high level of education move from.their parents' social position and
into middle status positions.

Furthermore, when one resides and conducts research in all
areas of the nation, he becomes aware that subtle variations in the
rigidity of the system of social status also exist. In short, the
relatively peripheral areas of the nation tend to be more rigidly
stratified than the central areas. No doubt this has to do with
the nature of class relationships derived from the continued, though
passing, peripheral dependence on an agrarian paternalistic society
common to most of Latin America under Iberian influence. Given the
monumental lack of social data related to Costa Rica, one cannot
quantify such impressions except by reference to the interhgenerational
Table 2.4 above, which shows the proportional decline with continuing
development of the nation of the extreme classes and the growth of
the middle status sector.

These observations are consistent with Linz's observations
in Spain in which he identifies a series of cultural sub-groups,
which differ largely in their relationship to the process of socio-

economic development. Linz and his colleague Amanda deMiguel hare

61

 

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developed a typology of variations in the status systems of Spain
which is related to the class structure differences I have suggested
exist in Costa Rica as well.21 Their typology, far more complex than
that which I am.suggesting here, ranges from bourgoisie to proletariat,
passing through middle categories of ”gentry" and "gentry in transition.”
The term "gentry" is an intuitively satisfying description of the
upper status persons of the periphery included in the sample, for
these are persons whose parents have been.wedded to a passing social
order from which they, in their high status roles as owners or public
officials or other upper status positions, drew considerable prestige
and influence. I shall return to consideration of this group many

times in the course of analysis.

Traditionalism

The second construct to be used as an explanatory variable here
is a variation of the traditionalism scale developed by Smith and
Inkeles.22 Deutsch and others have pointed out that one effect of
the process of socio-economic development is cultural change.23
Concurring, Smith and Inkeles have devised operational definitions
of various aspects of the cultures of traditionalism and modernity.
They have designated the resulting measures the "0M scale” to refer
to "Overall Mbdernity.”

Traditional societies, they argue, tend to have in common a set
of cultural norms which rely in many situations on personalized or
ascriptive criteria of judgement. Information may be judged more by
its source than by its apparent accuracy, for example. Qualification

for public office or other position may be based on considerations

63

of family loyalty or ”personal connections" rather than on qualification
or even, in the case of high public appointive office, popular following.
The converse of this tendency suggests a tendency for the traditional
man to distrust ”strangers” or other "outside" influences. Hereover,
the traditional culture generally lacks a scientific approach to
understanding causality, attributing cause and effect relationships to
divine origins unique to each case or to fate. Even in 1968 a Costa
Rican peasant to whom I showed projected color transparencies of him

and his family refused to look at them, describing the process as

"una cosa de brujas" (witchcraft). His children, accustomed to

movies and even television shown in schools tried patiently to

explain, but to no avail. Printed copies of the photographs now

rest in a crude shrine with madonna and crucifix in his cabin home.

The complex processes which cause the images to appear were, and are,
completely beyond the understanding of the man, unless he resorts to
explanations of divinity or witchery.

As Pye points out with respect to socialization processes in
Burma, such a view presents a serious obstacle to the idea that human
effort may result in noticeable effect.24 This, in turn, may render
the establishment of participatory political processes difficult among
persons who maintain traditionalist belief structures.

Smith and Inkeles go on to argue, however, that such attitudes
are directly related to the influences of modern socio—economic
structures. Thus, one would expect that persons in a relatively
underdeveloped socio-economic situation would tend to be characterized
by traditional belief systems. Moreover, if one is willing to assume

that a strain toward consistency among attitudes exists among*most

(4

persons, such cultural patterns would tend to discourage the acceptance
of modern political norms.

Given that for many persons political beliefs occupy a distinctly
minor area of consciousness, however, one may not expect this tendency
to be extremely strong. Political beliefs may exist in such persons
in flat contradiction to other norms without the person's being aware
of the implicit contradiction. The latter seems particularly likely
in those highly traditional cultures in which no unified concept of
causality exists, and in which it is not expected that politics are
in any way explicable by the common man. Yet the notion of tradition-
alism.may prove useful as a partial explanation of slow diffusion
rates, or rejection of modern political ideas or democratic ideas
which conflict with their authoritarian and personalistic overtones.

Table 2.5 presents some evidence that the variable "traditionalism”
is related to the centerbperiphery dimension used in this analysis.

The relationship is not strong, but is mildly positive. The differences
are primarily between the center sample and the remainder of the

sample, a fact which.will be important at a later stage in which the
data will be dichotomized into centerhnon-center samples. We may
expect, then, that traditionalism will explain some of the variance
among'the regions in levels of acceptance of modern and democratic

now 0

Socialization Process
Finally, the variable chosen to represent the process of
socialization in the family is the learning of the ”norms and forms"

of political participation or assertion of one's own views in the family

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setting by participation in family decision making. Dawson and
Prewitt argue, in a general review of the socialization literature,
that socialization processes themselves vary with the level of socio-

25

economic development. As the authority of traditional wielders of
power becomes irrelevant to the social realities of a developing socio-
economic system, their influence on the process of political socializa-
tion is likely to wane or to be transformed. For example it is not
uncommon for the offspring of rural parents in Costa Rica to achieve
substantial education, frequently higher levels than achieved by their
parents. But such achievement cannot help but have an impact on the
traditional Latin American tendency toward unquestioning loyalty and
obedience to paternal authority. The geographic mobility alone
implied by the acquisition of a skill saleable in a relatively fluid
nonpagrarian labor market suggests that the residential and authority
patterns of the extended family are likely to break down. And these
are patterns which for centuries have characterized the society of
rural Latin America.

many other aspects of changing socialization processes could
also be cited. The Roman Catholic Church is undergoing change best
represented by the liberalizing policies of the Catholic educators of
the private schools of San Jose, who appear generally more innovative
than their counterparts in the public (national) school system.
In a nation such as Costa Rica in which the Catholic Church is the
established church, the slow transformation suggested by the tendencies
of these leading Catholic educators cannot help but have an impact on
socialization practices on a wider scale as change procedes.

This is but one of many aspects of a changing process of social

67

learning. Many others could be added. Thus it is somewhat arbitrarily
that I have elected to limit the study of "socialization process"
variables to respondent participation in the family processes of
decision. However, I have done so for two reasons other than the
practical necessity of limiting subject matter. First, some empirical
evidence suggests that such socialization experiences are related to
political attitudes among several cultures. Almond and verba have
shown that in the five nations studied by them that mild relationships
occur, among adults recalling childhood experience, between participa-
tion of family decisions and political competence scores.26 ‘Moreover,
though the conclusions of various researchers vary widely regarding
the relative importance of the family as an agent of socialization,
few will deny that the family has a pervasive cultural influence.27
Secondly, in samples of students of equal levels of education,
such as the sample used in this study, one loses variance in many of
the dimensions of the socialization process which otherwise might be
useful explanatory variables. For example, the potential use of
years of education is not possible. Nor, given the fact that the
school system is nationally administered, can variation in the
essential forms of school organization be utilized as a variable.
Hewever, the family, relatively independent as it is of direct
influence from central administrative or political decisions which
create the relative uniformity of the schools, can be expected to
retain variation in structure even in a sample of persons of equal
education. 0n the other hand, the family is unlikely to escape the
influences of the process of diffusion of innovation, as is pointed
28

out by Levine. In that sense, centralizing forces of the developing

economy may be moving the structure of the family toward eventual

68

uniformity. During the period of transition, however, while distinct
gee-economic regions exist, it is likely to be varied in structure
precisely because of the forces of development.

Thus the immediate question here is the frequency of the
experience of participation in the family across lines of development
in the data in use here. Table 2.6 demonstrates that a mild relationship
exists in this variable also, and that, as is the case with the other
variables under study here, the primary difference is between the
center and the remainder of the nation. Again the differences are
mild, but as anticipated. Thus they may contribute to the explanation
of expected relationships between developmental level and political

attitudes.

am
In each case the relationship between regional development and
the individual characteristics studied - status, traditionalism,
socialization experience - is rather weak, though positive. Although
the existence of positive relationships suggests that these variables
may be useful as partial explanations of the variance expected between
region and attitudes, the mildness of the relationships suggests that
the explanatory powers of these variables is unlikely to be very
substantial, and that much expected variation will, perforce, have to
be left unexplained. Nevertheless it will be useful to the full
development of the empirical study of the relationships between socio-
economic development and political culture to procede with the analysis.
Thus, without further consideration of the independent variables, let

us turn to the data analysis itself.

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CHAPTER II

FOOTNOTES

1Social Progress Trust Fund, InterbAmerican Development Bank,
Fifth Annual Report, 1965, washington, 1966, PP. 256-257.

2Carl R. Jacobsen, Basic Data on the Economy of Costa Rica,
United States Department of Commerce, Overseas Business Reports
Series, march, 1967, p. 3.

31b1de, p. 40

4Charles F. Benton, Patterns of Costa Rican Politics (Boston:
Allyn and Bacon, Ind., 197l), p. 6.

5Jacobsen, Basic Data on the Economy of Costa Rica, pp. 3-5.

6Perhaps it is not far fetched to suggest that if rising
expectations bred by brief bursts of high growth, are among the
prime enemies of political stability, since they are always disap-
pointed, in time, then a low rate of growth which nonetheless includes
new industrial growth, may actually be preferable, from.the standpoint
of political stability, especially if distribution becomes more
egalitarian.

7Social Progress Trust Fund, Annual Report, p. 262.

BClaudio velia, Latin American and the Caribbean (new Yerk:
Praeger, 1968).
9veliz, Latin America and the Caribbean, p. 182.

1°Ibid.

11James L. Busey, Netes on Costa Rican Democracy (Boulder,
Colorado: university of Colorado Press, 1967), p. 67.

12Benton, Patterns of Costa Rican Politics, p. 12.

13Ibid., p. 3.

14The term "prestige class" is Denton's. See his discussion in
Ibid., pp. 1-12.

15I'would like to acknowledge the assistance of Sr. Eugenio
IFonseca, Director del Departimiento de los Estudios del Hombre, and Lic.

in this regard.
7O

r—w
——.o,‘

71

161 shall below define Alejuela as part of the ”Center" in terms
of its level of economic development. However in the sense of pro-
viding a focus for processes of diffusion, San José is unrivaled.

17Daniel Lerner, "Some Comments on Center-Periphery Relations,"
in Richard L. Merritt and Stein Rokkan, eds., Comparing_Nations (new
Haven: Yale University Press, 1966). PP. 259-266. Also: Juan J.
Linz and Amando de'Miguel, "Within Nation Differences and Comparisons,”
in Ibid., pp. 267-320.

18John Johnson, The Dynamics of Political Change in Latin
America.(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962).

19Norman R. Nie, et a1., "Social Structure and Political
Participation: Developmental Relationships, Part I," American
Political Science Review, (June, 1969), p. 362-365.

20Aldo Solari, ”Secondary Education and the Development of

Elites," in Seymour M. Idpset and Aldo Solari, eds., Elites in
Latin America (New Yerk: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 457-
483, especially Table 1, p. 459.

21Juan J. Linz and Amanda defliguel, "Within Nation Differences
and Comparisons: The Eight Spains," in Richard L. Merritt and
Stein Rokkan, eds., Comparing Nations (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1966). PP. 267-320.

22David Smith and Alex Inkeles, ”The GM Scale: A Comparative
Socio-Psychological Measure of Individual modernity, ” in Sociometgy,
(December, 1966), pp. 353-377.

23marl w. Deutsch, ”Social Mobilization and Political Development,”
American Political Science Review (September, 1961), pp. 493-514.

24Lucian‘w. Pye, Politics Personality and nation Building (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), pp. 146-155.

25Richard Dawson and Kenneth Prewitt, Political Socialization
(Boston: Little Brown, 1969), pp. 131-97. Also see on this point:
Robert A. Levine, "The Role of the Family in Authority Systems:
A Cross-Cultural Application of Stimulous Generalization Theory,”
Behavioral Science, v, 1960), pp. 291-296.

26Gabriel Almond and Sydney Verbs, The Civic Culture (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1963), pp. 323-376.

27Levine, "The Role of the Family in Authority Systems.” See
also: Kenneth Langton Political Socialization (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1969), pp. 21-83 and 161-179.

28Levine, ”The Role of the Family in Authority Systems.”

CHAPTER III

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND STUDENT
ATTITUDES TOWARD MODERN FORMS
OF POLITICAL BEHAVIOR

Regional Location and the Culture
Of Medern Political Participation

Applied to the Costa Rican case, the first and simplest
hypothesis derived from the theoretical positions discussed in
Chapter I is this: Given internal variation in levels of socio-
economic development in Costa Rica, one may expect that the political
attitudes of persons residing in the peripheral regions of the nation
will reflect the lack of development of the area. Operationally,
this means that the frequency of high scores on a series of dependent
variables I have labeled modern political attitudes will be greater
in the more developed parts of the nation.

The causes underlying these relationships are many. At a later
stage of the analysis I shall examine three factors related to
regional development which, it has been argued, are also likely
to be related to the dependent attitudinal variables. The three
factors are: Socialization processes, traditionalism, and social
status.1 Nie, Powell and Prewitt argue that a major aspect of
economic development is the expansion of the middle and upper-
middle class.2 One may therefore expect that some of the

expected differences between Center and Periphery can be accounted

72

75

for by covariation of the regional development and social status
dimensions. Similarly, it is argued by various authors previously
discussed, that socialization processes themselves will be likely to
vary with the economic development of the regions. This factor too,
then is likely to account for some of the variation observed between
center and periphery in attitudes.

Other factors also involved in the socialization process are
likely to be involved in generating interregional differences,
although they cannot be isolated for study with the present data.
For example, persons in the relatively developed areas are more
likely to be exposed to the complex organizations of government and
business which surround them but not their brethren of the periphery.
Their teachers, having presumably voluntarily chosen the location
in which they work, may be somewhat more urbane in the relatively
metropolitan central area. Furthermore adolescents graduating from
high school are subject to the need to find employment or further
education. Hear the center which is relatively prosperous and
contains the only university in the nation, this is likely to be
considerably easier. Thus if, as is likely, modern attitudes require
a substantial amount of optimism about future success to serve as
a spur to present participation, then the relatively developed areas
are again favored in this respect.

I hare not yet mentioned simpler factors. Ease of transportation
to the cosmopolitan, politically active center is undoubtedly a
significant factor in determining the extent of exposure to the
ideas and practices of modernity. The ease with which government

officials can (and do) appear at public schools for ceremonies, for

74

citizenship discussions, and the like is substantially greater at
the center.3
media exposure, many authors have argued, is also related to
both levels of economic development and to political attitudes.
Hewever, unreported data indicates that there is no relationship
of media exposure to region in this sample, when exposure is measured
by respondent estimate of frequency of exposure to political news.
undoubtedly the high level of education attained by the respondents
is the cause of this unity, though probably also the advent of the
transistor radio and national broadcasting services have much to do
with it also. In any case this variable, for this sample, cannot
serve as an explanatory variable.
Finally, the political aspects of a culture cannot be considered
to be isolated conceptually from the general culture. Indeed verbs
argues that study of the ”basic values" of a society may be as
important as the study of specifically political aspects of a culture,
for they serve to condition the acceptance of specific sorts of
political attitudes, resisting some, accepting others.4 Inkeles
and Smith argue, as previously reported, that traditionalism is such
a "basic" element of a culture. Furthermore, they argue, traditionalism
is directly related to the extent of one's experiences with institutions
objectively definable as ”modern," such as factories (their primary
concern).5 Thus one may anticipate that the level of regional
development may be related to the extent of traditionalism.prevailing

in geographical sub-units of a nation. This is the case in Costa

Rica as the Table 2.5 has shown.

75

No doubt other factors also impinge on the process of the diffusion
of modern political attitudes among an elite stratum of transitional
societies. Nie gt_gl_point out that membership in organizations is
an important variable in this sense for mass populations.6 Hewever,
the necessity of limiting the scope of research precluded inclusion
of measures of several such variables in the study.

My intent for the moment is modest. It is simply, at this stage
of the analysis, to determine the strength and direction of the gross
relationships between region and attitudes in order to test the
fundamental hypothesis that the whole range of developmental factors
subsumed under an index of economic centrality, bears an ecological
relationship to respondents' attitudes.

The most convenient way to procede with this preliminary stage
of the investigation is to simply list the correlation coefficients
between the center-periphery index of regional development and the
political attitudes under study. That listing'will provide a simple
test of the consistency of the data with the basic hypotheses developed
above and specified below.

The operating hypothesis which underlies the data analysis
reported in Table 3.2 indicates that all expected relationships,
given the manner of scoring utilized, will be positive if the hypothesis
is supported.

Hypothesis:

Respondents residing and attending school in the
relatively more "central areas” of the nation, in
the sense of that term defined above, will tend to
manifest attitudes supportive of modern political

systems more frequently than persons resident at
the periphery.

76

Null Hypothesis:
Location on the continuum center-periphery will
either bear no relationship to modern political
attitudes, or the relationships observed will
be attributable to chance.
Table 3.1 indicates that within this sample there are few
relationships between the developmental characteristics of one's

provincial home and his attitudes. The fundamental tendency manifest

in the table is toward interregional unity and thus, support of the

Table 3.1 Gamma Coefficients for Relationship of Center-Periphery
Regional Development Index to‘Modern Political Attitudes*

A. Attitudes toward political and social activity of self and others:

1. Pre-citizen competence -.l4l**
2. Sense of personal effectiveness .130
3. Generalized social trust .129

B. Attitudes toward system elites and institutions:'

1. Generalized assessment of beneficiality

of governmental activity .022
2. Trust of politicians .152
3. Trust of political parties not to
endanger the country .091
4. Expectation of equal treatment by
administrative authorities .l4l***

C. Behavioral data

1. Political knowledge .135**
2. Interest in and attention to
political affairs .001

* Scoring is arranged in such a way that a relationship supportive of
the hypothesis would be positive. Center location receives a score
of 3, mid-range location, 2 and peripheral location, 1. Dependent
variables are coded so that the scores most favorable to modern
participatory behavior receive the highest numberic score possible
for that variable (4, 3, or 2 depending on the nature of the scale
or item), and the least favorable responses, lower scores. See
Appendix A for a complete description of the dependent variables.

** p .05
*** p .01

77

null hypothesis. However, three dependent variables do show
significant relationships to center-periphery location. Pro-citizen
competence varies inversely with location: that is, the more central
a person's location, the lower his score of pre-citizen competence
is likely to be, in this sample. On the other hand expectation of
equal treatment, and political knowledge scores both vary positively
with development as expected.

The pattern among the significant relationships suggests that the
initial hypothesis relating elite and near elite attitudes directly
to regional deve10pment cannot be consistently applied to explain
observed variations. One wonders, then whether it has any theoretical
or predictive utility at all with respect to the study of elites and
near elites. It will be necessary to consider alternative explanations
at a later point. However, before proceeding to that task it will be
useful to examine the contingency tables associated with these
significant relationships in order to determine in a precise way not
possible with a simple correlation coefficient the major locus of
the variation among the regions. Table 3.2 presents the full detail

of the distribution of pre-citizen competence among the regions.

Two things are quickly apparent from this table. It includes
large numbers of "don't know" and "not ascertained" responses, and
it suggests that the reverse of the hypothesis may be more nearly
valid than the hypothesis itself.

As was noted earlier, the respondents had a substantial problem
in coming to grips with the questions involved in the scale, all of
which required them to project into the future. However, the

distribution of don't know responses is not severely skewed by region.

78

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79

Since the questions involve very basic ideas of the role "participant
citizen" (e.g. could you do something to change a law being considered
by the National Assembly if you considered it to be unjust?) the
inability of the students to respond suggests a less than adequate
socialization process in this respect. However, it is also possible
that there exists a cultural difficulty in responding to projective
questions. It is not possible to resolve this question without compara-
tive data.

Secondly, the table indicates a mild inverse relationship between
the center-periphery dimension and the frequency of high scores in
pre-citizen competence. The data, broken into the full detail of its
original ungrouped form, indicate that 7M% of the respondents of Lim6n
who answered the question and 41% of those in Liberia, (Guanecaste)
score high in pre-citizen competence, while only 3¢% and 35% respectively
score high in the mid range and central areas respectively. (Lim6n and
Liberia are separated here, though they are grouped as "periphery" in
table 3.3). Thus, for some reason it is the students of Limon in
particular who score exceptionally high on the scale, the very persons
who, because of their race and the discrimination which has often been
semi-officially directed against them, according to Denton, one would
have expected to score particularly low. 0n the other hand, it is
not a peculiarity of Limon which creates the relationship - i.e. a
local, non-developmental factor - but rather a factor which is also
present in Liberia, though apparently in lesser degree.

All of this might indicate a tendency for persons of the large
metropolitan area of San Jose to feel estranged from national institutions

of imposing complexity and impersonal nature which characterize the

capital. Such an interpretation, however, seems to be too simple,

 

80

for other possibilities also exist. It may, for example, be that the
proximity of the world of political action to the students of San Jose
and other areas of the mgggta, offsets to some extent the undoubtedly
idealized notions of the citizen role offered in the schools. In the
peripheral areas, the sheer factor of isolation means that the opportunity
for reality testing and the development of the sophistication of realism
is likely to be less available. One must, after all, recognize that
high levels of citizen competence are likely, for most people, to be an
exaggerated notion of the power of the individual citizen to effect
political results, and that conversely, a certain level of skepticism is
probably necessary for the prevention of disillusionment.

Yet another possibility exists, that the level of pre-citizen
competence is determined by localite influences systematically stronger
at the periphery than at the center, and that in assessing their political
competence the respondents view their place in the national system
according to their family's position in the locality. That is to say,
for example, persons of Lim6n may, in considering their level of influence,
compare themselves not to their counterparts in San Jose, but to other
local persons. If, therefore, the status system of the peripheral areas
is rather more rigid than that of the center, persons of upper status
may have exaggerated, and locally determined, notions of their own
political influence in the setting of national politics. And, since
they form a significant portion of the peripheral sample, this tendency
might increase the proportion of rural respondents with high scores
even above that of the center. I shall return to this question at a
later point. For the moment suffice it to say that whatever the reasons
for the mild relationship, they are not the reasons suggested by the

original hypothesis. Developmental level of the environment does not,

81

in this case, determine the level of pre-citizen competence. At least it
does not do so directly, as hypothesized. If developmental factors are
involved, the causal chain is apparently far more complex.

In the second category (Part B) of Table 3.2, only one of the
four variables shows a significant relationship. As in Part A the
essential message here is national unity across developmental lines,
rather than the hypothesized division. There seems to be national
agreement among the young elite and near elite on the beneficiality of
national government, and on the trustworthiness of politicians and
political parties.

The one exception to this interregional unity is the variable
"expectation of equal treatment from.administrative authorities."
Apparently there is some reason to believe that respondents of the
center feel more capable, or more favored, in their relationships
with public authorities. This relationship is consistent with the
interpretation that persons at the center, being more likely to be
experienced with bureaucratic dealings, and being part of a more politically
active sector of the population than persons at the periphery would have
confidence in their abilities to gain at least average treatment. How-
ever, an examination of Table 3.3 makes manifest a different tendency
as well.

The difference between the center and the periphery in this case
is less one of centrist assumptions of preferential treatment and more
one of centrist assumptions of neutrality and peripheral assumptions of
non-neutrality, either preferential or "not so good." In fact the
group at the periphery which believes its treatment likely to be
preferential is larger than that at the center. It is the moderate and
the low group that account for the positive gamma coefficient reported

earlier.

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83

This finding raises the question of whether the expectations of
equal treatment are imagined, artifactual creations of experiences
other than those with the bureaucracy itself, or whether bureaucratic
neutrality does in fact vary. It may well be that the bureaucracy of
the center is more nearly neutral than that of the periphery. However,
it also seems that the greatest tendency to expect inequality comes in
those areas which have the smallest middle class segments and the most
reigid stratification systems. The obvious question, then is whether a
relationship between status and expectation of preferential or less than
euqal treatment can be shown to prevail only in the peripheral areas.
That is, equality apparently generally is the expectation in the center.
However, inequality both advantageous and disadvantageous to the
respondent, is a frequent expectation at the periphery. If regional
differences in social status explains this difference, persons of middle
and upper status in the peripheral areas should expect better treatment
and persons of lower status should expect inferior treatment, whereas
that should not be true of the center. In any case it is clear that the
simple develOpmental hypothesis is an inadequate tool for explanation
of this relationship. I shall return to the attempt to explain it at
a later point in this chapter.

The general agreement observed in the other variables in set B
of the gamma Table, 3.1, warrents some further consideration. Given
the comments of Denton to the effect that the government has neglected
the area beyond the‘gg§§§§.233§£gl or has at least been unable to provide
social equality in full measure, unity is unexpected for social as well
as developmental reasons.

The central plateau, an.expanse of some four thousand

square kilometers (2500 square miles) or approximately
8% of the total national land area, contains almost

84

60% of Costa Rica's population. Residing on this plateau

are 80% of the national work force; 79% of all hospital

beds, and some 83% of total national capital investment

are to be found in this region. . .though Costa Rica has

an official literacy rate of 85%. . .8575 of the illiterates

live outside of the central plateau area where schools

are not as accessible and communications are more limited.

In the past Negroes were not permitted to move into the

central plateau, through a series of extralegal measures

aimed against them. . . . .however this discrimination

against them has now been terminated though it is still

difficult for a Negro to get a job in the central plateau.

While this description of differences which might be rectified
by the actions of a socially conscious central government is not as
extreme as it might be if another nation, say Panama, were under considera-
tion, these comments do suggest some reason to expect at least ambivolence
on the part of the youthful near elite and elite of the periphery. Yet
there is general agreement. Approximately 80%»of the sample in all areas
reports that they consider the actions of the government of the Republic
to be beneficial. Even the black students of Lim6n, who might be expected
to have special reason to be disenchanted report this level of support.

There does exist the possibility that the respondents, having
been set apart from much of the local population by virtue of their
education, identify with the attitudes of the national elite in this
regard while the lower status groups exhibit substantial alienation.
Labor riots which have occured in Lim6n, the communist and PRN voting
of some rural labor in the province of Puntarenas, suggest that this

10

may be the case. The evident unity in my elite and near elite sample
then, should not be misinterpreted as general mass national unity.
However, in this important middle and upperumiddle class segment of
the population (in terms of future occupational status) unity does
prevail, and this is a hopeful sign for further progress in national

integration.

85

Finally in the dimension of political knowledge, a mild relation-
ship appears which clearly is consistent with the hypothesis. Persons
resident at the center, despite equal levels of formal education,
and equal levels of self-reported interest in, and attention to political
affairs in the news (see Table 3.2, Part C2) tend to have higher scores
on a simple test of political knowledge. The probable explanation is
simple exposure to political affairs. Such exposure is constantly
available in the Center, especially in San Jose; where the parties and
bureaucracies are headquartered, where radio stations post the news on
huge black-board billboards or broadcast it over loudspeakers in the
public square as well as on the radio. Political personalities are
always close at hand and are not infrequently involved in debate or
open conflict (strikes) with the students or school administrations.
Little wonder, than, that information levels are higher at the center.

Mbre interesting is the associated result that information
seeking ("interest and attention") is not similarly related to location.
The latter seems to indicate the socialization mechanisms encouraging
a more basic form of politicization than information holding itself,
have been rendered rather uniform regardless of developmental levels.
This unity is probably a result of equal levels of education in the
sample, though the populace as a whole,oommon observation would indicate,
is uncommonly interested in politics and "the news." 11

Ought the hypothesis that socio—economic development is positively
related to attitudes supportive of modern democracy be rejected? For
several of the variables studied to this point, the answer must be yes,
at least within the particular sample under study. Only two of the

nine variables examined to this point show the expected relationship.

Another shows a reversed relationship. Apparently one can expect,

given a sample of high and equal educational levels, (which amounts

to an implicit control on the factor, education) that information and
self-confidence in dealing'with administrative agencies will vary with
level of economic development of the area in which one readies and is
socialized. Hewever, for most variables no systematic variation by
developmental level ought to be expected in such a sample, though it
may yet exist in the larger population.

The two findings which appear particularly complex, and therefore
interesting, are the expectation of equal treatment and pre-citizen
competence. Both warrent further examination in an attempt to explain
the full complexity of relationships which are more involved than the
mild correlation coefficients would suggest.

Several hypotheses were discussed in the opening chapters of
this paper. They are among the primary hypothese which attempt to
relate developmental processes of the economy and society in general to

12 In those chapters, I have singled out

change in political attitudes.
the relationship of social status, socialization processes, and general
traditionalism to objective, ecological measures of regional development
for further examination. In every case I found the variable to be
mildly but positively related to regional development as measured by
the Centeereriphery index. Thus the assumption that the centerb
periphery index score would also bear a relationship to the attitudes
usually thought to be dependent upon these asPects of development
appeared likely to be valid. However, the results of the correlations
listed above manifest inconsistencies, and little support for that
assumption.

The inconsistency of the results presents the researcher with

a methodological and conceptual problem. Convention dictates that one

87

locate "relationships" and "explain observed variance." Typically
this orderly progression of analysis is useful in situations in which
the initial relationship under discussion has been confirmed in the
data. Here, however, with precious little support for the initial
hypothesis, it is not possible for the explanatory variables discussed
above - all of which are positively related to the independent
variable -— to explain both positive and negative relationships observed
in the dependent variables, unless the interaction of the several
variables is far more complex than hitherto anticipated.

Methodologically then, it is necessary to seek a somewhat
different logic to guide further investigation. Conceptually it is
necessary to seek a single explanation which will explain seemingly
contrary results.

One might choose one of two general approaches to this problem.
He might simply consider the hypotheses rejected, denying that any
consistent developmental relationships exist in this elite sample
beyond the two mild relationships observed. He might suppose for
example, that the high school senior represents a unique stratum of
society largely exempt from the influence of local environments because
of his extensive vicarious experience. Yet the relationship between
regional development and traditionalism scores casts doubt on this
interpretation. One might even go on to gather further information
on other social groups or utilize other measures, though that alterna~
tive presents practical problems of time and expense.

A simpler and useful alternative is available, however. One
may ask whether the interaction of development and the variables
discussed above as explanatory (intervening or antecedent) variables

might be far more complex than expected. If so it might still be that

88

social status, traditionalism, and socialization process provide
explanations for the observed relationships, though not the simple
"increase-of-proportions" explanation posited by others. The literature
is so infused with assumptions and occasional demonstrations of the
usefulness of these variables for explanation of developmental differences
that one ought not discard them summarily. Moreover, the primary focus
of this research is on the usefulness of these particular variables and
the general developmental notions from which they derive for the under-
standing of variance in modernity of attitudes among elites and near
elites. Therefore it will be wise to examine them directly before
reaching a firm conclusion as to their usefulness as adjuncts of
developmental theories.

To take social status as an example, the hypothesis generated by
the work of Nie and his colleagues with respect to social status and
modernity of attitudes might represent an oversimplification of the
role of status in attitude distribution, particularly if applied to
an elite sutdy in which the middle and upper strata of society were
vastly overrepresented relative to the total population.13 Where the
upper strata of rural society are not lost in a mass sample, but make
up a similar portion (in a sample) to the middle and upper classes of
urban areas, it may be that we must consider the variable social status
to be discrete in its nature, fundamentally different between regions
having different levels of socio-economic development, rather than
continuous throughout the nation in its meaning.

Little published work other than that of Linz and Miguel and of
Goldrich has even considered this problem.14 Linz and Miguel argue
that fundamentally different class systems exist in urban and rural

areas of developing nations, the former being characterized by greater

89

egalitarianism, the latter by a patronal style they refer to as a
"gentry" system.” Goldrich suggests that the nature of politicization
or socialization differs with one's spatial or temporal location with
respect to development. He too posits the existence of a unique patronal
system of values and status in less developed, more agrarian areas. 16

On the other hand, no one, to my knowledge, has speculated on
the probable manifestations of these differences in quantitative data
relating modernity of a political culture to development of an economy.
But surely if social status plays the important role Nie argues it
plays, such differences must have a profound effect. One is tempted to
suggest that the difference is essentially one of degree or severity of
stratification. If so, then it would seem that the relationship
between status and modern attitudes would be stronger at the periphery
than at the relatively egalitarian center. Such a variant relationship
might account for the greater tendency toward extremes observed in
"expectation of equal treatment" in the periphery. (Table 5.3).

The difference in tendencies toward extreme responses, however,
does not account for all regional differences, for a mild positive
relationship between developmental level and expectation of equal
treatment remains. This may be subject to various interpretations,
but probably indicates both that the administrative agencies of the
center are more nearly neutral, and that persons of the center have
greater experience in dealing with them, and thus are more confident.

On the other hand, the findings related to regional development
and pre-citizen competence are not at all of this nature. Thus the
task of attaining uniform explanations or even consistent explanations
becomes unusually complex. It may be useful therefore, to set aside

for the moment the conventional approach of observation and subsequent

9O

"explanation" of variance. To put it another way, the original
hypotheses utilized here are in part consistent with part of the data.
But the unexplained variation suggests interesting develOpmental
relationships. Thus rather than simply rejecting the original
hypotheses I find it necessary to attempt to develop alternative
explanations which may suggest interpretations of the interaction
between developmental level and political culture not previously
subject to empirical examination.

What seems to be necessary here is the utilization of the approach
discussed by Glaser and Strauss.” Essentially, they suggest that it
is frequently useful to generate and examine data, not for the purpose
of testing existing hypotheses, but for the purpose of "generating”
theory "grounded” in empirical data.18 This is particularly true in
instances in which little or no research of a preliminary nature
has been done. That is the case in this instance, for neither quantita-
tive application of these developmental theories, nor systematic
quantitative studies of the aspects of Costa Rican society under study
have previously been undertaken. Consequently the nature of the goal
at this point of the investigation must cease to be the testing of
existing theory and become the generation of new theory or hypotheses
or at least the adaptation of pre-existing theories. Since initial
selection of variables has been frozen into the research instrument
at this point and since the data themselves seem to offer the only
available guide to further explanatory analysis and proposition building,
this procedure would appear to offer the only means of advancing beyond
fruitless speculation.

One implication of this procedure ought to be made explicit.

Glaser and Strauss observe that the data required for generation of

91

theory need not be as exact as that required for verification of
propositions.19 In the present case it may be that in some cases the
data suggests more than can be demonstrated with it, especially where
multi-variate relationships are involved. This is an unfortunate
consequence of the sample size, the extent and non-redundancy of
missing data, the lack of further explanatory variables and other
features of the Costa Rican student data which preclude both the use
of certain multi-variate techniques which might have proven useful, and
the inclusion of 'other explanatory variables.20
In short, given that the data as observed to this point is
inconsistent in most cases with the theory which underlay the initial
hypothesis, both the theory and hypotheses derived from it must in
some way be incorrect and in need of revision. But the manner of that
revision cannot become clear until the data is examined with the inclusion
of the control variables which were previously assumed to be likely
explanatory variables in both the theoretical and statistical senses.

The point at which to begin is the negative, thus most paradoxical,

relationship between regional development and pre-citizen competence.

Pre-Citizen Competence
And Developmental Factors

Social Status

It was reported earlier that social status is related mildly,
but positively to regional development. It also was noted that a
major difference across both temporal and spatial differences in
developmental levels was the size of the middle class. However,
the smaller middle class of the peripheral areas is not smaller
only because of the relatively greater proportion of persons of
lower status groups as is implied by the Nie hypothesis. There
is also a greater proportion of the peripheral and mid-range sub-
samples which is of families of upper status occupations. In a
mass sample, such as that of the Civic Culture study reanalyzed by
Nie and his colleagues, this group would be likely to provide such
a small portion of the rural sample, that it would not be a
significant factor. However, it may provide a key to understanding
the relationships observed here, if as one might presume, the upper
status rural population holds exceptionally high scores in pre-
citizen competence because of their families' continuing prestige
in the waning rural society. If so, this tendency might in part
account for the negative relationship observed between the center-
periphery index and the pre-citizen competence scale.

Yet one would assume that if such a distinct rural social

system did exist, that its strictures would apply equally to the

93

manual and the non-manual groups. Thus the scores of the former
would be expected to be exceptionally low, offsetting, perhaps, the
high scores expected of the non-manuals in the intra-regional distribu-
tion of competence scores. Therefore, while such an explanation
appears quite plausable on its face, it does not provide a terribly
convincing explanation of the data already observed in Table 3.2.21
It will therefore be useful to turn to the data itself without
attempting to specify expectations fully in hypothetical form.
Several things are immediately apparent from this table.
(1) the relationship of status to pre-citizen
competence is somewhat stronger in the mid-
range periphery sample than in the center
sample.
(2) The manual status group of each region is
virtually equal to that of the other region
in distribution of scores.
(3) The major focus of interbregional differences
is therefore within the non-manual status
group of the periphery. While the non-manual
status group more frequently than any other,
believes itself highly competent politically,
the non-manual status group of the center tends
to gravitate toward the moderate category.
Clearly status is closely associated with, and involved in,
the negative relationship between the centerbperiphery index and
pre-citizen competence. Hewever, that realization, while it supports
the continued acceptance of the assumption that status is a significant
factor in development related attitude differences, does not explain
what its precise role is in the peculiar configuration of data arrayed
in Table 3.4. ‘Why, in short, do the complex relationships apparent

here appear? Unfortunately no definitive answers are possible.

However, the data does present opportunities for educated speculation,

94

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95

more elegantly refered to as "generation of grounded theory."

Non-Manual Status Respondents

 

The somewhat stronger relationship of status to pre-citizen
competence at the periphery and the exceptionally high scores of
non-manuals at the periphery are in all probability due to the
nature of the peripheral non-manual stratum. While this social
sector at the center is primarily composed of middle class persons,
at the periphery it contains a substantial proportion of upper
status persons, or rather their offspring. These appear (from data
unreported here) to be primarily owners of property while the upper
status groups of the center tend more frequently to be of urban-
industrial occupations such as the professions or managerial positions.

It is a reasonable speculation that this group tends to consider
itself rather an elite sector of the local society. Its high estimate
of its political influence is thus in all probability conditioned
by localite influences deriving from its favored, ”gentry" status.

The propositions which follow are easily derived from this
interpretation and could be tested either cross-culturally or in
a somewhat altered re-study which systematically selected persons
from the contrasting social strata for comparison. Where a relatively
underdeveloped sub-unit of society exists, it is likely to maintain
a locally based system of social stratification in which the
distinctions between manual and nonpmanual work, between owner and
worker are more severe than similar distinctions in highly urbanized
central areas. Assuming that social status is an important determinant

of attitude differences, therefore, the relationship between status

and pre-citizen competence will tend to be stronger in the more
peripheral areas.22

Furthermore, for research purposes, in any sample of elite or
near elite persons in which the rural "gentry" class makes up a
substantial portion of the total sample, one ought to treat the
variable ”social status” as a discrete variable across space or time
where developmental differences are involved. Where this traditional
social status group has disappeared in the process of industrialization
or has not been sampled, the distinction will be unimportant, and
the hypothesis developed by Nie gt_gl_which predicts only that the
middle class of the more developed areas will be larger and will
thus determine the cultural differences between more and less
developed areas, will be useful for prediction.

For localite influences of status systems to be significant,
it may also be important for the respondents to be young persons with
no real experience in dealing with the national structures of power.
Such experience with unified national institutions might lead
away from locally determined assumptions of influence and toward
assumptions based on one's position in the nation.

The objection may be raised that these suggested relationships
treat the assumed influence of the rural nonsmanual status groups
as an overestimation of their power whereas it is well known that in
a few Latin American nations it is still precisely these groups
which exert primary influence. Yet in the Costa Rican case this is
not a valid objection. The respondents of the non-manual peripheral

group tend to be of the parties of the anti-PLN coalition. While

these parties have many members who enjoy substantial social and

97

economic power, the PLN has been the dominant political power since

the election of 1953, and in some ways since the revolution of 1948.23
It has never lost power in the Legislative Assembly. It has maintained
control of most of the municipal offices. Its members hold many of

the primary positions in the bureaucracy.

Furthermore, an examination of the responses of the students to
the question of whether any member of their family has held political
office, only ¢% of this group replied positively, while 10% of the
center group did so.

Finally, an examination of the deviant cases of this table
suggests that even for the non-manual status group of the mid-range
and peripheral regions there is an important degree of unexplained
variation. That is, while the latter group outscores the non-manuals
of the center in the high category 43% to 30%, it also has a higher
proportion in the very low category (30%.compared to 29% for the
center). Therefore it is clear that status by no means provides a
complete explanation of the observed variation.

To describe the status variables as the probable underlying
cause of the exceptionally high scores of the peripheral/mid-range
respondents does not directly answer the question of why the non-
manual respondents of the center should score lower than they, and
in fact have the smallest proportion of respondents in the "high"
category of pre-citizen competence of all groups. It suggests
only that the factor of social status is irrelevant to them in
assessing their own political influence, unless one can argue
that there exists in Costa Rica a systematic tendency for the urban

middle and upper middle class to be somewhat discriminated against

in the political system. Because this does not appear to be the
case, we must consider this variation inexplicable in terms of social
status. Therefore it appears that varied socializing influences are
probably dominant in determination of political competence, depending
upon a person's social status.24
Manual Status Respondents:

In several respects the data for manual status respondents are
paradoxical. Neither do they tend to score low as a bloc nor do
manual respondents of the periphery score lower than those of the
center. Actually, manual respondents of both the center and periphery
actually outnumber nonsmanual persons in the high competence category.

Finally, the hypothesis that it is the factor of status that
explains interbregional variance in attitudes, predicts that like-
status groups will have equal levels of pre-citizen competence
across regional lines, and that the primary variation will be between
differing status groups rather than between regions. Obviously that
pattern does not appear in the non-manual data. However, clearly the
manual status groups:are virtually equal in their scores across regional
lines. Thus, whatever the social meaning of manual status to these
students, it is virtually the same thing regardless of regional develop-
ment. In this respect, manual status obviously differs from non-manual.
While no definitive explanations are yet possible, a number of specula~
tive nations may point toward future empirical explanation.

First, the experience of a high school education may serve as
an equalizer between the regional groups of low status. Otherwise,

one would have expected to find that the manuals of the center would

99

have had higher scores than like status respondents of the mid-
range and periphery.

Moreover, the attribute "offspring of manual-status-father"
itself seems to have little to do with the level of pre-citizen
competence within regions. If the two were related, one would have
anticipated that the manual groups would tend to gravitate toward
the lower score categories. Yet no such tendency exists. In fact
in the center, the relationship is in the reverse direction. However,
that relationship is indeed mild. Here again, apparently, other
antecedents of pre-citizen competence must be sought. I shall
return to this search presently.

Another social force which may prevent the accumulation of large
numbers of manual status offspring in the low category, and may even
account for their slight tendencies in the center toward higher
scores, is their upward mobility. By virtue of their educational
achievement in a society in which only four per cent of the total
population achieve the bachillerato, or high school diploma, the
offspring of manual workers virtually assure themselves of a position
of higher social status than that of their parents. Moreover, their
training in self assertion or achievement orientation is likely to
have been rather unusually extensive in the home for them to have
achieved such an education. Thus, here again is a potential counterb
vailing pressure upward, perhaps preventing the expected low scores.
In short, it is no doubt the case that while status has some impact
on the attitudes of persons in the larger society in such a clearly
stratified system, that impact may be somewhat milder among persons

who have begun to rise above the manual status of their parents.

100

Summary: Social Status and Regional Development

In summary then, social status as an explanatory variable for
the observed negative relationship between regional develOpment and
pre-citizen competence, provides some limited insights when the nature
of interbregional status variation is redefined, but leaves a great
deal of variation unexplained. There may be some value in considering
the transitional society to have at least two class systems of a more
and a less traditional agrarian type. Such variation of status
systems may be expected to result in unique impacts of status on
attitudes toward national institutions in areas of varied levels
of development. The apparent occurrence of this phenomenon, in
the present case, is in the nondmanual stratum of the relatively
peripheral areas, and appears to provide an explanation for the
distribution of some scores. However, extensive deviation from the
predictions of this hypothetical construction of reality is also
apparent in all of the social status groups.

Although the deviation of the manual status groups from hypothetical
expectations provides interesting material for speculation, data to
explain the deviations is lacking. However, the cause of the
unexpected results within the manual stratum, while an interesting
question, is in all likelihood not directly related to develOpmental
processes under discussion here. Therefore the absence of empirical
explanation in the present data does not severely obstruct further

exploration of developmental differences.

Traditionalism 25

If we assume that one does not easily give up ideas which help

characterize his culture, then we may also assume that the traditional

101

culture will serve as an obstacle to diffusion of "modern" norms.
Therefore the inverse relationship of regional development to pre-
citizen competence is as surprising in terms of expectations surrounding
traditionalism as status. Very simply, if traditionalism were a

factor of resistance to pre-citizen competence, scores of the mid-
range/periphery sample among whom traditionalist views are more

common, would be lower. Because the reverse of this tendency is

evident in the data of Table 3.2 one is forced to reconsider the

role played by traditionalism.

Again, hypothesis construction is this paradoxical situation
would be entirely speculative. Thus it will be useful to turn to
the data.

The logical point at which to begin is the direct intra~regional
association between traditionalism and competence scores. Were the
relationship of regional development to pre-citizen competence
positive, one would have expected interbregional' differences to
dissipate when the relationship was controlled for traditionalism.
The fact that a negative relationship exists defies explanation, for
the logical conclusion - that high traditionalism is associated with
high competence - is theoretically untenable in a relatively modern
political system.

Table 3.5 resolves the question. The table makes manifest
two primary tendencies. First the relationship in the center is
moderately strong and negative. The relationship in the mid-range/
periphery between traditionalism and competence is positive, but

extremely weak and not entirely consistent through the moderate

102

 

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103

category. Secondly, however, the low traditionalism categories do
tend to be equal in competence scores regardless of regional
development, though this is not true of the high traditionals.
These facts imply several things.

In the Central region, the traditionalists have, by definition,
not learned appropriate modes of participation in the modern institu-
tions of the center. Traditionalist assumptions about the personalization
of power relationships and the non-"rational" nature of human events
generally, serve as inadequate guides to behavior or understanding
in the modern state.

In the periphery, on the other hand, the factor of traditionalism
has very little impact. Rather a plurality of each traditionalism
category perceive their own future citizen competence as high, though
a large percentage of high traditionals.also perceives its competence
as very low.

Clearly traditionalism does not serve as an obstacle to the
diffusion of pre-citizen competence in the periphery as it does at
the center. Nor, on the other hand, does high traditionalism neces-
sarily lead to a high level of citizen competence, though obviously
it is not incompatible with it.

Perhaps the transitional stage of development of political
institutions is the key in the periphery. One may probably assume
that the institutions of the center are rather ”modern" in an
objective sense, while those in the periphery are yet in transition
with more ”traditional" elements (personalisation, diffuseness of
function, status oriented recruitment) continuing to exist. (With

measures of institutional development this hypothesis could of

104

course be tested). If this is the case, then the extent of the
impact of traditionalist values on perceptions of political competence
will increase as institutional modernity increases. This, therefore,
as well as an increase in the proportions of traditionalists in the
periphery will change with further socio-economic and political
development.

Here again, then, one finds a developmental change which involves
a changing relationship between variables. This type of change
dominates the data analysis of this paper. It will be shown to be
one of the fundamental aspects of the development of political culture.

Note also what has been left implicit to this point, that the
meaning of the variable "pre-citizen" competence is more general
than the earlier discussion implied. It is not a singularly "modern”
attribute. Its modernity or lack thereof can in fact be defined only
relativistically; Relative, that is, to the state of institutional
development of the political system. Political influence is clearly
a generic concept on which modern institutions and societies have no
monopoly. What is unique, moreover, about political influence in
the modern society is not only its frequency, but also its social
antecedents. Thus the socialization and recruitment processes which
underlie the perception of influence change with socio-economic
development. This observation is perilously close to being a
truism. Yet it is one that has not generally been incorporated
into studies of culture and development.

One final aspect of traditionalism must be examined. It was
previously argued that respondents of nonsmanual status who reside

at the periphery consider themselves to be highly competent politically

105

because of the high social status still assigned to them by the
passing traditional society. It is likely that they so rate them-
selves because of their own maintenance of traditional values as
well. Persons whose social group is in a period of decline may

be expected to cling defensively to the values of the passing order.
If that is the case with these respondents, the non-manual status
persons of the periphery are likely to be the highest scorers in
traditionalism. This is in fact the case, as Table 3.6 demonstrates.

(Unfortunately, the extent of missing data in pre-citizen
competence and traditionalism prohibit the direct observation of
the relationships among status, traditionalism and pre-citizen
competence).

Note also in Table 3.6 that the manual status respondents score
rather high in traditionalism, yet do not manifest the logical
cultural consequence of combined low status and high traditionalism:
i.e. low perception of political competence.

Because we must deal with interbtabular comparisons of aggregated
data here, it is not clear that the manual persons who are high in
traditionalism are also those who are high in competence. Yet it
does seem peculiar that the low status of the whole group and the
traditionalism which apparently pervades the culture of the periphery
do not result in a general tendency toward low competence scores.

The actual explanation of this situation cannot be divined
with the data, but the speculative explanation offered earlier
can be reiterated. Since the characteristic, "manual status,”
derives from the students' parents, and since the students themselves

are unlikely to remain in a manual occupation in a society in which

 

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107

only ¢% complete high school. Their upward mobility may create the
assumption among them that they too will exercise the political
influence presumed to be enjoyed by those who have attained middle
status occupations.

Whatever the full explanation, it is clear that the non-manual
status respondents continue to be the group which is exceptional
and thus particularly interesting.

Socialization Process: Participatory Role
Playing in the Family

 

At the outset of this study I committed myself to the consideration
of three factors thought to be related in quite different ways to the
speed and fluidity of the process of cultural diffusion. Status,
traditionalism, and role playing in the family as training for
political participation. The consideration of the first two of
these has led to substantial speculation, grounded in the data, as
to the best means of revising concepts offered by others. The variable
”role playing in the family," while it results in less cosmic rein-
terpretations and is not easily tied to the other variables, also
suggests some changes of interpretation which may be of considerable
use for further research. Therefore it will be useful to examine
this variable briefly in its interaction with the centerhperiphery
dimension.

Almond and verbs, in the only major cross national survey of
such socialization processes have shown that experiences affecting
decisions made in the family when one is an adolescent, is related
to the development as an adult of the confidence that one can wield

27

an analogous influence in the political process. As was demonstrated

108

in Chapter II, the openness of family decision making processes to
participation by the respondents varies with the level of regional
development. This is consistent with the arguments of LeVine,
Scott and others who suggest that the relatively authoritarian
family processes of the less developed areas are likely to find
expression in an authoritarian political style.

Yet this variable too presents a paradoxical picture, for it is
known by now that pre-citizen competence is inversely related to
development of region. One would have assumed that the higher
level of participant training, media exposure, higher quality
education and other factors would have served to bolster competence
scores there and to depress those of the respondents at the periphery.
This, however, is not the case, as Table 3.2 originally showed.

Thus, despite the fact that earlier a mild relationship between
regional development and family role playing was reported (Table 2.6)
and that others have reported a relationship between such processes
and political competence scores, the area of the nation with higher
levels of family role playing (the center) has the lower overall
scores in pre-citizen competence. One situation in which such a
complex set of relationships might occur is that in which a positive
relationship occurred in the central region and no such relationship
occurred in the periphery. If, under these circumstances, other
factors (such as status) were a more important determinant of
competence in the periphery than in the center and led to higher
scores in the peripheral sample, the complex set of relationship

reported here would appear peculiar but not incomprehensible.

109

Almond and Verbs and Langton have pointed out cases in which a
relationship between socialization processes and attitudes are
stronger for one social groups than for another.29 Langton points
out that among lower status adolescents in Jamaica, the experience
of discussion of politics in the home is an important factor in
the development of political competence. It is not so important
for persons of higher status. He suggests that such experiences
are probably superfluous for the upper status groups, but not the
lower. Almond and verba offer similar explanations.

Table 3.7 presents the data for the relationship between socializing
processes of the family and pre-citizen competence within each region.
The number of cases is too small in several cells to give a great
deal of confidence in the results, for even a few absentees could
seriously alter the results. However, because at this stage of the
analysis I am dealing in exploration rather than definitive testing
I shall procede, having alerted the reader to the fact that the
results may not be stable among samples should this work be
replicated.

If one examines the extreme cells of the table for each region,
he will find that the differences are not very great in either
region. However, while in the periphery they are inconsistent and
virtually inconsequential, in the center there appears to be a very
mild positive relationship. If in a larger sample this relationship
were maintained or even strengthened one would be able to offer
substantial evidence for the interpretation offered here.501t is
known that social status has very little (if any) relationship to

pre-citizen competence among the students sampled at the center,

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111

while it has an observable, though not entirely linear relationship
at the periphery. Perhaps it is the case that in the more egalitarian
society the experience of socialization by analogous role playing is
one of several factors for status which replace status and personal
connections as determinants of competence as development procedes.
In short, in the relatively equalitarian system, the tendency to
generalize from the decisional learning situation of the family to
the political process may be greater simply because the ascriptive
factors are less active. In short, for the student at the periphery,
the experience of learning the methods and norms of influencing
decisions by arguments based on considerations of citizen interest -
the implied political analogy of the family experience under study -
has no place in the processes of national politics as he perceives
them. Therefore to him the experience is superfluous much as status
seems superfluous within the elite and near elite at the center.

If this interpretation is valid, it appears to contradict the
institutionally based interpretation of LeVine.31 He argues that
the more complex society will find the process of generalization from
family learning situation to political attitudes and institutions
will consist of too many steps for the analogies to remain clear.
That is, the national institutions will be too complex and too far
removed from simple processes of family decision making. Therefore,
he argues, one will find greater correspondence between the implicit
or latent socialization processes (especially the authority system
of the family) in the traditional society than in the modern society.
This may be the case in very general terms with respect to inter-

national comparisons between the western industrial states and

112

certain tribal societies of the African continent, for example.
Hewever, within a given system, if one attempts to apply this
schema to the analysis of within nation differences, apparently
quite a different set of variables comes into play. The moderniza-
tion process changes the basis of recruitment criteria as well as
increasing the structural complexity of institutions. Thus, while
LeVine's position has an inherently appealing simplicity to it, the
change from a less egalitarian to a more egalitarian social system
which seems to procede simultaneously with increase of institutional
complexity, may prevent the actualization of this relationship.

Developmental Variables and the Expectation
Of Equal Treatment by Bureaucratic Authorities

 

The dimension other than pre-citizen competence that appeared
earlier to be useful to examine for purposes of hypothesis development
was that between the centerbperiphery measure and the expectation
that one would receive equal treatment from administrative authorities.
Table 3.3 examined above, made it clear that respondents of the
central region more frequently expected equal treatment. Thus, it
was concluded, the inter-regional differences measured by the item
have to do with differing expectations of bureaucratic neutrality
rather than with a feeling on the part of one population group that
it generally receives "better" than equal treatment due to its skill
in dealing with bureaucrats of police officials.

Assuming for the moment that the complex interpretations offered
previously for the differing roles played by the variables status
and traditionalism in explaining pre-citizen competence scores in

the two regions are correct, one would also presume that similar

113

interpretations might be develOped for the dependent variable
“expectation of equal treatment." It was observed earlier that
the social status system of the periphery seems to be more rigidly
stratified than that of the center. If that is the case, then
one may argue that the tendency of the respondents of the periphery
to choose extreme responses to this question has to do with their
social status. Thus, if the relationship between center-periphery
is controlled for status, and the factor status accounts for the
tendency toward extreme responses then, the persons of upper status
ought to choose the response "better than equal" while persons of
lower status choose the response "less than equal." This tendency
ought to be observable in both regions, since it is assumed that
neither area is free of marked differences among status groups.
However it should be a particular tendency of the periphery.

In passing one ought to note also that the response patterns
do not necessarily represent inaccurate assessments by the respondents
of the patterns of behavior manifest by local branches of national
authorities. Simply to argue that the respondents are responding
in class oriented ways does not suggest that their reactions are
either unconscious or irrational, but simply that they are class
conscious. Indeed, given the reputation of Latin American bureaucra-
cies for personalized relationships with clienteles, the class
conscious response may be quite realistic.

Table 3.8 is consistent with the interpretation that to some
extent the expectation of unequal treatment (better or worse) is
related to status, particularly in the periphery. Though it cannot

be demonstrated without additional data, it is quite possible,

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115

that these attitudes are consistent with the real actions of the
administrative agencies. Latin American bureaucracies are known
for their lack of neutrality, and where nondneutrality exists one
would expect it to be particularly pronounced in areas where class
lines are more severely drawn and where the "small town” atmosphere
which prevails there denies the possibility of anonymity and avoidance
of patronizing’relationships available in the metropolitan center.
In any case, in both of the regions status is related to the
socialization of expectations of non-equal treatment by officials.
And the relationship is particularly strong in the periphery, as an
examination of the extreme cells of the table above shows. The
result, then is consistent with the predictions and explanations
offered above. Apparently the different status systems account for
a substantial portion of the tendency toward extreme responses
observed in the peripheral sample.

It must also be noted that in comparing the center as a whole
to the periphery, the center in all cases expects either equal or
better treatment (if one combines those categories) more frequently
than persons of the periphery. To put it negatively, persons at the
periphery in both social status groups expect less than equal treat-
ment more frequently than persons of the center. Thus apparently
there does exist a tendency for the middle and upper middle class
of the future of the periphery to believe more frequently than their
counterparts of the center that it is not well treated in its relap

tionships with the central government. Certainly the learning of

differing expectations with regard to bureaucratic neutrality are,

though expected theoretically, undesirable from the standpoint of

116

both the spread of universalistic criteria of behavior, and the
further integration of the national system of governmental administrap
tion. The fact that students who can have had but little contact
with the police or tax officials about whom the question was asked

in a conflict situation respond in clearly regional and class
conscious ways to this item suggests that if indeed the administrative
system is possessed of major inequities, they tend to have an inertia
beyond the immediate acts of officialdom itself and be maintained in
part by socialized prior expectations.

It is also true that social status as a control variable failed
to explain much of the variance observed among the regions. The
data does suggest that the interregional differences are in part
explicable by the tendency of the persons of the peripheral areas
to choose extreme responses according to their social status. Yet
a number of cases deviate from this explanation. Quite possible
these are persons who believe that they enjoy the advantage of
personal contacts in the bureaucracy.

It was argued in an earlier context that the tendency to accept
ascriptive norms as legitimate may be closely related to this
hypothetical tendency toward personalization of bureaucratic relation-
ships. If this is true, then an examination of the variable tradi-
tionalism.may give some indication of the usefulness of this
explanation.

There are in the data 33 cases which deviate from the hypothetical
expectation that manual respondents will reply "less than equal" and

nonpmanual respondents, "better than equal" to the item in question.

117

Of these, 21, or about 6¢%, also score high in traditionalism. This
is far from being conclusive evidence that traditionalism explains
both a tendency to utilize status criteria for developing sub-cultural
expectations and the tendency among some persons to deviate in non-
status conscious, but still ascriptive ways, from the expectation of
neutral, or ”equal" treatment. But it does make explicit the fact
that status does not provide a full explanation of the interbregional
and inter-class differences.

It is still not entirely clear precisely why the variable
status bears a stronger relationship to the dependent variable at
the periphery than at the center. I have suggested that the ”more
rigid stratification” which appears to prevail there may account
for the difference. Hewever, that simply leads to the question of
why the status system should be particularly important to persons in
the periphery. The variable traditionalism may supply part of the
answer, though a full explanation would require an extensive
comparative analysis of the regional status systems. Such a study is
not yet available. The tendency for the peripheral respondents to
score higher in traditionalism may be part of an underlying tendency
toward acceptance of ascriptive criteria such as status in official
relationships. If one accepts the ascriptive norms of traditional
society, then he is likely to be more aware of his class status in
relationships with officials. If this is true then an examination
of the status groups of each region with traditionalism held constant
should show that, among high traditionals status differences are most

pronounced. Table 3.9 presents the data for this relationship.

118

 

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119

Examination of this table reveals a number of things. First, the
proposition above is generally consistent with the data. Examination
of percentage differences among the significant cells shows that
responses differ between status groups more among high traditionals
than among low, regardless of region. The table also suggests that
the greater status orientation of responses in the periphery may be
due in part to this normative mediating factor as well as to what-
ever real differences in stratification and bureaucratic neutrality
may in fact exist.

Note also that the apparently substantial differences between the
status levels of those at the periphery who are low in traditionalism,
are based on extremely small differences in absolute numbers. One
ought not place much reliance on these figures, for one or two
random absentees could have completely altered the relationship
reported here. Although the table is so detailed that the other
groupings suffer low numbers of cases as well, the problem is less

severe in the other cells.

Conclusions

 

Of all the foregoing, little is very certain. Indeed I have
pressed the data to its limit in order to gain what insights might
be of use in revision of the fundamental theoretical constructs
which may thus be incorporated for refinement and testing in further
elite studies. As plausible as the arguments advanced here are to
one who has lived and worked in Costa Rica they are indeed very highly
speculative. Only when data is available which is originally directed
at the task of operationalizing and testing these concepts can they

be moved into the realm of the immediately useful.

. II]! II II. [
|||I’al| fl! 'l-I‘Illl.

120

On the other hand some useful information of a more immediate
nature is available from this work. For the moment, prior to consid-
eration of further variables in the final chapter, the primary
certainties and speculations are as follows:

(1) It is rarely true that in an elite and near elite sample
the modernity of political attitudes increases with socio-economic
development of the environment in any direct way. For most variables,
no significant relationships are apparent. Simple information
flow appears to follow the lines of development fairly closely.
However, the important variables pre-citizen competence and expecta~
tion of equal treatment vary with developmental level, but in complex
and unexpected ways, related it appears, to the degree to which a
coherent set of traditional assumptions about the nature of life
and society govern the individual's behavior.

(2) People may form relatively distinct sub-cultures based on
differing levels of socio-economic development. Among such sub-
cultures the relationships between or among variables cannot be
assumed to remain constant. In fact the process of cultural
modernization in response to socio—economic development seems to
consist less of changing gross proportions of the presence or
absence of variables in the culture, and more in the changing
relationships among the variables. This is a crucial point.

(3) Although the initial hypotheses predicting a simple increase
in frequencies of expression of modern attitudes was rejected, the
null hypothesis could not be accepted either in three cases for
obvious patterns emerged, and relationships achieved statistical

significance. Thus whether or not the author's speculative explanations

121

of the distributions of scores of pre-citizen competence and expectation
of equal treatment, they can hardly be attributed to chance variation.
The regularities are too striking. And in the subsequent chapter

which deals with variables of quite a different nature, they are

repeated.

CHAPTER III

FOOTNOTES

1See above,

2Norman Nie, et a1., ”Social Structure and Political Participation:
Deve10pmental Relationships, Part 1," American Political Science
Review, June, 1969, pp. 362-365.

3For example, the national day of Independence from Spain is
the occasion for appearances by the President and the Minister of
Education at a student celebration in the national stadium. Rather
than being a day of military celebration (the nation has no standing
army) it is an occasion for demonstration of the athletic prowess of
students in organized mass calesthenics and other gymnastic exhibitions.
Such occasions do not attract the attention of national authorities in
the outlying’areas.

4SydneyV’erba, "Conclusions," in Lucian Pye and Sydney‘verba, eds.,
Political Culture and Political Development (Princeton: Princeton
university Press, 1965), pp. 524, and 552-553.

5David H. Smith and Alex Irisles, "The GM Scale: A Comparative
Socio-Psycholcgical Measure of Individual'MOdernity,” in Sociometgy
(December, 1966), pp. 355-377. Also: Alex Inkeles, ”Participant
Citizenship in Six Developing Countries,” American Political Science
Review (December, 1969), pp. 1120-1141.

6lie, et a1., ”Social Structure and Political Participation,
Part I," pp. 339-372.

7Charles Denton Patterns of Costa Rican Politics (Boston:
Allyn and Bacon, 1971 , p. 12.

81bid.,pp. 2.

91bid., p. 12.

1°Ibid., pp. 74-75.

 

11For example, it was not uncommon in the author's experience
to observe peasants listening to the broadcast debates of the Rational
Legislative Assembly regarding agricultural policy.

12See above, Chapter I,

13See sample description above, pp.49-50Nie, ”Social Structure
and Political Participation, Part I,” pp. 362-365.

122

123

14Juan J. Idnz and Amanda de Miguel, "Within Nation Differences
and Comparisons: The Eight Spains," in Richard L. Merritt and Stein
Rokkan, eds., Compgring Nations (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1966). pp. 267-320. .

15Linz and Miguel, "Within Nation Differences," pp. 288-295.

16Daniel Goldrich, ”Toward the Comparative Study of Politicization
in Latin America," in Peter Snow, ed., Government and Politics in
Latin America (New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1967), pp. 247-
261.

17Barney G. Glaser and Anselm Strauss, The Discovery of Grounded
Theory (Chicago: Aldine, 1967), Chapter II, pp. 21-44.

18Ibid., see also, Chapter I, pp. 1-20.

19Ibid., p. 30.

20Several multi-variate techniques other than the multiple factor
cross-break tables used below were tried. All suffered one deficiency
or another. The fundamental assumptions of the linear nature of the
relationships made by most such techniques: and finally the assumption
that the independent variables were, if not equal interval in nature,
at least continuous proved highly questionnable at best. The complex
contingency tables used, while they are difficult to interpret in some
cases, enable the reader to observe the extent of the data on which
conclusions are based, and to discover the peculiarities of the rela-
tionships apparent here which would not appear (and did not when tried)
with partial correlation techniques.

21The full context of the items used to measure pre-citizen
competence are available in Appendix A.

22One of the very few discussions of this type of changing relation-
ship in the study of within nation differences appears in: Erik Allardt,
"Implications of Within Ration variations and Regional Imbalances for
Cross National Research,” in Merritt and Rokkan, Comparing Nations,
pp. 367-372. I am much indebted to Allardt's reasoning in developing
my own interpretations.

23Denton, Patterns of Costa Rican Politics, pp. 28-34.

24One of the first empirically based discussions of the inter-
class differences in socialization process is found in: Gabriel Almond
and Sydney Verbs, The Civic Culture (Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 1963). PP. 355-357.

25The traditionalism items utilized here are given in full in
Appendix A.

26

 

Almond and Verba, The Civic Culture, pp. 323-376.

124

27Robert A. LeVine, "The Role of the Family in Authority Systems:
A Cross-Cultural Application of Stimulous-Generalization Theory,"
Behavioral Science, V, 1960, pp. 291-296.

28Robert Scott, "Mexico: The Established Revolution," in Pye

and verbs, eds., Political Culture and Political Development, pp.

29Almond and verbs, The Civic Culture, pp. 353-357. Kenneth
Langton, Political Socialization (New York: Oxford University Press,
1969). pp. 140-160.

30Recall that the respondents appeared to have difficulty with the
future orientation of the political competence items, for many failed
to answer them.

31Robert A. LeVine, ”The Role of the Family in Authority Systems,”
pp. 293-294.

CHAPTER IV

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND STUDENT
ATTITUDES TOWARD DEMOCRATIC
FORMS OF POLITICAL PROCESS

Center Periphery And
The Bivariate Relationship
To the Procedural Norms of Democracy

Due process of law, regular electoral procedures, guarantees of
civic freedoms are more than ends in themselves. They are also
rules which set parameters within which the culture of modern
participation can function democratically. Given a political system
of mass high participation in collective decision making, the
adversary-conflict assumptions of the Western, Anglo-American
democratic tradition - the model for Costa Rican democracy -
imply a situation which cannot remain stable in the absence of
clear delineation of what constitute the legitimate and regular
boundaries of participatory behavior. This is simply the constitu-
tionalist position: Predictable behavior which is somewhat self-
restrained or contained within clear sets of rules minimizes the
likelihood that extreme forms of conflict will characterize the
political process.

It was argued earlier that these "constitutionalist-democratic"
norms will pervade a culture as development progresses only if the
elite in a position to control major aspects of the socialization

process such as the system of public education, is committed to

125

126

those norms. This condition appears fulfilled in the case of
Costa Rica. Since the violent affirmation in the 1948 civil war of
the committment of the most powerful segments of the Costa Rican
elite to the processes of democracy, both the National Liberation
Party (PLN Partido Liberacion Nacional) and Opposition parties have
generally supported the continuation of democratic processes. The
parties have regularly exchanged presidential power in national
elections since 1953 without serious disturbance other than occasional
bombing or mob incidents which have not affected the outcome of
national elections apparently, (and which many persons of official
capacity believe are staged by candidates against themselves to
evoke sympathy or a "here under fire" image). After extensive
research into Costa Rican administration, Denton suggests that the
elite is quite unified in its support of democratic processes,
though it may be incapable of instituting much more social reform
than the limited reforms now in effect. Thus there is some
evidence to suggest that the precondition of elite committment

to democrative processes set down earlier as a condition to the
spread of modern democratic attitudes by processes of diffusing
economic development, is met.

Because practical limitations prevented the measurement of the
full extent of the wide range of attitudes of which one can conceive
which relate to the specific application of these ideals, several
items were selected which focus on issues specifically related to
crises of democracy in Costa Rica.

In 1948 freedom of speech and press became major issues when the

government of Teodoro Picado flagrantly violated these rights or

127

"norms." Similarly, the regularity of elections became an issue
which lead during this period to violent civil war, and to the

rise of the charismatic champion of social democracy of that period,
Jose Figueroa. It was the Picado regime, supported by a strange
amalgam of far left labor and far right wing support of the wealthy,
which took the action that lead to crisis.

Having lost the presidential election of 1948, the Picado forces
annulled the election, and arrested opposition leaders. The counter-
blow struck by moderate constitutionalist elements in league with the
social democrats, was to lead to a democratic victory after a bloody
war, and to the intense committment of the victorious elite to the
norms of democracy. The post victory acts of the victorious junta
included the abolition of a standing army, the strengthening of the
supreme tribunal of elections, and the passing of executive power
to the legally elected president after eighteen months - a very
democratic performance in the annals of Central American history.

Thus, elections and freedom of the opposition to public self-
expression are crucial issues. In selecting the themes for discussion
here I have gone beyond these in only one instance. In constructing
a general index of democratic norms, I have also included an item
which taps the respondents' willingness to see electoral power
(i.e. the vote) extended to all persons regardless of their status
or education (preparacion). This item provides a supplement to the
others which contain no reference to the respondents' willingness to
extend these guarantees and rights of participation to persons of
lesser status. The norms under study here then relate to protection

of the right of full participation by opposition groups and the

128

eschewing of the use of force to gain political ends. Specifically,
the democratic citizen will tend to be more supportive of guarantees
of the right of free speech and assembly and the necessity of regular
elections.

Thus the young elites of the relatively developed areas of the
nation will, if the hypothesis is supported by the data, tend to
manifest attitudes which are, in the above sense, more supportive
of democracy than the attitudes of respondents of the relatively
less well developed areas.

The most convenient way to begin is to provide the simple
bivariate relationships and to turn subsequently to the more detailed
analysis of specific relationships. Table 4.1 presents this informa-

tions

Table 4.1 Relationship between Center-Periphery Index and
Selected Procedural Nbrms of Democracy*

1. Index of democratic values (free
speech for opposition, free press
for opposition, regular elections,
universal franchise): +.133*

2. Elections must not be postponed
no matter how good a job the
government may be doing: +.299**

* All relationships are expressed as gamma coefficients. Scoring is
arranged in such a way that a relationship supportive of the hypothesis
is positive in sign. Center location receives a score of 3, mid range
location, 2, and peripheral location 1. Dependent variables are coded
so that the scores most favorable to democratic behavior receive the
highest numeric score possible on the given item (4, 3, or 2 depending
on the nature of the index or item), and the least favorable receive
lower numeric scores. See Appendix A for a complete description of
the dependent variables.

"1) .05

129

On the general index of democratic values, the residents of
the periphery show a tendency to exhibit less support than persons
of the center. Other items of a more specific content show stronger
relationships of a similar nature. All three relationships show
statistically significant correlations.

Given the relationship between these attitudes and the processes
of socio—economic development, it would seem likely that further
processes of diffusion and develOpment would lead to general spread
of the norms of democracy. That is, given that development is
clearly associated with the aspects of a democratic culture under
study here, it would appear likely that the peripheral region, as
it comes to be more subject to the many influences of modern society,
will also find a culture of democracy growing stronger within itself.

From an analytic perspective, the positive and moderately
strong relationships appear to present an opportunity to procede
with further explanation in a more conventional way.

On the other hand, it is likely that the explanations will
not be as straightforward as the simplest developmental hypotheses
might suggest. For example, while status will be found, in all
probability, to be a substantial contributor to the development-
related distribution of democratic norms one would expect the distribu-
tion to manifest some of the peculiarities observed in the relationship
of region and status to pre-citizen competence.

The fact that the relationships observed here are positive and
consistent makes it the more important to reconsider the validity
of the-various possible explanations of the developmental relationships

observed in the previous chapter.

130

Each of the three explanatory variables introduced in earlier
chapters will be reconsidered here with the intent of examining
two things: The usefulness of these variables in explaining
variation in democratic norms as related to developmental differences
in environment, and the degree to which these relationships parallel
those relating to "modern attitudes" studied earlier.

Social Status, The Regions
And The Spread of Democratic Norms

 

It is widely assumed in Costa Rica that the middle class is
the bulwark of democracy. Busey assumes this and attempts to demonstrate
it in his study of Costa Rican politics. This argument accords with
traditional assumptions concerning the relationship of class struc-
ture to political development in the United States and United King-
dom. It is also in accord with the hypotheses advanced by Nie g£_§l.
and reported earlier. Furthermore, this notion is in accord with
the basic arguments advanced by Lipset and confirmed in many surveys
of the United States electorate, that the "working classes" tend
to be less democratic in their attitudes than persons of higher
status.

Indeed it is true that the middle class is expanding with the
progress of economic development. Moreover, it has a great stake in
the process and in the stability of the political process, having
within itself great diversity of interests and a need for political
stability for economic growth, and democracy for regularized political
access. Furthermore it has been under democratic regimes that Costa

Rica.has experienced the greatest growth and development as a nation,

131

another reason for which middle class support should be forthcoming.
In fact many elements of the amorphous middle class have lent support
to the constitutionalist cause in the revolution and to the PLN in
elections since, though their support is by no means confined to

this party, which continues to symbolize the militant defense of
democracy. Thus one would expect fairly consistent Support for
democratic values from this sector of society. And, because it

forms a larger portion of the sample of the center region, it might
be thought to account for a portion of the regional variation in
support of democratic values.

Yet is this a reasonable expectation, given the complexity
of relationships reported in the previous chapter which involve
the variance of social structures from central to peripheral areas?
Is it not more likely that because of the apparent variation in the
status systems of the regions, that the relationship itself between
status and democratic values will vary among the regions?

If the speculations of the previous chapter were correct, then
the non-manual status person of the periphery tends to be an elitist.
His traditionalism and competence scores were interpreted to suggest
that not only does he consider himself elite, locally at least,
but that he is likely to consider himself so because of the socially
dominant position his class has held historically. If this inter-
pretation is accurate, then one would expect the non-manual respondent
of the periphery to be highly suspect of norms related to participant
democracy.

On the other hand, middle and upper class occupations in the

commerical and industrial center are less likely to be related to

 

 

 

All I i I I l.

132

the types of prerogatives enjoyed by upper status persons in the
less-developed areas. Thus upper status would have to be seen as

a fundamentally different phenomenon in each region. In such a case

the developmental hypotheses built on the idea of status as a

variable continuous across space and time, differing only in proportions
at each level of development would have to be discarded.

The historical position of the upper status groups of the
periphery supports the prediction that they would tend to be very
reluctant to accept the norms of democracy. Prior to and during the
1948 revolutionary civil war, this social group generally sided with
the incumbent but anti-constitutionalist forces which ultimately
were overthrown. Similarly, they have provided much of the support
enjoyed in the rural areas for the opposition to the PLN (Partido

Liberacci6n Nacional) which has provided not only the major political

 

expression of the desire for social change, but which has also
served as the staunch defender of democratic principle.

Finally it may well be that the higher status group of the
periphery feels it has much to lose in the continuing process of
modernization. It is this group, as reported previously, which
responds most unfavorably to the proposal that the rate of social
and economic change ought to be accelerated or even allowed to continue.
Thus if the process of modernization and the development of mass
autonomy is associated in their minds with their own increasingly
obsolescent socio-economic position, they may P91300117e themselves 83
having a great deal to lose in the process of the continued development
of mass participation in politics, the increase in the power of the

working'man and other concomitants of democracy and modernization in

 

 

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135

general. These persons, in short, may be the passing gentry of
Costa Rica- not a social group known for its democratic tendencies,

as European experience can attest.

Hypotheses

If the differences observed in Table 4.1 among areas of the
nation which differ according to developmental level are by-products
of the varying proportions of middle and lower status persons, then
one would expect no differences in scores across regional lines
within each social status group. However, one would expect that the
non-manual status group will have higher average scores than the
lower status groups within each province. Thus the higher proportion
of middle status persons at the center would account for the develop-
mental relationship.

If, on the other hand, the interpretation is correct which
suggests that the primary difference between the regions is the
social position of the non-manual status group, one would expect
that peripheral non-manuals would be a group which is exceptionally
low in support for the norms of democratic procedure. The probable
cause of such a belief pattern among these persons would be a view of
their position in society as dominant and relatively free of constraints
from the general population. Furthermore, since it is known that
this group tends to score high in traditionalism, one would expect
that it might well reject the democratic notions of regular impersonal
processes of election. (Mbre will be said of this below). Finally,
since the relatively upper status group of the periphery stands to

lose much prestige and power as development shifts the locus and

 

Jillill

154

source of power further from the countryside and land to the urban
areas and industry and skills, it may be rejective of the norms of
democracy which have become associated since 1948 with the modernizing
regimes of the PLN.

Clearly there are alternative possibilities of substantial
plausibility. Table 4.2 provides the data needed to understand the
relationships.

In the center region some impact of status on democratic values
is evident in the direction expected by the Nie hypothesis. The
middle classes there more frequently support democratic procedures.
This finding reinforces a popular assumption that the working classes,
which have generally associated themselves with the frequently
demogogic politics of the PRN of Sr. Rafael Calderon Guardia, continue
to be somewhat reluctant to support the institutions of democracy.
Many factors related to status may enter into this finding and this
working class tendency. Among them is probably the relatively high
scores reported in Table 3.6 (Chapter III,page 37) of this social
group, in traditionalism. It will be shown below that traditionalism
is an important factor in the relationship of regional development to
democratic values. It is most probably also related to the status
differences observed here as well.

In the mid-range/periphery sample, on the other hand, the
relationship is in the reverse direction to that predicted by the
Nie hypothesis. Rather the alternative hypothesis developed above
appears to have a better "fit." Here, although the lower status group
does not fall below the lower status group of the center, the non-

manual status group is distinctly lower in its overall support for

 

 

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democratic norms. Again, the cause of this phenomenon may lie in

the traditionalist beliefs of the non-manual periphery group of
respondents. Or it may lie in a complimentary tendency toward political
reaction caused by the declining social position of this group and
resultant status insecurity.

Whatever the causes of the intra-regional relationships,
however, the fundamental fact made manifest in the table must not
be overlooked: That again it is not simply the proportions of a
given characteristic such as status which differ between the regions,
but also the relationship that those factors bear to dependent,
attitudinal variables. Here, then, is further evidence that the idea
of regional developmental levels must be redefined.

Finally, it is also clear from this table that to some extent
the differing proportions of manual status respondents in the two
samples do account for part of the difference observed in Table 4.1
between the regions in the democratic values index. This fact
becomes clear if one notes the virtual equality between manual respond-
ents of both regions in their scores in Table 4.2. Given this
equality, the greater proportion of manual status respondents in
the periphery, and the tendency of the manual status group toward
relatively low scores compared to the non-manuals of the center,
the result - independent of the scores of the non-manuals of the
periphery - would tend to be a depressing of the overall scores of
the peripheral regions.

Traditionalism
In attempting to suggest explanations for the relationships

observed above, I have suggested that traditionalist attitudes may

137

play a part. The ease with which new norms, such as those of
democracy, are accepted and made a part of the ongoing socialization
process is likely to vary with the degree to which the innovative
norms conflict with established ("traditional") cultural patterns,
especially those which involve not simple information or relatively
superficial beliefs, but rather, deep seated feelings about the
nature of the world.

Rokeach and others have argued that attitudes appear to be
ordered on a continuum which can be best described as being basic
or superficial, general or particular, primitive or non-primitive.
Placement of an attitude on this continuum depends in part on the
extent to which it is tied to specific objects (attitude referents)
in the real world, rather than being very diffuse. The latter
type of attitude tends to be a sentiment concerned with the nature
of the world at large, and tends to have an impact on the formation
of ideas and beliefs about specific objects. This perspective may
be useful in examining the sources of resistance in the periphery to
the diffusion of democratic values which must be classified as
relatively specific or particular types of attitudes with rather
specific attitude referents (e.g. the necessity of particular
constitutional guarantees).

To the extent that the traditional culture which Smith and
Inkeles have described, infuses the pre-existing culture with norms
of ascriptive criteria of political recruitment, with the assumption
of the sanctity of parental authority, personalization of formal
relationships, and other factors, then one may expect that persons

particularly characterized by traditionalism will resist the acceptance

 

 

 

 

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138

of both modern and democratic norms.

If the two attitudinal factors, democratic values and tradition-
alism, one relatively superficial, the other more pervasive, basic,
are negatively related, it would appear that this relationship would
render change of the non-democratic attitudes of the periphery more
difficult by virtue of their rooting in the basic areas of the
culturally conditioned personality.

Thus traditionalism may offer a partial explanation for the low
scores at the periphery in democratic procedural norms, and provide
a clue to the resolution of questions raised by the hypotheses
introduced at the outset of this chapter.

Table 4.3 which relates a traditionalism index to the index of
democratic values within each regional sample, suggests the validity
of the hypothesis that democratic values - a procedural set of
norms connected with specific aspects of political reality -— is
related to the diffuse variable traditionalism, in both sections of
the nation. Thus the mild relationship reported previously between
the center-periphery dimension and democratic values is apparently
accounted for, in part, by the greater frequency of traditionalism in
the traditional areas as well as by social status. (See Table 4.3, p. 139)
The close association between the generally more traditional value
system of the periphery and the tendency of its elite young to
express values less supportive of democracy suggests further that
the process of political socialization or acculturation of these
persons into the values system of modern democracy requires more than
staple learning of skills and regulations such as might be taught in

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The two variables would certainly appear to be related
psychologically for in part the variable traditionalism consists
of a tendency to personalize judgements of ideas and persons, and to
support the idea of filial obedience. In political life traditionalist
tendencies have a counterpart in the belief that elections are
necessary not because of a modern impersonal code which requires
them for the maintenance of popular control, but only if it can be
determined that ”the government is not doing a good job." Such
traditionalist views are also manifest in the tendency to suggest
restriction of free competition of ideas to those who are in agree-
ment with constituted authority.

In passing it ought also to be mentioned that the relationships
observed here are consistent with all three variables as they interact
with region and traditionalism. I have utlized only the index of
democratic values as an illustration, however, Though their formats
and marginal distributions differ, no essential alteration of interpre-
tation is necessary in interpreting their relationships to these
variables.

Besides the psychological elements of this relationship, however,
there are also social elements. Recall that it was demonstrated in
the previous chapter that traditionalism is related to social status.
In fact a considerable portion of the argument relating status to
the dependent variables studied in that chapter rests on the proposi-
tion that the nonpmanual sector of peripheral society interprets its
political role in accord with traditionalist concepts of its social
role. Therefore, it may further clarify the interaction of status

and traditionalism and the propositions I have offered related to

 

Ir‘I‘I lll‘la‘tll ( ‘1' ‘III

 

141

this interaction, if it is examined here.

Table 4.4 presents the data.

fictice before preceding to conclusions, that in several columns
the total N is thirty-five or fewer, and that a rather small range,
in absolute numbers, separates the categories of democratic values
index scores. Such cases give little confidence in the stability of
percentage distributions among possible samples because a small
random variation in sampling could alter the distribution significantly.
This is, however, one of the few cases in which missing data is not
so severe a problem as it is with the important variable, ”pre-citizen-
competence.” In order to generate new hypotheses therefore, it will
be useful to continue, cautiously; Much, though not all of the
difference originally observed between centerbperiphery and democratic
values dissipates when like groups are compared across the centerb
periphery division. Among high traditionals in the non-manual
sectors of both areas the tendency to be extremely low in scores of
democratic values is again manifest. However, the difference is
somewhat diminished over the gross differences observed between
these status groups when.not controlled for traditionalism. (See
Table 4.2.) This mild effect is not evident from observation of
high democratic values scores only, but appears with examination of
all of the levels, of the latter in the non-manual, low traditionalism
category. This indicates that some of the variation between regions
is attributable to the frequency with which persons adhere to very
traditional views, as well as to the complex social status factors
discussed at length previously.

Finally it is clear that much of the difference in democratic

142

 

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143

values scores earlier attributed directly to social status, is
accounted for by the tendency of lower status persons to score
higher in traditionalism. Specifically, within both strata of each
region, traditionalism obviously differentiates between persons
likely to score high or low in democratic values. On the other
hand, both region and status have an evident impact beyond the
traditionalism differences alone.

One can rank the respondents by group into categories of more -
less supportive of democratic values (using only high scores).

Most supportive are nonpmanuals of the center who are low in
traditionalism (44%). Next are the manuals of the periphery low in
traditionalism (41%). Third, manuals of the center low in tradition-
alism (35%). Finally, nonpmanuals of the periphery low in tradition-
alism (27%). All groups with high traditionalism have lower percentages
in the high score category and higher percentages in the low score
category.

These rankings are consistent with a general framework which
suggests that nonsmanual persons of the center will tend to be the
staunchest supporters of democracy, while the nonpmanual respondents
of the periphery will be their least ready allies, or perhaps their
ready opponents.

In short, this table presents further evidence that regional
differences in this elite and near elite sample are related to both
status and traditionalism. However, the non-manual status group of
the periphery which has a high proportion of traditionalists within
it, continues to be the case which most defies explanation with

present data. Quite probably its extremely undemocratic sub-cultural

144

belief structure is related to its unique, and defensive role in

the process of continued modernization and growing mass participation.
This factor might account for the relatively low democratic values
scores among these persons, even with groups of like status and
traditionalism. If this interpretation is correct this group in
particular may be particularly likely to be a destabilizing influence.
Participant Role Playing in the Family

And the DevelOpment of the Norms of Democracy

It was earlier reported that the learning of participatory roles
in the family may in some circumstances be generalized to attitudes
toward political life, resulting in higher scores of pre-citizen
competence. If such experiences can lead to the belief that one
can exert influence over decisional processes (though the relationship
is very weak), it may also be related to the belief that one ought
to be able to exert control over decision making, and thus to support
of the norms of democratic guarantees of the right of participation
and public influence. The latter is certainly not an inevitable
result of such socialization processes, for as I have argued earlier,
without elite guidance the public would have little reason to relate
such experiences to democratic values in particular, but rather only
to egalitarianism and the destruction of unquestioned paternal
authority in the extended family.

However, as Eckstein points out, a strain toward congruence in
authority patterns seems to exist in.which patterns of authority in
one aspect of social relationships are generalized to others. Thus
not only may non-governmental institutions exert an implicit influence

on the style and type of organization of governmental organization,

145

but legitimate governmental organization may help create and reinforce
tendencies similar to its own in non-political, non-governmental
processes, even in the family.

If nationally supported elites are spreading the word of
democratic process in the making of decisions, there would appear to
be two general results, then. First, non-governmental decision making
processes would tend to follow the lead of national leadership which
usually exerts heavy symbolic influence, and the learning of
participatory norms in the family would have an analogy in the larger
society and thus serve as a learning device for the norms of democracy
in the national political process.

If so, the observed variance in the rate of participation in
family decisions by respondents of center and periphery may provide
a further partial explanation of differences in support for democratic
norms among the three regions of varied levels of socio—economic
development, beyond the explanations of status and traditionalism.

Here again, however, one encounters the probability that such
clear and simple processes effect change only in a non-elite mass
public which unlike this sample is likely to have extreme variance
both in levels of family participation and in democratic values.

In this case, it may be that the relationship itself between sociali-
zation processes and the democratic values studied would vary among
the areas. Good reason exists for supposing that this might be true.
Many persons at the center, even.with traditionalism and social
status held constant tend to have higher levels of support for
democratic norms. Apparently then, they receive greater, more

consistent reinforcement of those norms from sources such as contact

146

with political leaders as public speakers and other aspects of the
socialization process. For them the various experiences of the
socialization process in the family and school may not be overwhelmed
by the influences of status or traditional value systems as they are
likely to be in the periphery among most persons. Since the latter
are likely to reject democratic values on grounds not directly related
to the experience of participation in family decisions, the experience
of such participation is likely to be somewhat superfluous.

Examination of the gamma coefficients for the tables associated
with each region between participation in family decisions and democratic
values index scores indicates however, that no appreciable relationship
exists in either region. (gamma 3 .010 in Periphery and .014 in Center).

However, for the variable dealing with the necessity of regular
elections, a variable which is more apparently analogous to the
process of participation in family participation than the more
complex index which includes such factors as free press and assembly,
distinct relationships do occur. Table 4.5 reports this data. The
data of Table 4.5 suggest support for the hypothesis. However, a
definite relationship appears in the periphery as well as in the
center, though it is quite weak. Since such a relationship does
exist in both regions, the greater frequency of participation in
family decisions at the center accounts for some portion of the
inter-regional variation in support for democratic norms.

The more interesting difference across lines of regional
development is in the impact of the socializing experience. Here
is evidence that the socialization process which underlies a single

attitude may vary widely with level of development. One cannot

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determine with this data exactly what experiences are most closely
related to support for regular elections in the periphery, though
given the salience of status and traditionalism to a lack of such
support one may suppose that experiential preconditions for support
must be related to these variables.

The essential question, however, is what cultural pre-conditions
must exist for the relationship to exist. I hate suggested vaguely
so far only that the absence of other factors such as strong commit-
tments to contrary traditionalist values provides the key. This
proposition is easily examdned by controlling the relationship
between family participation and support for regular elections for
traditionalism. If that relationship appears only among persons
low in traditionalism, then the hypothesized role of traditionalism
is consistent with the data. Tables 4.6 and 4.6a reports this data.
(note to reader: This table occupies the next two pages).

Several things ought to be noticed about this table prior to
interpretation:

(1) Experience in family decision making is more clearly
related to support for regular elections among high
traditional than among low in the center and vice-
versa in the periphery.

(2) Within both regions, the variable traditionalism has
a relationship to support for elections beyond the
effect of family participation alone.

(3) Persons of the center tend to score high in support
for regular elections more often than persons of the
periphery regardless of family experience of tradition-
disine

It is among high traditionals in the center and low traditionals
in the periphery that the variable "participation in family decisions"

has a particularly strong impact. This is a difficult relationship to

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151

interpret, especially given the small n's in several important cells.
However, it does suggest that for certain groups which represent

the norm in each region, that family participation is not involved

in the learning process of the value in question. In the case of

high traditionals of the periphery status may be the crucial factor.

In the case of the low traditionals of the center, other factors,
perhaps civic education, perhaps practical political experience,
organizational membership or other factors are involved. unfortunately
the question cannot be answered with present data.

However, the role of the variable traditionalism is not as
expected except in the periphery. There a relationship appears
between family participation and support for regular elections
only among these low in traditionalism. The reverse is true of the
Center.

It appears that the culturally "normal” people of each region
experience a number of socializing forces which outweigh the impact
of participation in family decisions. Thus it is only among the
culturally unusual person that the experience is associated with a
belief in regular elections.

The cause of this set of relationships is obscure. Hewever,
whether it is the factor of "superfluity" or another basic cause, it
is clear that again one must reconceive the nature of developmental
differences. Apparently they have at least as much to do with
changing relationships among variables as with gross interbregional
differences in the proportions of specific variables in a population.

Finally traditionalism bears another relationship to this data

as well. Both factors, traditionalism and socialization process

152

clearly bear a relationship to the dependent variable. Thus, since

it is known that in the population as a whole high traditionalism is
associated with low participation in the family processes of decision,
then the two factors in the general population would seem to be
mutually reinforcing.

Even with the effects of the two central variables "held
constant," an interbregional difference still appears. In part this
may be due to the impact of status. unfortunately, however, that
hypothesis cannot be examined here because of the nature of missing
data in the table which would have tobe used (and which remains
unreported).

Quite possibly simple factors of exposure to PLN propaganda,
close observation of government processes, the emphasis among leaders
of the national government on maintaining contact with the students,
and other factors having to do with proximity to the governmental
center, may explain this presently unexplained residual. Or it may
be that the structure of the schools, of voluntary groups and other
socializing agents is highly democratic and leads to the general
assumption at the center that democratic procedures are not to be
violated. Or it may be that the small numbers of cases distorts
the true relationships. One should not reach firm conclusions, then,

on the basis of this tentative exploration.

Conclusions
The data presented in this chapter relates only to the aspect

of political culture which sets the internalized (and legal)

boundaries on forms of legitimate participation and government

153

action.

Apparently there is a somewhat more regular tendency for such
cultural factors to diffuse with the process of economic development,
than for the more general factors studied earlier to do so. Neverb
theless, the process of diffusion does encounter the resistance of
local obstacles and variations.

As was true of "general modernity” variables, two other major
factors resisting change, or reacting to it, are nonemanual status
in the periphery, and traditionalism. 'Where persons are traditional -
primarily the peripheral areas - democratic norms tend to be
rejected more frequently. This is probably due in part to the
psychological incongruence of egalitarian, formalized (constitutional)
democracy, and traditionalism. It may also be due to the tendency
of nonsmanual persons of the periphery to be in a declining social
position in a period of social change, and thus to be defensive
toward the democratic by-products of development.

All three factors studied here converge on this social group
to render it the least democratic of all status groups in either
region. The persons of this peculiar sub-culture seem almost to have
made an implicit committment to the maintenance of the traditional
society of which they and their ancestors were among the prime
beneficiaries. When an instrument can be developed to tap the
sources of their perceptions of Costa Rican society, more will be known
about them and about the impact of socio-economic development on
traditional elites. Although the data contain gaps such as this
which for the moment can be filled only by speculation, they do

suggest rather forcefully the direction of further research which

154

must be undertaken in order to clarify these undecided issues.
Finally, it suggests something both of the nature of the Costa
Rican pre-elite, and of the inadequacy of the standard developmental
theories for understanding that elite. These points will be further

examined in the chapter which follows.

CHAPTER IV
FOOTNOTES

1Deane E. Neubauer, "Some Conditions of Democracy: Economic
Development and Political Legitimacy," in Charles F. Cnudde and
Deane E. Neubauer, eds., Empirical Democratic Theory (Chicago:
Markham, 1969), pp. 151-192.

2Charles F. Denton, Patterns of Costa Rican Politics (Boston:
Allyn Bacon, 1971), see especially pp. 105-107.

5There are many histories of this period. Among the best is
that of Burt English. Liberacion Nacional of Costa Rica: The
Development of a Political Party in a Traditional Society,
Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Florida, 1967.

4James L. Busey, Notes on Costa Rican Democracy (Boulder
Colorado: University of Colorado Press, 19677. Also, James L.
Busey, "Foundations of Political Contrast: Costa Rica and Nicaragua,"
Western Political Quarterly, XI, September 1959, pp. 178-187.

5Norman Nie et al, ”Social Structure and Political Participation
Developmental Relationships, Part I," American Political Science
Review, June, 1969, pp. 361-378, especially p. 323.

6For a classic discussion of the concepts of "Working Class
Authoritarianism," see: Seymour M. Lipset, Political Man (Garden
City: Anchor-Doubleday, 1965), pp. 85-115.

7Milton Rokeach, The Open and Closed Mind (New York: Basic
Books, 1960), pp. 40-42. The political adaptation of these ideas
utilized here is heavily dependent on the following source which
interprets Rokeach: Sydney Verba, "Conclusion," in Lucian Pye and
Sydney verba, eds., Political Culture and Political Development,
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), pp. 524 and 552-555.

8David H. Smith and Alex Inkeles, ”The GM Scale: A Comparative
Socio-Psychological Measure of Individual Modernity," Sociometry
(December, 1966), pp. 355-577. The items used in this study,
adapted from Smith-Inkeles, are given in Appendix A.

9Harry Eckstein, Division and Cohesion in Democrac (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1966), pp. 132-17 and 253-2 2.

 

 

155

156

10See above pp. 130-136. This concept is furthest developed
by Kenneth Langton in Political Socialization. (New York: Oxford,
University Press, 1969), pp. 154-160.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS: SEVERAL HYPOTHESES
AND A NUMBER OF SPECULATIONS

There are two general areas of conclusions to be dealt with:
The substantive and the theoretical. I shall begin with the latter,
for it follows closely the themes developed in the previous chapter.

The results discussed in the two analytical chapters present
a paradox. It is the same social group - the non-manuals of the
periphery who are exceptional in the relationship of status to pre-
citizen competence and the relationship of status to democratic
values. But this is an odd combination - a group which is high in
pre-citizen competence and low in democratic values. Almond and
Verbs demonstrate that normally there exists a positive relationship
between competence and the belief that elections are necessary.
The traditionalist norms which seem to serve as a resistance factor
preventing the acquisition of democratic values, apparently do not
inhibit the acquisition of pre-citizen competence. In fact, if my
localite hypothesis is correct, the very traditionalism which
discourages democratic values, encourages precitizen competence,
as argued in the previous chapter. What conceptual order can be
brought to this peculiar set of circumstance?

(Unfortunately the number of cases is too small to procede

with a direct examination of the complex relationships which might

157

158

be studied within this non-manual peripheral group by means of further
data analysis. Therefore my interpretation will have to be speculative.)

There appears to be a two step process of change in a political
culture with the advent of socio-economic and institutional development.
As national institutions become integrated and national in scope,
persons, particularly elite persons, begin to learn to exert influence
in the political process. Yet they must continue to operate under the
cultural assumptions which prevailed in traditional society, for only
in a later period do the norms of democratic procedure win acceptance
from the most traditional (if they win such acceptance at all). Thus
during the indefinite period of lag in culture change, an imbalance
may be created.

But what of the political importance of this imbalance? Is it
insignificant that imbalances occur? ‘Will they not simply become
unified as development procedes?

Imbalances such as these would appear to have potentially very
serious political implications. Essentially the uneven acquisition
of the norms of modern democracy by the peripheral elite means that
it has gained the attitudes conducive to participation.without a
simultaneous gain in the attitudes of self limitation. If the two
step process of cultural change I have posited actually exists, then
it makes this imbalance inevitable. However, it is an essentially
anomic situation in which behavioral guideposts are unclear, and is
no more desirable for being inevitable.

But perhaps yet another factor is involved here. verbs points
out that the tradition destroying tendencies of modernization do not

often successfully replace the traditional norms with adequate

159

behavioral guides. Thus certain of the older assumptions may
continue to prevail in a mixed, traditional, modernizing culture.
Where traditional assumptions governing the legitimate ordering of
authority are dominated by hierarchic norms of unquestioned obedience,
ascriptive criteria of recruitment of political leadership (which
often means based upon occupational status) and the assumptions of
upper class superiority - as they are in the Latin American hacienda
society - then the advent of institutions which encourage popular,
effective, mass participation can mean only one thing to persons
still dominated by traditional assumptions in these respects:
Unbridled conflict.

verbs states:

. . .But the belief that equalitarian power
relationships can be non-conflictual may be
difficult to develop in cultures such as in

Egypt, Amhara, or Italy, where the socialization
process stresses both hierarchical authority
patterns and distrust of those outside of the
primary group. There is under these circumstances
no exposure to relationships that combine trust
and equality. The choice becomes one between
hierarchy and conflict.

Political challenge to elites outside of the traditional
hierarchic structures, even if in the confines of modern institutions,
unless it is closely guarded by new attitudes which serve to limit
the nature of participation, is likely to carry chaotic implications
for the mixed, modernizing traditionalist. For he has in effect
been faced with a challenge to his assumptions concerning the
illegitimacy of challenge to prevailing elites; a challenge which
arises within himself in his own developing "citizen role,"

particularly if he is of a social group which is especially tenacious

1m

in its continuing grip on the values of traditional society. And

he is faced.with a political reality in which elites have begun to
actively seek mass support, and to consider it important to avoid

alienating the non-elite public.

In the traditional order of things, such non-hierarchic political
action could only imply conflict. And so it also seems to the
partially modernized traditionalist who is balanced between the
norms of new and the old.

If this notion is valid, than it ought to be that in an item
not previously reported (”Force is the only way to achieve one's
ideals”) that the non-manual group of the periphery again should
score highest (in agreement). Again this is the case. While only
8% of the non-manuals of the center agree that force must often or
always be used, 32% of the non-manuals at the periphery so agree.
Again, however, the difference is not solely one of status, for the
manuals at the periphery also show a moderately high level of agreement
(23%). Apparently, then the particularly traditional - the peripheral
non-manuals - are prone to the assumption that force is a necessary
ingredient of political action. However, this belief is to some
extent associated also with the developmental levels of region of
residence regardless of status.

It appears, then, that the imbalances of variable rates of
diffusion for the two aspects I have identified as among the
components of modern democratic cultures, can create rather unstable
situations in‘which democratic processes could fall victim to the
very forces which Lipset has argued promote them - development.

If a traditionalist sector of the population exists, particularly

one such as the rural upper class which can see itself as the victim

of socio-economic change and thus have a tendency toward anti-democratic
reaction, one may anticipate that the way in which modern values

combine with those of tradition may be far more important determinants

of the way in which democratic values spread than the simple information-
experience-middle class growth hypotheses suggest.

The practical question.which these points raises, of course, is
how an-elite aspiring to the establishment of a democratic system
can go about establishing a culture of democracy in the face of such
resistance and in the face of what are perhaps inevitable imbalances
in the process of diffusion with time lags besetting the learning of
the difficult self-limiting attitudes which.must characterize a
democratic culture.

One way in which they can meet the interim challenge of the
maintenance of stability is the establishment of institutions staffed
by persons loyal to the values of the democratic system which has
the power and legitimate authority to prevent transgression of
legitimate behavioral boundaries by confused transitionals. The
Costa Rican institutions, particularly the Supreme Tribunal of
Elections, seems uncommonly effective and unobtrusive in this task
given the total failure of such attempts elsewhere in Latin America.
However, the nation faces a period of economic crisis with falling
export prices for coffee, declining terms of trade, a recession in
the economy of its major trading partner (the United States), and
inevitably rising unemployment and disguised unemployment at home.
Whether the national political system can manage the probable increase

in conflict levels and demands on the public services of the nation in

162

this period will be a major test, and one in which the institutions
empowered to effect the defense of democratic practises, have no
power. Ultimately, then the future of Costa Rican democracy lies
at least as much in the hands of exogenous factors as it does in
the smooth completion of the process of cultural transition. A
theory of development and culture change does not, therefore, provide
final answers to the complex questions of transitional instability.

It is quite clear that the development-diffusion hypotheses
as originally postulated involved a highly simplistic picture of
the process of culture change and the growth of a culture of democracy
concomitant with the process of economic and social development.
The hypotheses as developed earlier on the basis of existing
literature suggested that the diffusion of economic development would
be accompanied by diffusion of a culture of modern democracy. They
err in both their optimism and their simplicity. As the basis for
theory, they are thus found wanting. However, general conclusions
can be drawn from the present study and some advance can be made
toward revision of these hypotheses and their application to the
study of young elites.
Changing Environmental Factors and
The Revision of Developmental Theory

With development the nature of occupations, and systems of
social stratification, change. But the difference which results
between regions of different developmental levels, is not merely one
of greater or lesser proportions of high middle or low status persons.
It is also one of traditional or modern types of occupations (agricul-

tural versus large scale commercial and manufacturing and tertiary

163

occupations) and of status systems which are more or less rigid in
their assignment of political and social advantage according to
occupation.

It may be inferred from data reported in Chapter III that
relatively modern societies tend to be more egalitarian or less
status oriented, in their political belief systems. This is likely
to be a product of various factors including range of income
distribution, the extent of the professional ethic of neutrality
among administrative officials, extent of upward mobility possible,
proportion of middle status persons, and the nature of the relationship
between labor and those who control the means of production. Where
the latter are agricultural owners, a.more patronizing, inherently
unequal relationship is implied with labor - usually peasant labor -
than where control is vested in managers and a high proportion of
the labor force is skilled or white collar.

Thus is an area of relatively low levels of development it is
likely that traditional status roles will continue to be accepted.
Where this occurs, the variable "social status" will have a far more
substantial impact on attitude formation than in more developed
areas. In the determination of citizen competence, for example, one
would expect that factors other than status would have an impact
among persons in more modern areas but that such factors would be
superfluous in less developed areas in which status was the dominant
socializing factor. If further research is to procede to the
isolation of causal factors, then different models of causation will
have to be developed for areas which differ in developmental level,

and perhaps peculiarly "modern" and "traditional" forms of political

164

competence will have to be distinguished.

One variant on these themes occurs because of the nature of
the sample used here. Because it is a sample of persons of high
educational attainment, the respondents of manual status parents are
likely to consider themeselves upwardly mobile. Thus, while they
may continue to show some effect of their relatively low status,
they are likely to be generally exempt from the disadvantages of
lower status. Thus education may effectively set a "floor" beneath
such persons or social groups preventing the downward pressure of
lower status from affecting their belief systems as severely as
would be the case in the larger population.

Similarly such persons are likely to be of parents who are
somewhat exceptional in terms of their emphasis on achievement in
their children. Such a factor in combination with upward mobility
might potentially even lead to heightened self-confidence. Such
an unobserved factor may lie behind the surprising pattern observed
earlier in Table 3.2.

The relationship of socio-economic development to elite
political culture, then, does not operate only by the simple increase
of frequency of "modern" social characteristics. Development also
serves to alter the environment or ecological setting from which
variables such as status derive their meaning. The hypotheses developed
by Nie gt_gl.and reported earlier at length, do not take this environ-
mental change into account, and must therefore be considered of
limited explanatory value, particularly for elite studies in which

the usual impact of low status is not evident.

165

Notice what this environmental change hypothesis implies for
the further development of theory, and for future empirical research.
If one cannot assume that the variables with which he chooses to
work are continuous across space or time where developmental change
is involved, then he must go about attempting to delineate the
boundaries of the discrete categories of the variable. He must
define the unique nature of each and its particular impact on the
political culture. In the past, he who studied problems of development
generally assumed a continuous, almost linear form of change, and
sought therefore to find continuous variables which expanded propor-
tionally during periods of development but themselves remained
largely unchanged in nature and in their relationships to dependent
variables. It would be more useful for research purposes to consider
develOpment to be a slow, uneven shift from agrarian to industrial
society, a shift which sees the lag of development in certain areas
and the temporary creation of development related sub-cultures.

With such assumptions, the preliminary problem is to define the
nature of variables which have developmentally determined, but
discrete, meanings among geographic regions or across time dimensions.
The analytic problem.then becomes the empirical specification of the
change induced in relationships between independent and dependent
variables by development. Traditionally the study of developmental
variables in works reviewed in the opening chapter has involved the
examination of covariation among variables assumed to be of a continuous
nature. This however, also usually involves the assumption that the
relationships remain constant and that therefore the crucial factor

for predicting developmental change is the proportion of factor x

1€6

(known to have a positive relationship to "modern” cultural attributes,
e.g. nonqmanual status) in the population. Thus for example, Nie
gt_gl_argue that the greater the proportion of middle class persons
and of persons who are members of organizations in a population, the
more "modern" the political culture will be.

What this view omits, to reiterate, is consideration of the
fact that the relationships themselves may change with the degree to
which development means the redefinition of the meanings of factor
x and the increase or decrease of the number of variables other
than factor x which are also related to dependent variables. In
extreme circumstances x may become superfluous with these changes in
the social environment in which it functions.

Social status is not the only variable to be subject to such
influences. Participatory socializing experiences of the family
also vary in their impact with the circumstances under which they
occur. And it is these circumstances (other socialising variables
and frequency of traditionalist beliefs) which vary with socio-
economic development as well as the simple frequency of family
experiences favorable to modern, democratic attitudes.

Where local factors such as social status or civic education,
or other factors related to social and institutional development are
of extreme importance in the socialization process, other factors -
for instance experience in the family - may have little effect.
They are in effect superfluous.

In short, any socializing influence produced by socio-economic

development - whether it be education, the media, or experience in

167

family decision.making, becomes part of an ecological system of
relationships, the general nature and parameters of which are in
part determined by developmental processes. The ”effect" of a given
process will, therefore, depend in part upon the developmental level
of the environment into which it is introduced. It is thus the

task of the researcher concerned with socialization processes in a
period of change to specify the boundaries and the nature of such
systems.

These "systems” are social by nature, having to do primarily
with the nature of social interaction. An analogous system of
predispositions exists, however, in the individual as well. Ono's
political views are an aspect of a more general cultural orientation
or "world view." Among the primary differences in the world views of
persons of less mom and more modern areas is the degree to which
they are characterized by what Inkeles calls ”traditionalism.”

Traditionalism as seen in the data presented here, has two
effects. It seems to serve as a resistance factor, resisting the
acceptance of norms such as the need for regular elections which
are not consistent with it. Thus to a degree one may predict the
rate of diffusion of certain norms by a knowledge of the extent of
resistance in the pre-existing culture.

Traditionalism also serves to alter the impact of variables
(experiences or social attrubutes in this case) on people. Persons
high in traditionalist values and high in social status will interpret
the political meaning of status quite differently from persons of
high status and low traditionalism. The latter will be likely to

have learned to disassociate his status from the operations of the

political system. The former will tend to assume that the largely
ascriptive characteristic ”status" defines his political role on
both the input and output sides of governance.

Thus the political analyst must conceive of his subjects as
reactive beings whose reactions to social forces are defined by the
social and psycho-cultural constraints with which and within which
they live and act. The impact of developmental processes, then,
will consist in large part on the degree to which and the manner
in which they affect those constraints. To the extent that they do
affect them, they will have not only a bearing on the political
culture directly, via increased information and propaganda flows and
increased proportions of modern social attributes, but also indirectly
zigzalteration of general social and cultural environments on which
the new socializing’experiences of the modern technological, impersonalized
'world impinge. Thus the problems and tasks of further development

related research in political culture are clear.

169

Propositions Derived from.the Data

(Provided for further testing):

1. Where no direct participation in national political

processes has been experienced, local influences will

determine levels of pre-citizen competence.

(at)

00

Status is among the most important of local
influences where limited development has
left a traditional agrarian, relatively
rigid status system in existence.

Status will be strongest as a determdnant

of citizen competence among those who
maintain highly traditional beliefs, for
such persons accept the definitions of
status roles accorded by the passing agrarian
society, and accept as legitimate the utili-
zation of ascriptive criteria in assignment

of political influence.

2. Expectation of equal treatment by administrative authorities

‘will be distributed according to several development related

criteria.

(80

Persons of central regions will tend to
expect equal and favorable treatment by
administrative authorities more often than
persons of the periphery because of their
more frequent experience with the operations

of modern impersonal agencies.

3.

170

(b) Persons of the central regions will tend to
expect equal treatment most frequently due to:

1. the relative egalitarianism of the local
culture

2. and the more modern impersonal, impartial
nature of the bureaucracy there

(c) Persons of the periphery will tend to expect
either preferential or prejudicial treatment by
administrative authorities, depending upon their
status, where the effect of the lag in development
at the periphery is the retention of a highly
stratified society.

(d) The tendency to expect preferential or prejudicial
treatment will be greatest among those high in
traditionalism, for they tend to accept the
ascriptive and personalist criteria which legitimate
favoritism.by personal contact or status.

Democratic procedural norms of all types will be more frequent

in the more developed and politically central areas of

nations in which the elite is committed to the maintenance
of such norms.

(a) The acceptance of such values will be resisted by
persons with whose pre-existing worlddviews of
"basic” cultural attributes they are inconsistent.
Specifically, persons high in traditionalism will
relatively rarely accept democratic, formalized,

equalitarian rules of political procedure. Thus,

171

the negative relationship between traditionalism
and development of region will account, in part,
for the differing levels of acceptance of
democratic values.

(b) Where the advent of democracy is associated with the
loss of power or prestige by a traditional elite,
the latter will tend to reject the procedural norms
of democracy.

(c) In part differences in degree of acceptance of
democratic procedural norms will be accounted for
by the greater frequency of socializing experiences
positively related to democratic procedural norms
in the central regions.

(d) Hewever, the influence of this factor will vary with
the existence of other factors such as status which
tend, where they are strong influences, to render the
effect of such socializing processes either super-

fluous or redundant.

Summation

The conclusions reached in this paper are limited by the relatively
elite social position of the respondents, by the nature of the missing
data, and by the lack of a sufficient range of variables to explain
the observed variance fully.

However, as a study intended to examine the usefulness of several
independent variables and their interaction between developmental
processes and modernization of the political culture, it has been

rather fruitful. Also, as a study intended to develop "grounded"

172

hypotheses rather than to test definitive theory, it has proven
useful. Thus, though one might desire firmer and more widely
applicable conclusions, the conclusions which have resulted should
serve as the basis for further research, and for a reconceptualiza~

tion of some of the simpler notions relating development to modernity

and democracy.

CHAPTER V
FOOTNOTES

1Gabriel Almond and Sydney verbs, The Civic Culture (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 254, Table 6 and pp. 253-257.

2Sydney‘Verba, "Conclusions," in Lucian Pye and Sydney verbs,
eds., Political Culture and Political Development (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1965), pp. 524 and 552-555.

3Ibid., pp. 552-553.

4Norman Nie et al, "Social Structure and Political Participa-
tion: Developmental Relationships, Part I," American Political
Science Review, (June, 1969), pp. 361-578.

 

51bid.. pp. 372-374.

6David H. Smith and Alex Inkeles, "The GM Scales: A Comparative
Socio-Psychological measure of Modernity," Sociometry (December, 1966),
PP. 353-377. Also, Alex Inkeles, "Participant Citizenship in Six
Developing Countries,” American Political Science Review (December,
1969), pp. 1120-1141.

173

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Journals

Abramson, Paul, and Inglehart, Ronald. ”The Development of Systematic
Support in Four Western Democracies,” Comparative Political

Studies, (January, 1970), pp. 405-418. '

Busey, James L. ”Foundations of Political Contrast: Costa Rica
and Nicaragua,"‘Western Political Quarterly, XI (September
1958 .

Deutsch, Karl W. ”Social Mobilization and Political Development,”
American Political Science Review (September, 1961), pp.

493-502.

Ford, Robert N. "A Rapid Scoring Procedure for Scaling Attitude
Questions," Public opinion Quarterly, XIV (Fall, 1950),
PP. 507-532.

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llllllll'
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APPENDIX

 

Ili'l‘l“!

 

 

APPENDIX

Questionnaire

Part I.

APPENDIX A

Self as Political Participant

1.

Pre-citizen competence
Type: Guttman scale. Coefficient of reproducibility = 94.9

Source: Items adapted from Gabriel Almond and Sydney
Verbs, The Civic Culture, Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1962.

Items: (In scalar order)

1. You are now in high school: within a short time
you will be twenty years old and eligible to
vote. We are interested in your concept of the
role you will play as a citizen, in national
affairs.

First, do you think that most people such as
you and your family have much say about what
the government does?

a. much
b. some
0. almost none
d. none

8. don't know

2. For example if the Legislative Assembly were
considering a law you considered unust, would
you be able to do anything about it?

a. Yes, certainly I could.

be PIObably I could.

c. Probably I could not.

d. No, I certainly could not.
e. Don't know.

3. If you tried to do something, how likely is it
that you.would succeed?

a. Very likely.
b. likely.

c. Unlikely.

d. Very unlikely.
e. I don't know.

2.

3.

4.

188

If such a case arises (as that in the example
given previously) how likely is it that you
will actually try to do something about it?

a. very likely.

b . LikGlYe

c. Unlikely.

d. 'Very unlikely.
e. I don't know.

Sense of Personal Effectiveness

 

Type: Guttman scale. Coefficient of reproducibility, 91.4

Source: Items adapted from.Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory, as described in F. Barron, "An Ego
Strength Scale which Predicts Response to Psycho-
therapy,” in George S. welsh and W. Grant Dahlstrom,
eds., Basic Reading on the MMPI in Psychology and

Medicine, pp. 226-234.

Items: (In scalar order)

1. I am able to make friends with people who do
things I consider wrong.
a. Yes.

b. No.
c. Not sure.

2. I have often been forced to give up my plans
because of the obstacles I have encountered.
a. No.

b. Yes.
c. Not sure.

3. When I hear someone saying silly or ignorant
things about something I know, I try to set
him straight.

a. Yes.
b. No.
0. Not sure.

4. I am easily defeated in an argument.

a. No.

b. Yes.

0. Not sure.
Social Trust

Type:

Guttman scale. Coefficient of reproducibility, 90.0.

 

‘lll’ll'nlll’ '1

 

 

 

189

Source: Milton Rosenberg, "Misanthropy and Political
Ideology," American Sociological Review,
XXI: PP. 690-695. Adapted by author; substantially
differs from original.

Items: (In scalar order)

1. If you are not careful, people will take
advantage of you.

a. Agree strongly.

b. Agree somewhat.

c. Disagree somewhat.
d. Disagree strongly.
e. Don't know.

2. One can have confidence only in those one knows
well a

a. Agree strongly.

b. Agree somewhat.

c. Disagree somewhat.
d. Disagree strongly.
e. Don't know.

3. Most people can be trusted.

a. Agree strongly.

b. Agree somewhat.

c. Disagree somewhat.
d. Disagree strongly.
8. Don't know.

4. ‘Most people are more inclined to help others
than to think of themselves first.

a. Agree strongly.

b. Agree somewhat.

c. Disagree somewhat.
d. Disagree strongly.
e. I don't know.

5. When you come right down to it, no one cares
what happens to other people.

a. Agree strongly.

b. Agree somewhat.

c. Disagree somewhat.
d. Disagree strongly.
e. I don't know.

190

Part II. Attitudes Toward System Institutions and Roles

 

1.

2.

Trust of politicians and other public officials

Type Additive index
Source: Angus Campbel, et al., The American Voter.
New York: Wiley, 1964, p. 58. (Abridged).
Adapted.

Items:

1. Every politician is a thief, and he who is
not a thief will become one after he is elected.

a. Agree strongly.

b. Agree somewhat.

c. Disagree somewhat.
d. Disagree strongly.
e. I don't know.

2. The majority of public officials work in
behalf of the wellbeing of the public.

a. Agree strongly.

b. Agree somewhat.

c. Disagree somewhat.
d. Disagree strongly.
e. Don't know.

Scoring procedure: 1. don't know responses
eliminated.
2. score of 4 assigned to a:
3 to b; etc., and summed.
3. sums varying from 2-8
4. scores trichotomized by
observation.

Assessment of governmental activities
Type: Single item
Source: Daniel Goldrich, Sons of the Establishment:

‘Elite Youth in Costa Rica and Panama. Chicago:
Rand McNally, 1966.

 

Items:

1. On the whole what do you think of the
activities of the government of the republic?

a. They tend to improve conditions in this

country.
b. We would be better off without them.
0. I don't know.

3.

4.

191

Partisan trust (Trust of parties including one's own
not to endanger the country)

Type: Additive index

Source: Angus Campbel, et al., The American Voter.
New York: Wiley, 1964, p. 58. (Abridged).

 

Items:

1. During the past fifteen years, various
political parties have controlled the
gpvernment. We are interested in knowing
your ideas about these parties.

A. Could the policies of the National
Liberation Party endanger this country?

a. Very probably that it could happen.
b. It could happen.

c. Not very likely.

d. Impossible.

e. I don't know.

B. and C. Repeat same question for the
National Union Party and National
Republican Party.

Scoring Procedure: 1. don't know responses

eliminated.

2. score of 4 assigned to a;
3 to be; etc.

3. scores summed.

4. resulting range of 3-12
trichotomized by observa-
tion of natural groupings.

Beliefs about social welfare state

Type: Additive index

(V

Source: Original
Items:

1. It is the duty of the government to give food,
shelter and financial support to the poor in
need of it.

a. Agree strongly.

b. Agree somewhat.

c. Disagree somewhat.
d. Disagree strongly.
e. I don't know.

 

'lllllll‘lll’ll

 

192

2. The government should require businessmen
and large farmers to pay a good wage to
their workers.

a. Agree strongly.

b. Agree somewhat.

c. Disagree somewhat.
d. Disagree strongly.
e. I don't know.

Scoring Procedure: 1. score of 4 assigned to

each ”a" response,
3 to "b” etc.

2. scores summed, range 2-8

3. any respondent with a
"don't know" response in
either question eliminated
from index.

4. trichotomous groupings
arrived at by observation
of the marginal frequencies

5. Erpectation of equal treatment by authorities
Type: Single item

Source: Gabriel Almond and Sydney verbs, The Civic
Culture, Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1962. Adapted by author.

Items:

1. Let's say that you or your family had a
minor problem with the authorities (say
for example a violation of traffic laws):
would you be treated equally with everyone
else:

a. Probably they would treat us better than
most people.

b. Probably thewaould treat us equally.

c. Probably they would treat us with less
consideration than most people.

do I don't “0'.

Part III. Attitudes Toward the Procedures and Institutions of Democracy
1. Democratic values
Type: Additive index
Source: Daniel Goldrich, Sons of the Establishment:

Elite Youth in Costa Rica and Panama. Chicago
Rand McNally, 1966.

193

Items:

1. If a politician's ideas were against the best
interests of this country, he should not be
allowed to speak in public.

a. Agree strongly.

b. Agree somewhat.

c. Disagree somewhat.
d. Disagree strongly.
e. I don't know.

2. Even if the newspapers and radio stations were
to begin to talk against the government, they
should be allowed to continue broadcasting and

publishing.

a. . A3130 strongly.

b. Agree somewhat.

c. Disagree somewhat.
d. Disagree strongly.
e. I don't know.

3. The votes of the educated should count more than
those of the uneducated.

a. Agree strongly.

b. Agree somewhat.

c. Disagree somewhat.
d. Disagree strongly.
e. I don't know.

4. If a government is doing a good job with its
programs, it should continue governing even
though it may mean postponing the elections.

a. Agree strongly.

b. Agree somewhat.

c. Disagree somewhat.
d. Disagree strongly.
e. I don't know.

Scoring Procedure: 1. don't know responses eliminated

from index

2. score of 4~ assigned to response
"a” 3 to ”b" etc.

3. scores summed

4. resulting range of 3—12
trichotomised by observation
of natural groupings in the
distribution

2. Support of regular elections as a necessity. This item
is Item #4 of previous index (Democratic Values)
isolated from the index. See page 5.

3.

194

Force as a means of political influence

Type: Single item

Source: Daniel Goldrich, Sons of the Establishment:
Elite Youth in Costa Rica and Panama. Chicago
Rand McNally, 1966.

Item:

1. Force is really the only way to advance one's
ideals.

a. Agree strongly.

b. Agree somewhat.

c. Disagree somewhat.
d. Disagree strongly.
e. I don't know.

Part IV. Behavioral dimensions

1.

2.

Political knowledge

Type: Additive score on four written response items
Source: original

Items:

1. Below are a number of questions concerning’your
knowledge of the politics of Costa Rica. If
you cannot answer the question, simply leave
the space blank.

a. How many years does a Deputy of the
Legislative Assembly serve?

b. What was the name of the man who lost the
last presidential election?

c. What is the name of the current Minister of
Education?

d. What are the names of two cther>ministers
in the current government?

Scoring Procedure: 1. ’assign score of 2 for each
fully correct answer. 1
for partially correct answer
2. sum scores. range 0-10
3. trichotomise according to
observed groupings of scores

Interest and attention index

 

IIII'IIIIIIIV'I'" _

195

Type: Additive two item index

Source: Original

Items:
1.

2.

Do you have much interest in national politics?

3.. Much.
b. Some.
c. Almost non.
d. None.

Approximately how often do you listen to the
national news on the radio or TV or read it in
the newspapers?

a. Daily.

b . Weekly 0

c 0 Monthly.

d. Several times a year.
e. Rover.

Scoring’Procedure:

1.
2.

3.

4.

assign 4 to answer a of-#1, 3 to be, etc. 0 for
blank

assign 5 for answer a of #2, 4 to c, etc. 0 for
blank

sum.sccres. range from 2-9 (eliminate all
respondents from index who failed to answer
either question)

trichotomize according to natural observed

groupings of scores

Part V. 'Attitudes toward traditional values and toward social change

1.

Traditionalism

Type: Additive index

Source:

Items:
1.

David Smith and Alex Inkeles, "The GM Scale:

A Comparative Socio-Psychological Measure of
Individual MOdernity," Sociometry, XXIX, No. 4
(December, 1966), pp. 353-377. Adapted by author.

One ought not believe the ideas of a stranger
without first checking'them.with a friend.

a. Agree strongly.

b. Agree somewhat.

c. Disagree somewhat.
d. Disagree strongly.
e. I don't know.

19C

2. You can say what you want about hard work
getting people ahead, but the main thing that
determines success is luck.

a. Agree strongly.

b. Agree somewhat.

c. Disagree somewhat.
d. Disagree strongly.
e. I don't know.

3. A good son always accepts the political ideas
of his father.

a. Agree strongly.

b. Agree somewhat.

c. Disagree somewhat.
d. Disagree strongly.
e. I don't know.

4. If you have the opportunity to hire someone in
your work, it is always best to give the job to
a relative rather than to a stranger.

a. Agree strongly.

b. Agree somewhat.

c. Disagree somewhat.
d. Disagree strongly.
e. I don't know.

Scoring Procedure:

1. assign a score of 4 for each response a, 3 for
b, 8120.

2. Eliminate from index any respondent with a
”don't know" response in any item

3. Sum scores. range from 4-16

4. trichotomize on basis of observed groupings

 

 

   

   

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