The role of the factors determining national character in building civil society
Abstract
The article deals with the mechanism of impact of sociopsychological phenomena such as the national character and the political mentality in the construction and functioning of civil society. It aims to show the impact of climate, religion, and the perception of happiness on the state of civil society through details of a national nature. The main research method is to compare data from global research on the state of civil society with data from climatic conditions, dominant religions, and happiness indices. The article proves coincidently that these factors are reflected in such essential characteristics of civil society as «openness» and «closed-mindedness». The interaction between the national character and the construction of civil society has two stages. It is concluded that the results obtained are important to evaluate the prospects for the construction and development of civil society in different countries and regions of the world. Further research in this direction involves the study of other aspects of the impact of national character and political mindset on the functioning of civil society.
Downloads
References
BILALI, Rezarta; IQBAL, Yeshim; ÇELIK, Ayşe Betül. 2018. “The role of national identity, religious identity, and intergroup contact on social distance across multiple social divides in Turkey” In International Journal of Intercultural Relations. Vol. 5, pp. 73-85. Available online. In: https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2018.04.007. Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY. 2021. Ethos. Available online. In: https:// dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ethos. Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
CHARLESWORTH, James. 1967. “National character in the perspective of political science” In the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 370, No. 1, pp. 23-29.
CIA WORLD FACTBOOK. 2020. World Religions. Available online. In: https://www.infoplease.com/world/social-statistics/world-religions. Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
CIVICUS. 2019. State of Civil Society Report. Available online. In: https://www. civicus.org/index.php/state-of-civil-society-report-2019. Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
COLLINS ONLINE ENGLISH DICTIONARY. 2021. Civil Society. Available online. In: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/civil- society. Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
DINGLEY, James. 2009. “Religion, truth, national identity and social meaning: The example of Northern Ireland” In National Identities. Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 367-383. Available online. In: https://doi. org/10.1080/14608940903321994. Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
EDWARDS, Michael. 2013. Introduction: Civil Society and the Geometry of Human Relations. In M. Edwards (ed.), “The Oxford Handbook of Civil Society”. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, pp. 1-12. Available online. In: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195398571.013.0001. Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
FEENSTRA, Ramon. 2017. “Essay: Rethinking Global Civil Society and the Public Sphere in the Age of Pro-democracy Movements” In Journal of Civil Society. Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 337-348. Available online. In: https://doi. org/10.1080/17448689.2017.1359886. Consultation date: 04/23/2020.
GLASS, Jennifer. 2019. “Why Aren’t We Paying Attention? Religion and Politics in Everyday Life” In Sociology of Religion. Vol. 80, pp. 9-27. Available online. In: https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/sry041. Consultation date: 04/23/2020.
HELLIWELL, John; LAYARD, Richard; SACHS, Jeffrey; DE NEVE, Jan Emmanuel. (eds.). (2020). World Happiness Report 2020. Sustainable Development. Available online. In: https://worldhappiness.report/ ed/2020/#read. Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
INKELES, Alex. 2017. National Character and Modern Political Systems: A Psycho–Social Perspective. In A. Inkeles (ed.), National Character. Routledge, New York, NY, pp. 211-250. Available online. In: https://doi. org/10.4324/9781315125053-6. Consultation date: 04/23/2020.
KENNY, Michael. 2020. Civil society. Available online. In: https://www. britannica.com/topic/civil-society/Contemporary-political-discourse. Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
LORD, Carnes. 2013. Aristotle’s Politics. (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. London, UK.
MAHAJAN, Gurpreet. 2021. “Does a plural civil society matter? Reflecting on the varieties of associational life in India” In Journal of Civil Society. Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 5-17. Available online. In: https://doi.org/10.1080/174486 89.2021.1886761. Consultation date: 04/23/2020.
MCCRAE, Robert; TERRACCIANO, Antonio; REALO, Anu; ALLIK, Jüri. 2007. “Climatic Warmth and National Wealth: Some Culture-Level Determinants of National Character Stereotypes” In: European Journal of Personality. Vol. 21, No. 8, pp. 953-976. Available online. In: https:// doi.org/10.1002/per.647. Consultation date: 04/23/2020.
MCLEAN, Iain; MCMILLAN, Alistair. 2009. Civil Society. In The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Available online. In: https://doi.org/10.1093/ acref/9780199207800.001.0001. Consultation date: 04/23/2020.
OMELICHEVA, Mariya; AHMED, Ranya. 2018. “Religion and politics: examining the impact of faith on political participation” In Religion, State and Society. Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 4-25. Available online. In: https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2017.1363345. Consultation date: 04/23/2020.
PEW RESEARCH CENTER. 2020. The Global Religious Landscape: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Major Religious Groups. Available online. In: https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/ uploads/sites/11/2020/01/global-religion-full.pdf. Consultation date: 04/21/2021.
STEWART, Philip. 2018. Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Law. Available online. In: http://montesquieu.ens-lyon.fr/spip.php?rubrique186. Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
SUN, Warren. 2016. The Chinese National Character: From Nationhood to Individuality. Routledge, New York, NY.
WEBER, Max. (2002). The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism. Transl. by P. Baehr & Gordon C. W. Penguin Books, London, UK.
WIARDA, Howard. 2016. Political Culture, Political Science, and Identity Politics: An Uneasy Alliance. Routledge, New York, NY.
WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION. 2020a. Climate Zone Shiny Map. Available online. In: https://community.rstudio.com/t/climate- zone-shiny-map/56366. Consultation date: 04/24/2021.
WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION. 2020b. Provisional Report on the State of the Global Climate 2020. Available online. In: https://library.wmo.int/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=21804#. YGOajtIzbIU. Consultation date: 04/24/2021.
WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION. 2021. World Climate Maps. Available online. In: https://www.climate-charts.com/World-Climate- Maps.html. Consultation date: 04/24/2021.
VAMSTAD, Johan. 2020. “Giving to be civil or civic? – A social origins analysis of charitable giving in Sweden” In Journal of Civil Society. Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 1-14. Available online. In: https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2020. 1717158. Consultation date: 04/23/2021.
Copyright
The authors who publish in this journal agree to the following terms:
The authors retain the copyright and guarantee the journal the right to be the first publication where the article is presented, which is published under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows others to share the work prior to the recognition of the authorship of the article work and initial publication in this journal.
Authors may separately establish additional agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in the journal (for example, placing it in an institutional repository or publishing it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
This work is under license:
Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-CompartirIgual 4.0 Internacional (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)