Political Culture in the Urban West: Is It Really Different?

• Author: Nicholas P. Lovrich,C. David Moon,John C. Pierce
• Published date: 01 December 2001
• Date: 01 December 2001
• DOI: 10.1177/0160323X0103300304
• Subject Matter: A Research Note

195Fall 2001

State an d Local Government Review

Vol. 33, No. 3 (Fall 2001): 195–201

A RESEARCH NOTE

BECAUSE THE STATES that mak e up the

American West (stretching from

New Mexi co to Montana on the

eastern side and from Washington to Califor-

nia on the West Coast) share a common his-

tory, we expect them to be more similar

to

each other than to the rest of the country.

The frontier status of these states in the late

nineteenth century

—

with their many settle-

ments of indigenous peoples and economic

reliance on agriculture and natural resource

extractio n, combined with the powerful, per-

vasive myth of the cowboy (Thomas 1991b,

5)

—

suggests that the political culture of the

We s t i s d i stinctive. Places linked by such a

common history, including sharing a rev-

erence for natural beauty and wildness and

expe rie nci ng b oth the Civil War and mass

European immigration at a step removed,

woul d se em to deve lop a culture and poli-

tics quite different from that of the rest of

the nation. The individualism that predomi-

nates in the general American political cul-

ture, it is widely perceived, is even more

strongly expressed in western beliefs and be-

haviors. To the extent that this historical

heritage has significant, lasting effects, it

should be reflected in differences b etween

the culture of the West and that of the rest

of the country.

Political Culture in the Urban West:

Is It Really Different?

C. David Moon, John C. Pierce, and Nicholas P. Lovrich

Over recent decades, however, the forces

of globalizatio n and homogenization have

been at work in the wes t of the nation, as in

all other regions. The dissemination of mod-

ern telecommunications, substantial economic

growth and prosperity, and large-scale ur-

banization (and suburbanization) have cre-

ated increasing similarities between places in

the West and other parts of the United States

(Center of the American West 1997, 12). The

image of urban-suburban sprawl and strip

malls of national chains and franchises pro-

liferating amid the drama of the unmistak-

ably unique natura l beauty of the local land-

scape is particularly distinctive. One should

not necessarily conclude, however, that a dis-

tinctive political ethos likewise dominates the

cultural landscape.

This research note explores the proposi-

tion that the West is politically distinctive in

terms of public postures to ward p olit ics a nd

society. We look where such differences may

be the hardest to find

—

among the residents

of major cities. Using telephone survey data

originally developed for marketing purposes,

this study examines whether the attitudes of

people in various c ities of th e West d iffe r ap-

preciably from those of people living in cit-

ies in other regions of the United States. The

variab le s we examine include social trust,