ABSTRACT
United States political culture, a concept defined in the post-World War II period, refers to a method of studying the public life of the nation (or smaller units such as regions, communities, groups, or political parties) by evaluating the attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and ceremonies that inform and give meaning to their political processes. In the same relation to politics as culture is to society, U.S. political culture moves beyond the objective world of voting, turnouts, issues, and electoral winners and losers to incorporate the more subjective arenas of the sentiments held by Americans about the fundamentals of the public power that governs them. This approach forms a key link between social and political history.
