ABSTRACT
Political culture is viewed as a land of democratic reserve potential that can be drawn upon if the political system runs into serious difficulties. The intrusion of the new concept into German political science and German politics has shed new light and brought a new focus upon a debate that has accompanied German politics since the beginning of the new experiment in democracy after World War II. More attention should certainly be given to the problem of the function of political culture within the whole system. Political culture is something to be developed and cultivated in order to achieve, as nearly as possible, a kind of harmony between both spheres of politics. The political culture approach was originally developed to overcome the onesidedness of the institutional approach to politics. It is now in danger of becoming divorced from the life of the institutions.
