ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the political attitudes of modern men in a democratic political system. It is concerned with those attitudes believed to be supportive of a democratic system. Participation should be treated as the behavioural manifestation of the attitudes of modernity rather than as an attitude. Lucian Pye utilizes an ideal-type definition of the structural characteristics of a modern political system and gives its attitudinal dimension a descriptive definition. The chapter focuses on the attitudes of modern men rather than on structural variables, recognizing that both sets of variables are significant and probably highly interrelated. The politically modern man holds an optimistic attitude toward his own potentialities and toward the characteristics of his fellow men. The chapter also is concerned with almost exclusively with the attitudinal dimension, and the political attitudes of modern men will be defined in terms of ideal types.
