Topic > Role of Culture in Global Politics - 446

The process of globalization has transformed this world into a global village resulting in mass movement of people for education, employment and residence, turning countries into nations without borders. This has resulted in a mixture of cultures with different people expressing their views on national and international policies formulated by national and international bodies. Citizens' attitudes are the elements that create a political culture that play an important role in people's behavior and actions. Different cultures within countries provide a sociological account of the political cultures within each country. According to Kegley and Blanton (2010) world political realities can be built on illusions and misunderstandings and it is necessary to recognize changes in the world since the future of the world will be determined not only by changes in the objective “facts” of world politics but also by the meaning that people attribute to those facts, by the assumptions on which they base their interpretations, and by the actions that arise from those assumptions and interpretations. It is also pertinent to mention that policy makers seek information that reinforces pre-existing beliefs about the world, assimilate new data into familiar images, equate decisions with what one knows and believes, and deny that contradicts the information one knows and most sometimes relies on intuition rather than analysis (Kegley and Blanton, 2010). However, culture is simply the aggregate of individual disposition and its meaning and meaning are limited to behavior (Street, 1997). It is because of its culture on which US politics is built and dominates global politics. World politics follows accepted legal conventions of distinction that are fueled by the culture of the world's population carrying out various daily activities that compete with each other because they often have different goals and objectives (Kegley and Blanton, 2010). Kegley and Blanton (2010) further elaborate on the importance of culture in global politics by mentioning the chronicle of interactions between states that remain the dominant political organizations in the world where world affairs are also influenced by new, large players in international affairs. The global level of analysis is a major factor influencing global politics that refers to the interactions of states and non-state actors on the global stage whose behaviors ultimately shape the international political system and the levels of conflict and cooperation that characterize the world politics. Kegley and Blanton (2010) also present liberal and constructivist perspectives on war and peace, armed aggression and international security which are fundamentally shaped by the importance placed on shared ethics and morality in world politics.