POLITICAL-CULTURE THEORY AND THE ROLE OF PROFESSIONALS - DATA FROM VENEZUELA

This research examines the political culture literature and follows it s admonition to test culturalist ideas in representative ethnographic studies. It is based on public opinion surveys in 1973 and 1987, elite interviews in 1972-1973, and focus groups organized by the authors du ring 1987. There are three important findings. First, the political cu lture of professionals in the wake of social discontinuity was fragmen ted in the aggregate. Fragmentation was not as pronounced as anticipat ed by culturalist theory. The second finding concerns the internal str ucture of political culture in which political regimes become consolid ated without a great legitimating revolution. The authors detected a s trong positive affect for the central institutions underpinning Venezu ela's post-1958 regime, highly positive evaluative orientations toward the institutions' governing capabilities, and a positive evaluation o f overall regime output. Third, the authors found professional politic al culture in 1987 supportive of reconciliation democracy; but evaluat ive orientation toward regime outputs had become negative.