Political values and attitudes

All the chapters in Part I provide important background to, or associated reading for, this chapter. Representing the political values that people express is what democracy is supposed to be about, so this chapter has a strong relationship to Chapter 1. For behaviouralists, an individual's values and attitudes affect their political behaviour, and political scientists often study the two together (see Chapter 3). That people's political values and attitudes are associated with their level of trust in political institutions reflects a tendency to view politics in terms of the operation of political institutions (as is discussed in Chapter 2). Chapter 4 on critical theories provides a way into understanding the left-right distinction. Critical theories themselves can be understood as being on 'the left'. These theories also tend to associate leftist values and attitudes with subordinate groups, and rightist values and attitudes with dominant groups. Discourse theorists would explore left-centre-right in Australian discourse (Chapter 5), while international theorists would be interested in the ways in which values and attitudes help define the national interest or identity (Chapter 6).