Orientations of the people are directed towards political objects. A political object is an object which acts as a stimulus for generating orientations.
Explaining the objects of political orientation, Almond and Powell observe,
“Objects of political orientation include the political system as a whole, particular political rotes or structures (Political parties, Interest groups, Legislature, Executive, Judiciary, Rights, etc.) individual or group incumbents of such roles (President, Prime Minister, Cabinet, Ministry, etc.) and specific public policies and issues. They also include other political actors and the self as political actors.”
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Since the number of political objects is very large; we can classify these into four main classes/parts:
(a) System as a Whole:
This category includes political system, its history, size, location, power, constitution, and characteristics of the nation.
(b) The Inputs:
This category includes the organisations and institutions which channel the flow of demands and supports into the political system and initiate the process of conversion of demands and supports into authoritative policies. These include political parties, interest groups, media of mass communications, legislatures and other roles and structures.
(c) The Output Process:
It includes the work of the bureaucracy and the courts and other institutions concerned with applying and enforcing authoritative decisions.
(d) The Self:
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This category includes such objects as individual’s role in the political system as perceived by the individual himself, his rights, powers, duties, gains and standards for forming opinions of the system, and his place within it.
The study of Political Culture involves an evaluation of the orientations of the people towards these four main types of Political Objects.
As such, the political culture of a Society can be measured and determined by co-relating information about these aspects collected from a valid sample of the population. As such, the Political Culture is determined by, as Almond and Verba observe, “The frequency of different kinds of cognitive, affective and evaluative orientations towards the political system in general, its input and output aspects and the self as political actor.”