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Conceptualisation of Political Culture
The definition of political culture is highly contested in the academic field .Scholars even come to argue that the concept of political culture is more suggestive than scientifically defining. However, political culture is a commonly used term in the field of social sciences to define social and political structures within a given collective entity. The study of culture in politics rests on the underlying claim that differences across cultures are real and that they have implications on the political life of the state. Culture is a long-lasting phenomenon, yet it is not fixed and can change alongside other societal developments. In these terms, culture is seen as a dynamic concept and its evolution is not independent from other understandings of society. Stephen Chilton establishes criteria to define this concept, in order to clarify the ways in which culture can become political. The criteria that Chilton brings forward to describe culture emphasise community and the sense of membership, as well as factors beyond behavioural patterns, and more broadly call for the consideration of social organisations. Moreover, beyond taking into account the ways in which people belonging to the same social group relate to one another, cognitive structures surrounding cultural organisations cannot be ignored. The study of culture in politics is relevant to the understanding of institutions as well as political change, as it establishes the moral and cognitive frameworks that actors engage with.

Current Political Framework and The Declaration of the Rights of Man
Today’s French political framework belongs to the fifth-republic, beginning in 1958 after seven years of proportional representation under the fourth-republic. The fifth-republic is majoritarian and, therefore, implies adversarial politics. Rousseau’s General Will comes to life is this context of unitary governance, as it defends that centralised government is particularly effective in identifying the interests of the people, namely the General Will. This idea of a compact system of governance, doted with high decision-making power and high levels of responsiveness can be more specifically identified as unitary republicanism .The Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1789 is never far from the political stage and it continues to motivate and influence politicians and policy-building today. For instance, on the 13th of April of 2020, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, pronounced a speech regarding the Coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak in France and concluded by referring to the first article the 1789 Declaration. In this example, the president reminds the nation of the founding principles and, by doing so, brings the nation together through an inspirational reminder of the fundamental principles. The rights brought forward by the Declaration of 1789 also had an international reach as they inspired other official documents such as the International Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention of Human Rights. The national Constitution of 1958 created a legally binding context for the principles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man.

“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”
“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” was appointed the national motto, officially considered as such in the constitution of 1958. These three concepts are complementary and it is often assumed that one leads to the other yet scholars have also demonstrated that these concepts alone reference different political models, and the mix of all three can create tensions. Liberty is referred to in both positive and negative terms. On one hand, positive liberty is “the power to act” (on the basis of individual will). Negative liberty, on the other hand, refers to the freedom from external constraint. The second concept is equality which is multi-dimensional, and can be understood as the protection against discrimination and the guarantee of equal respect. Equality and liberty are complementary terms, as equality distributes power and resources to grant equal opportunities to act according to personal desires. Lastly, fraternity is closely tied to the notion of solidarity and has an important place in French public law, as it justifies the need for redistributive measures. The origin of these principles dates back to the time of the enlightenment of the 18th century, in which philosophers claimed that the nation ought to be a unitary bloc, uniting people by the idea of “implicit common good, sharing common institutions and traditions, and forming a dominant culture”. This approach considered the state as a homogenous body, encouraging the majority which ultimately shaped the political order at its core as well as the shared understanding of citizenship. These three principles fundamentally emphasise the universality of the nation, which comes to reject communitarianism and minorities, across all collective grounds (race, religion etc). This radical perception has changed since then, as it has modernised alongside other societal changes yet these principles continue to greatly influence political culture of the twenty-first century. However, the principles introduced in the Declaration of the Rights of Man as well as the specific notion of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” that inspired the fight of the revolutionaries during the 18th century continue to be widely accepted and illustrated in policy, despite the heterogenous applications of these engagements on different societal levels .Yseultb (talk) 15:04, 8 May 2020 (UTC)