1987 Constructing Institutions parison,elevated central power),the anti- Culture and Risk federalists preferred the past to the future. Worrying about the return of monarchy Comparing perceptions of danger is or,just as bad,monarchical principles, especially useful as a test of cultural the individualist Jacksonians (who be- theory.The subject abounds with anoma- lieved that equality of opportunity,rigor- lies;it is fiercely contested;rival theories ously enforced,would lead to relative are already in place;and,best of all, equality of condition),fought a rearguard readers can check out the performance of action against commercial capitalism.10 cultural theory vis-a-vis its competitors Similarly,the Federalist party (a hierar- by reading their daily newspapers. chy coalescing with market forces to form "Ideology,"Samuel Barnes (1966)re- an establishment)fought to achieve and minds us,"is one of the most frequently maintain the relative centralization of the cited and inadequately understood sub- Constitution-a radical change from the jects of empirical inquiry"(p.513).11 In an immediate past. effort to improve the situation,a number An advantage of cultural theory is that of anthropologists(Claude Levi-Strauss, it handles both economic and social issues Clifford Geertz,David Schreider,Ward without strain.Conover and Feldman Goodenough)have brought up the con- (1981)wrote that cept of cultures as "ideational codes" (Elkins and Simeon 1979).For Geertz, traditionally,it was assumed that the meaning of "culture is best seen not as complexes of ideological labels and self-identifications could concrete behavior patterns-customs, be easily summarized in terms of a single dimen- sion:the liberal/conservative continuum.In usages,traditions,habit clusters...but recent years,however,this viewpoint has under- as a set of control mechanisms-plans, gone some modification.The decade of the 1970s recipes,rules,instructions (what com- ushered in a variety of "social"issues-abortion, puter engineers call programs')-for the marijuana use,the Equal Rights Amendment- which did not fit easily into the traditional governing of behavior"(Elkins and liberal/conservative spectrum.Because of this, Simeon,1979,129).In order to give many researchers now posit that the meaning of greater precision to this research pro- ideological labels and self-identification must be gram,Elkins and Simeon list a number of interpreted within the context of two liberal/ questions(regarding people's assumptions conservative dimensions:one economic and one social.(p.168) about causality,human nature,the 'orderliness of the universe")that would Using cultural concepts,however,makes get at who is controlling whom or what such ad hoc category massage unneces- controlling which.Let us take one of their sary.Individualists,being nonprescrip- most explicit questions-"Should one try tive and anticollectivist,prefer minimal to maximize gains,or to minimize losses? economic and social regulation.Egali- In other words,what assumptions are tarians,combining nonprescription with made about the relative payoffs of opti- collective decision,prefer strong eco- mistic or pessimistic strategies?"(p.132) nomic but weak social regulation.And -and compare the kind of answers given adherents of hierarchy,joining hard by cultural theory with the kind given by group boundaries to heavy prescription, other theories of risk-taking and risk- desire strong social and economic regula- aversion. tion.Presumably,students of cultural In discussions of technological danger, theory would not be surprised at a U.S. one theory is that people are reacting to president who (combining market indi- the actual dangers;they are risk-averse vidualism with social hierarchy,like his because the risks are rising.Another party)urges compulsory urine tests to theory is psychological;there are risk- detect drug users. taking and risk-averse personalities.Still 13