An example of this rapid shift given in the book, Arab Spring of 2011 in the countries of Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Bahrain were inspired by social media protests to build their disagreements with the current regimes into changes in leaderships in their countries. This type of change was unheard of before in this region. Societal culture plays a large part in starting shifts in political cultures. Beliefs, customs, expanding knowledge and social media accessibility are definitely influencing social cultures everywhere. 4. Why is individualism the dominant characteristic of American political culture?How is the nature of American individualism changing? Individualism comes from the frontier era when a person only had themselves and their family to depend on for survival.

It then became the dominant characteristic carried on through American history. The “rugged individualism” of the frontier has been replaced with the “expressive individualism” of current day. People express themselves as individuals in every way possible, hair, music, tattoos, looting, books, games, interests, religion, friends, clubs, schools, movies and more.Today, we are all reliant on one another or the government in some way.

Social media and the internet keep all in constant communication and entwined electronically. 5. How have the liberal and conservative ideologies changed since the United States was founded? Do any underlying continuities exist in these opposing ideologies? In the beginning, there were only the two ideologies of liberal or conservative but it has evolved into four categories today. Liberal, conservative, populists and libertarians are the category names.

Conservative is now broken into two sub sections Of economic conservative and cultural conservative. The changes from the initial two categories include, Liberals Favor: Greater economic regulation and social welfare spending Oppose: Greater personal choice/lifestyle regulations Populists Favor: Greater economic regulation and social welfare spending Favor: Libertarians Oppose: Greater personal choice/lifestyle regulations Oppose: Greater economic regulation and social welfare spending Conservatives