The More You Try the Less it Sticks : Parental Politicization and the Endurance of Partisan Transmission through the family
Although the transmission of partisan attitudes through the family is a well-established empirical finding across various contexts, the durability of this link over the child’s lifecourse remains poorly investigated. Political issues interact with family influences to condition early adult partisanship. However, the impact of issues is probably not homogeneous among new voters. It likely depends on the extent to which they receive political information, thus on their level of political interest. This in turn is conditioned upon the degree to which politics was present during childhood and early adolescence, highlighting the crucial role of parental politicization. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this link, proposing a rather counter-intuitive hypothesis. Increased parental interest in politics, I argue, might lead to an increased level of conversion from family political beliefs. This is because a young voter acquainted with political discussions within the family will probably continue to talk about politics also in other social contexts, opening a window to the world through which external influences might enter. Such influences might induce her to revise her political worldview and thus to amend her political preferences. Testing this hypothesis with the Jennings-Niemi-Stoker Youth-Parent Socialization Panel Study confirms this pattern. I also trace this link by exploring the role of college education and the Vietnam war on the formation of partisanship among young adults. These events cause deviations from initial partisan beliefs but they do so only among the youth coming from more politicized families. Finally, I explore the empirical implications of this finding for intergenerational continuity in vote choice
Year of publication: |
2009
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Authors: | Dinas, Elias |
Publisher: |
[S.l.] : SSRN |
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