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Issues and Inheritance in the Formation of Party Identification
Abstract
Movement of party identification, both within and across generations, is increasingly seen as responsive to current policy preferences. We explore cross-generational change using three-wave parent-offspring data. The results strongly support the revised view of a more malleable partisanship influenced by offspring issue preferences. Nonetheless, parents play a major role in determining the initial political direction of their offspring and continue to play a significant though reduced role in the over-time development of their adult children. The results are similar for presidential preferences, though parental influence is entirely channeled through offspring partisanship.
... It is beyond the scope of this article to give a detailed overview, but researchers focus on different core beliefs including values such as economic individualism and policy principles such as limited government (Aalberg 2003;Feldman 1988;Goren 2001Goren , 2013Rokeach 1973). Another deeply held belief which is influential in politics is partisan attachment-that is, an emotional attachment of an individual to a particular party (Campbell et al. 1960;Niemi and Jennings 1991). ...
... Furthermore, core beliefs shape perceptions of the world, such as on the fairness of income distributions (Aalberg 2003). Lastly, core beliefs remain relatively stable over a lifetime (Feldman 1988;Goren 2005;Niemi and Jennings 1991;Peffley and Hurwitz 1993), which contrasts with the instability of preferences (Zaller 1992;Zaller and Feldman 1992). ...
... The importance of core beliefs in the model begs the question of how they are formed. The theory displayed in Fig. 2 suggests that they primarily develop during the impressionable years and are therefore based on peoples' socio-economic origin-that is, their childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood (Jennings et al. 2009;Niemi and Jennings 1991; O'Grady 2019; Rico and Jennings 2016). People adopt their beliefs from their surroundings via a mix of social transfers and independent deductions based on shared circumstances. ...
This literature review investigates the effects of public opinion on political outcomes in democracies, focusing on Comparative Political Economy (CPE) research. Many CPE researchers expect that parties and governments respond to public policy preferences that are exogenous to the political process. This review first formalizes the common CPE argument and then derives an alternative theoretical perspective from political psychology and political communication research. The contrasting theory highlights the impreciseness and endogeneity of public opinion, wherein political elites actively shape public sentiment. Through a comparative analysis of these contrasting theoretical approaches, the review extracts insights that promise to enrich future CPE research. It also develops the fundamentals of a theory on the impact of public opinion on political outcomes, which suggests that public opinion can be seen as an “elastic corridor” that constrains the opportunity space of parties.
... One important variable that captures people's experiences, values and beliefs is political ideology [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] . Although political ideology is multidimensional in nature [20][21][22] and can be difficult to define 23 , here we adopt the traditional notion of a single left-right or liberal-conservative dimension 12 . ...
... Given such correlations with numerous variables and its societal importance 16,17 , we investigated political ideology in this research as a predictively valid proxy variable that captures people's experiences, values and beliefs [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] . As we later discuss, political ideology is a measured variable that reflects people's (1) set of values and beliefs, as well as (2) their social identity. ...
... Given such correlations with numerous variables and its societal importance 16,17 , we investigated political ideology in this research as a predictively valid proxy variable that captures people's experiences, values and beliefs [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] . As we later discuss, political ideology is a measured variable that reflects people's (1) set of values and beliefs, as well as (2) their social identity. ...
We examine judgements of bias in distributional outcomes. Such judgements are often based on imbalance in distributional outcomes, namely, the under- or over-representation of a target group relative to some baseline. Using data from 26 studies (N = 14,925), we test how these judgements of bias vary with the target group’s characteristics (traditionally dominant or non-dominant) and the observer’s political ideology (liberal or conservative). We find that conservatives set a higher threshold for recognizing bias against traditionally non-dominant targets (women, Black people, immigrants), as compared with liberals. Conversely, liberals set a higher threshold for recognizing bias against traditionally dominant targets (men, white people, native-born citizens), as compared with conservatives. However, these relationships between political ideology and judgements of bias diminish when the targets are unknown or ideologically irrelevant. These findings emphasize the context-dependency of bias judgements and underscore the importance of stimulus sampling and appropriate selection of controls.
... The instrumental approach takes party identification as a running tally of political events (Bartels, 2002), changeable and responsive to events and individual attitudes on contemporary political and economic issues (Niemi & Jennings, 1991). The individual's prospective and retrospective evaluations of the leaders, and political parties' performance plays a significant role in political attitude. ...
... The family is a significant factor that affects political behavior. Scholars have attributed the family as the foremost socializing factor in political behavior (Achen, 2002;Niemi & Jennings, 1991). Tedin (1974) demonstrates that children are more likely to perceive parental party identification accurately. ...
... The significant correlation and association confirm the significant influence of the family socializing factor on party identification. Niemi & Jennings, (1991) and Tedin's (1974) studies also pinpoint the family as an agent of political socialization. Authors demonstrate that political interest and more importantly partisan inclination start in early adolescence when the parents exercise an overt political activity. ...
The party identification of individuals is influenced by various factors. The two models of party identification i.e., the expressive model and the instrumental model signify the long-term and short-term socio-political factors respectively. The study hypothesizes that the long-term factors i.e., family socializing factor, peer group, and religious group affiliation significantly affect the party identification of the individuals in Peshawar valley of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province of Pakistan. The study is based on an in-person survey conducted for the Ph.D. studies from February to April 2021. A total of 1196 responses were documented out of a total of 1500 questionnaires distributed. The study investigated the public perspective based on long-term factors such as family socialization, peer group affiliation, and religious group affiliation in affecting party identification by determining the frequencies and percentages of responses using statistical tools and descriptive statistics. The correlation and the association are also investigated by applying specific statistical tools. The analysis of the public perspective regarding the role of family socializing factor, per group factor, and religious group affiliation indicate the close contiguity of the individuals with these factors and their influence on party identification behavior of the individuals in a political party system in Peshawar valley of KP province of Pakistan. The Kendall tau_b and chi-square tests of the correlations and association of the family socializing factor, peer group factor, and religious group affiliation with party identification further confirm the correlation and association of these factors with party identification, which confirm the significant influence.
... According to traditional political socialization theory, the impressionable years that shape citizens' political preferences and behaviors go beyond school age and lay between the ages of 17 to 25 (Neundorf & Smets, 2017;Niemi & Jennings, 1991). Political preferences and political behavior of this age group are still developing and therefore make this age group susceptible to external influences (Neundorf & Smets, 2017), for instance to media effects (Andersen, Ohme, et al., 2021). ...
... Political socialization theory hypothesizes the height of one's impressionable or formative years to be situated between the ages 17 to 25 (Neundorf & Smets, 2017;Niemi & Jennings, 1991), which led us to focus on this age group. Using the services of the panel research company Dynata, a total of 445 German Instagram users between the ages of 18 to 25 were successfully recruited. ...
The last few years have witnessed a growing societal and scholarly interest in the potential of online political microtargeting to affect election outcomes in favor of parties and candidates. It has often been rightly pointed out that political microtargeting can pose risks to electoral integrity in democracies. But can political microtargeting also benefit democratic functioning? Very little is known about the potential of political microtargeting to affect citizens’ attitudes towards politics and increase their civic participation. To address this paucity, this article presents a preregistered online experiment conducted in Germany among young adults ( N = 445), examining whether (targeted) civic education ads on Instagram increase political interest, efficacy, and civic participation. An innovative methodological approach to studying political microtargeting is deployed, exposing respondents to civic education ads in a mock Instagram feed, personalized in real-time based on individual preferences. We find no direct evidence of (targeted) civic education ads, leading us to believe that (targeted) ads do not unconditionally affect political interest, efficacy, or civic participation.
... Most crossnational studies largely rely on analysis of observational data such as the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) data (Gidron, Adams, and Horne 2019;2020;Harteveld 2021;Hernandez, Anduiza, and Rico 2021;Reiljan 2020;Wagner 2021). However, partisanship can proxy other social identities (e.g., Achen and Bartels 2016;Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee 1954;Campbell et al. 1960;Green, Palmquist, and Schickler 2002) or convey information about issue positions (e.g., Abramowitz and Saunders 2006;Niemi and Jennings 1991). Thus, a conventional observational approach cannot establish and disentangle the causal effect of partisanship itself. ...
... They thus argue that findings based on these measures can be both incorrect and illusionary. Moreover, given that partisanship can proxy for other social identities (Ahler and Sood 2018;Claassen et al. 2021;Iyengar, Sood, and Lelkes 2012;Robison and Moskowitz 2019; see also Achen and Bartels 2016;Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee 1954;Campbell et al. 1960;Green, Palmquist, and Schickler 2002) or convey information about issue positions (e.g., Abramowitz and Saunders 2006;Niemi and Jennings 1991;Orr and Huber 2020), it is questionable whether an observational approach can precisely identify or compare the extent of partisan divide relative to other social divides. ...
Highlighting the strength of “partyism” in many democracies, recent scholarship pays keen attention to increasing hostility and distrust among citizens across party lines, known as affective polarization. By combining a conjoint analysis with decision-making games such as dictator and trust games, we design a novel survey experiment to systematically estimate and compare the strength of the partisan divide relative to other social divides across 25 European democracies. This design also allows us to investigate how the two components of affective polarization, in-group favoritism and out-group derogation, are moderated by the way parties interact with each other. We first find dominance of the partisan divide compared to other social divides that constitute traditional cleavages such as social class and religion. Second, we show that affective polarization in Europe is not primarily driven by out-group animus. Finally, we demonstrate that coalition partnership lessens affective polarization by reducing both in-group and out-group biases.
... Schools and peer groups provide additional sources of socialization (Holbein 2017;Nelsen 2023;Settle, Bond, and Levitt 2011). While childhood attitudes can decay over time (Jennings and Niemi 1981;Niemi and Kent Jennings 1991), scholars generally agree that socializing agents at least "provide political information that children can use as a starting point when they formulate their own political identities" (Urbatsch 2014, 5). ...
Classic political behavior studies assert that childhood socialization can contribute to later political orientations. But, as adults consider how to introduce children to politics, what shapes their decisions? We argue socialization is itself political with adults changing their socialization priorities in response to salient political events including social movements. Using Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and race socialization as a case, we show the summer 2020 information environment coupled movement-consistent concepts of race with child-rearing guidance. A survey of white parents after the summer activism suggests that many—but especially Democrats and those near peaceful protest epicenters—prioritized new forms of race socialization. Further, nearly 2 years after the protests’ height, priming BLM changes support for race-related curricular materials among white Americans. Our work casts political socialization in a new light, reviving an old literature, and has implications for when today’s children become tomorrow’s voters.
... It is commonly believed that partisan ties are normally defined during early adulthood (Huddy, 2001). If these ties remain constant over life, they sometimes lead to stable electoral decisions and stable political opponents (Niemi & Jennings, 1991;Dinas, 2014). While the study of political outgroups is not new (Greene, 1999;Dalton et al., 2000;Brewer, 2001), current studies highlight the importance of revisiting the trends of ingroup and out-group polarisation in this new multiparty scenario (Iyengar et al., 2012;Iyengar et al., 2019;Wagner, 2021;Harteveld, 2021;Knudsen, 2021;Torcal & Carty, 2022). ...
Aunque existe un amplio espectro de literatura académica acerca de la cuestión de la polarización afectiva en Estados Unidos, en la última década ha proliferado el interés por el contexto europeo. Este trabajo pretende profundizar en las dos principales dimensiones de la polarización afectiva. En primer lugar, la dimensión individual, referida al discurso político y a la relación entre individuos y élites políticas. En segundo lugar, la dimensión institucional, relacionada con la irrupción de los sistemas multipartidistas. Los resultados muestran cómo la atomización del espectro político conlleva que el estudio de la animosidad sea aún más complejo. El presente trabajo nos lleva a concluir que, a pesar de los avances, es necesario continuar profundizando en el análisis de la polarización afectiva, especialmente en sus efectos sobre la calidad de las instituciones ya que, al desencadenar enfrentamientos entre individuos y entre partidos, se acaban postergando políticas clave que requieren amplios consensos parlamentarios.
... One area working especially hard to come to terms with these changes is that of political socialization and civic education. Socialization scholars have moved away from the transmission model of socialization, which focused almost entirely on the role of parents in fostering political attitudes (Niemi and Jennings, 1991). Instead, recent work recognizes the diversity of influences shaping young adults' involvement in the political process and developing their political identity (Thorson et al., 2018). ...
Gen Z-ers around the world have grown up and come of age in a period rife with the implications of climate change, heightened rightwing extremism, threats to democracy, and rising inflation. Gen Z has also been characterized by an enhanced awareness of mental health care and body positivity, LGBTQIA+ and the spectrum of gender identity, as well as racial justice, diversity, equity and inclusion. Our previous chapter (11) on youth political engagement focused on digital media's role in shaping engagement modes. In this chapter, we first explore shifts in the basis for civic identity for many young people beginning with the role of socio-economic status and affinity groups. Then we will draw attention to skills, online practices, and the definition of political engagement. Lastly, we will discuss what these changes imply for the study of political socialization and the practice of civic education
... While policies teach people what government is like in their lifetimes, policy feedback can function intergenerationally. One's partisanship is in part a consequence of socialization (Niemi & Jennings, 1991). Lessons about the government can be intergenerational. ...
The heart of the citizen-state encounter is the interpersonal interaction and quantitative methods alone cannot fully capture its nuances. The interpersonal citizen-state encounter entails emotions, antecedents, and perspectives that inform present interactions and require interpretation, all hallmarks of qualitative methods. To demonstrate the complexity of the citizen-state encounter and the necessity of listening to interpret interactions, I examine how historical antecedents of African Americans’ encounters with police can create intergenerational socialization into police distrust that informs how police are seen today. Myriad influences enter police interactions, including the knowledge of continuous racism in police history. Administrators untrained in qualitative methods will not be able to appropriately listen and interpret. This project initially planned to explore symbolic representation in policing but over its course it became clear history influenced how respondents viewed police, further highlighting the importance of listening.
... religion, appear to be mostly forged in adolescence and young adulthood (Sapiro 2004, pp. 11, 13;Van Deth et al. 2011;Niemi & Jennings 1991). Some determinants may change but largely due to factors outside the government's control (Shrestha 2006;Huddy 2003). ...
Ülkelerin ekonomik performansları, ekonomi politikası uygulamalarında önemli
belirleyicilerden biridir. Ekonomik performansın ölçümünde temel makroekonomik
göstergeler dikkate alınır. Çalışmada 2018 – 2021 yıllarına ait çeyrek dönemlik GSYH
büyüme hızı, enflasyon oranı, işsizlik oranı, cari işlemler ve bütçe dengelerinin GSYH’ya oranları verileri kullanılarak, Türkiye ekonomisinin bu dönemdeki makroekonomik performansı ölçülmüş ve bu performansın sergilenmesinde rol oynayan etkenler analiz edilmiştir. Ekonomik performans ölçümünde Çok Kriterli Karar Verme tekniklerinden birisi olan TOPSİS yöntemi kullanılarak ölçüm yapılmıştır. Böylelikle ele alınan çeyrek dönemlerde Türkiye ekonomisinin en iyi ve en kötü performansı sergilediği dönemler belirlenmiş ve performanslar bağlamında sıralama yapılmıştır
... Proponents of such views believe that political attitudes are the result of rational, conscious responses to objective reality. On the other hand, numerous empirical studies reveal that political orientation is to a greater extent predetermined by hereditary and psychological characteristics of individuals than the result of political socialization or sociodemographic factors (Niemi & Jennings, 1991;Plutzer, 2002). ...
The influence of basic human values on citizens’ ideo-political orientation has been extensively documented in the literature. An important component of political orientation, attitudes towards immigrants in host societies are no exception in their dependence on some of the personal value categories identified by Schwartz in his Theory of basic values (Schwartz 1992). The results of two studies that employ Schwartz’s value categories and aim to explore the relationship between Bulgarian citizens’ values and their attitudes towards immigrants in the country are presented. Study 1 is a nationally representative sociological survey, and Study 2 uses qualitative research methods to examine the link between Bulgarian party members’ values on one hand and their political orientation and attitudes towards immigrants on the other. While Study 1 provides evidence of the dependence of Bulgarians’ attitudes towards immigrants on Universalism, Security, Tradition and Self-direction value categories, Study 2 results show a strong dependence of party members’ attitudes towards immigrants on political affiliation, and an insignificant one on individual values. Both studies contribute to ideology and immigration research literature in Bulgaria by proposing and empirically testing a values-based model of ideological orientation that is relevant to the Bulgarian context. Given the prevalence of the “conservative ideological and values complex” (Konstantinov 2022), in Bulgarian society and in other Eastern European countries, the findings could have implications for the analyses of negative attitudes towards immigration not only in the Balkan country but in the wider post-Soviet space as well.
... Proponents of such views believe that political attitudes are the result of rational, conscious responses to objective reality. On the other hand, numerous empirical studies reveal that political orientation is to a greater extent predetermined by hereditary and psychological characteristics of individuals than the result of political socialization or sociodemographic factors (Niemi & Jennings, 1991;Plutzer, 2002). ...
The influence of basic human values on citizens’ ideo-political orientation has been extensively documented in the literature. An important component of political orientation, attitudes towards immigrants in host societies are no exception in their dependence on some of the personal value categories identified by Schwartz in his Theory of basic values (Schwartz 1992). The results of two studies that employ Schwartz’s value categories and aim to explore the relationship between Bulgarian citizens’ values and their attitudes towards immigrants in the country are presented. Study 1 is a nationally representative sociological survey, and Study 2 uses qualitative research methods to examine the link between Bulgarian party members’ values on one hand and their political orientation and attitudes towards immigrants on the other. While Study 1 provides evidence of the dependence of Bulgarians’ attitudes towards immigrants on Universalism, Security, Tradition and Self-direction value categories, Study 2 results show a strong dependence of party members’ attitudes towards immigrants on political affiliation, and an insignificant one on individual values. Both studies contribute to ideology and immigration research literature in Bulgaria by proposing and empirically testing a values-based model of ideological orientation that is relevant to the Bulgarian context. Given the prevalence of the “conservative ideological and values complex” (Konstantinov 2022), in Bulgarian society and in other Eastern European countries, the findings could have implications for the analyses of negative attitudes towards immigration not only in the Balkan country but in the wider post-Soviet space as well.
... religion, appear to be mostly forged in adolescence and young adulthood (Sapiro 2004, pp. 11, 13;Van Deth et al. 2011;Niemi & Jennings 1991). Some determinants may change but largely due to factors outside the government's control (Shrestha 2006;Huddy 2003). ...
... Family is a significant agency to transfer norms and values and protect the culture and value system of a society. Socialization by parents play active role in shaping voting behavior and political attitude of a voter (Campbell et al., 1960;Jennings, 1968;Healy &Malhotra, 2013;Niemi& Jennings, 1991). Family makes familiar a child with a particular political party (Beck, 1977). ...
Purpose: This study seeks to evaluate voting behavior and identifying job provision as a voting determinant in District Buner of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, with reference to 2013 election. The study empirically reveals the inclination of the people while considering job provision as a determinant of voting behavior. Methodology: Data for this work has been collected through a personally administered structured questionnaire. A sample representative size of 385 respondents was selected through a multi-stage-sample-method in a survey. SPSS (Statistical package for social sciences) version 21 has been used for the determination of P-value through the Chi-Square test. Results: This investigation contended that voters consider job provision as a significant determinant of voting. The evidence also suggests that Job provision play a key role in shaping voting behavior pplications: Results of the study shows that the provision of job and voting behavior are interrelated. While analyzing electoral politics and voting choices, it is pertinent to consider the provision of job. Novelty/Originality: Electorates favor and acknowledge the role of job provision as key determinant of vote casting.
... Family serves as a platform of political discussion and communication, influences voting preferences, and can increase political effectiveness and participation (Rahman et al., 2021;Smeltzer & Keddy, 2010). Parents transfer political and social awareness and interest in politics to their children, which can shape their voting behavior and political attitudes (Campbell et al., 1960;Jaros, 1973;Healy & Malhotra, 2013;Jennings & Niemi, 1968;Niemi & Jennings, 1991). ...
Qatar, a small Gulf Arab nation with a de facto absolute monarchy, held its first general elections ever for 30 Shura Council seats on October 2, 2021. This marked the first time in Qatar's history that citizens played a more direct role in government, moving beyond symbolic elections. This study aimed to examine the factors likely to have influenced voters' selection of candidates, the key issues that are significant to Qatari citizens, and the possible characteristics of candidates that are deemed essential. While informal conversations are the main method of data collection for this study, social identity theory, specifically group‐based models, was used to understand the influences that shape Qatari voters' choices of candidates. Findings indicate that tribe‐related and family‐connected attributes constitute important influences on voters' choice decisions. Moreover, voters were concerned about candidates' characteristics and the issues and policies candidates deemed important. Discussion and recommendations are provided. 卡塔尔是一个拥有事实上君主专制的海湾阿拉伯小国，其于2021年10月2日就舒拉议会（协商议会）的30个席位举行了历史上的首次大选。这标志着卡塔尔第一次让公民在政府中发挥更直接的作用，而不是继续象征性选举。本研究旨在分析可能影响选民选择候选人的因素、对卡塔尔公民而言具有重要性的关键问题，以及被认为必不可少的潜在候选人特征。尽管非正式沟通是本研究的主要数据收集方法，但社会认同理论，特别是基于群体的模型，被用于理解决定卡塔尔选民选择候选人的一系列影响因素。分析结果表明，与部落相关和与家庭相关的属性，对选民的选择决策构成重要影响。 此外，选民关心候选人的特征和候选人所认为的重要问题和政策。提供了讨论和建议。 Qatar, una pequeña nación árabe del Golfo con una monarquía absoluta de facto, celebró sus primeras elecciones generales para 30 escaños del Consejo Shura el 2 de octubre de 2021. Esta fue la primera vez en la historia de Qatar que los ciudadanos desempeñaron un papel más directo en el gobierno, moviendo más allá de las elecciones simbólicas. Este estudio tuvo como objetivo examinar los factores que probablemente influyeron en la selección de candidatos por parte de los votantes, los temas clave que son importantes para los ciudadanos de Qatar y las posibles características de los candidatos que se consideran esenciales. Si bien las conversaciones informales son el principal método de recopilación de datos para este estudio, la teoría de la identidad social, específicamente los modelos basados en grupos, se utilizó para comprender las influencias que dan forma a las elecciones de candidatos de los votantes qataríes. Los hallazgos indican que los atributos relacionados con la tribu y la familia constituyen influencias importantes en las decisiones de elección de los votantes. Además, los votantes estaban preocupados por las características de los candidatos y los temas y políticas que los candidatos consideraban importantes. Se proporcionan debates y recomendaciones.
... A research by Adams, Wright, and Lohr (1996) and Pratkanis, Pratkanis, and Aronson (2001) studied attitude as a means of personal defense, helping individuals avoid harmful things. Niemi and Jennings (1991); Dill and Hunter (2010) and Newcomb (1958) studied attitude as a profound expression of personal value systems such as an individual's attitude towards cultural and religious values and family and professional cultural norms. Many studies also focus on studying the relationship between attitude and cognition and then come to the conclusion that positive attitude promotes the effectiveness of effective memory and perception (Eagly & Chaiken, 1998). ...
One's perspective on a chosen line of work is the most important factor that affects the caliber of one’s professional activities and the degree to which success is achieved in the career. If someone has a positive attitude toward the work that they do, they will be more motivated to work harder at their job and complete their tasks in a timely manner. Preschool education is the first stage of formal instruction that a child might complete as part of its participation in the national education system. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance for preschool instructors to keep a positive attitude toward the field in which they are working. Preschool teaching is a very important job. The purpose of this study is to analyze the perspective that pre-school teachers in Vietnam have towards the field in which they work. The authors of the study carried out a survey in the Central Highlands, asking preschool teachers to rate themselves on one of three separate scales, whereas school administrators rated themselves on just one scale. 347 preschool teachers and 18 managers from establishments that employ preschool instructors participated in the study. Despite the challenging socio-economic conditions, the vast majority of the preschool instructors who took part in the research were found to have a positive attitude about their work. This was the case even if they were working in low-income areas.
... For example, political socialization in the family and in primary educational settings has been shown to shape the development of political interest (e.g., Jennings and Niemi, 1978;Arzheimer and Schoen, 2005;Neundorf et al., 2013), party identification (e.g., Campbell et al., 1960: chap. 7;Niemi and Jennings, 1991;Lewis-Beck et al., 2008: chap. 7), political trust (e.g., Jennings and Niemi, 1978;Jennings et al., 2009;Hooghe et al., 2015), and political participation (e.g., Kenny, 1993;Verba et al., 2005;Persson, 2015). ...
We explore period, cohort and age effects on political engagement of Swiss residents from 1999 to 2020. A particular focus lies on the impact of the successive crises democratic societies have faced in recent years, such as the economic and debt crisis, refugee crisis, climate change, terrorist attacks or COVID-19 pandemic. We review the literature on the potential of such large-scale external events for both politicization and depoliticization. We then draw several hypotheses, which we test empirically. We consider several dimensions of political engagement (interest in politics, party identification, participation in popular votes, political discussions, and political trust), and seek to explain their variation over time, using data from the Swiss Household Panel. Our results suggest that “troubled times” have little effect on political engagement overall, but that crises stimulate political discussions and trust in government in the short term. We further find increasing levels of political trust in the longer run, which might reflect a cumulative effect of the various crises. In contrast, we find steadily declining levels of traditional forms of political engagement, namely party identification and participation in popular votes, as well as interest in politics. For cohorts, we find a U-shaped association between generations and political engagement. An exception to this pattern is political trust, where we observe a small but steady increase from older to newer generations. For age, we observed a monotonic increase of political engagement with age for all indicators. Again, trust in government somewhat deviates from other forms of political engagement, as it first decreases in the younger age groups and then increases from the age of 40 onwards. In conclusion, we discuss some implications of these complex patterns of results for the future of democratic systems.
... most basic matters of politics, party identification becomes a central organizing factor in personal identity for determining political behavior. Research has tended to show that party identification is stable over the life cycle (Green et al. 1998;Niemi and Jennings 1991;Sears and Funk 1999). ...
Macropartisanship is a measure of aggregate trends in party identification in the mass public that allows researchers to track partisanship dynamically. In previous research, macropartisanship was found to vary in concert with major political events and forces like presidential approval and the economy. However, studying macropartisanship as an aggregate trend assumes that group dynamics within the measure are equivalent. We present a series of new measures of macropartisanship using Stimson’s (2018) dyad ratio approach disaggregated by race and ethnicity. We detail the creation of measures for White, Latino, and Black macropartisanship from 1983 to 2016 using more than 500 surveys from CBS News and CBS/New York Times. The resulting data collection is publicly available and can be downloaded in monthly, quarterly, or yearly format. Our initial analysis of these data show that thinking about macropartisanship as a single aggregate measure masks important and significant variation in our understanding of party identification. Change in the measures are uncorrelated. Latino macropartisanship is more volatile and responds more to economic conditions, Black macropartisanship is very stable and has become more Democratic in response to increased polarization, while White macropartisanship has become less responsive to economic conditions as has become more Republican as Republicans have moved to the right.
... Both the explicit call upon white people to fight white supremacy and the linkage of race to parenting during this moment suggest the normative demands of the BLM movement may have spurred at least some white people to change their parenting regarding race. This could be of great political consequence considering the importance of parents as socializing agents (Jennings and Niemi 1974;Niemi and Jennings 1991;Oxley 2017) and the necessity of building multiracial support for BLM (Bonilla and Tillery 2020;Corral 2020;Holt and Sweitzer 2020;Merseth 2018). But little is known about what white parents say or do in this domain or how they respond to minority-led social movements. ...
Summer 2020 saw widespread protests under the banner Black Lives Matter. Coupled with the global pandemic that kept America’s children in the predominant care of their parents, we argue that the latter half of 2020 offers a unique moment to consider whites’ race-focused parenting practices. We use Google Trends data and posts on public parenting Facebook pages to show that the remarkable levels of protest activity in summer 2020 served as a focusing event that not only directed Americans’ attention to racial concepts but connected those concepts to parenting. Using a national survey of non-Hispanic white parents with white school-age children, we show that most white parents spoke with their children about race during this period and nearly three-quarters took actions to increase racial diversity in their children’s environment or introduce them to racial politics. But the data also show parenting practices to be rife with uncertainty and deep partisan, gender, and socioeconomic divisions. Drawing upon our findings, we call for a renewed focus on political socialization that considers how parenting choices are shaped by political events—including Black Lives Matter—and the possible long-term consequences of racial parenting practices on politics.
... This generation is shaped less by their social ties to family, neighborhood, school, or work and instead is socialized by dramatic conditions (Loader, Vromen, and Xenos 2014;Sears and Valentino 1997), such as mass shootings and gun violence. Traditionally, attitudes and party affiliations are argued to be shaped through parental influence (Carmines, McIver, and Stimson 1987;Niemi and Jennings 1991); however, some studies suggest that other environmental factors have significantly shaped the political beliefs of younger generations. Their opinions are most often shaped by a sense of connectedness with their community (Flanagan et al. 2007). ...
Objective
We propose that citizens navigate an increasingly complex social and political world using a “cultural toolkit” shaped by firearms and gun violence. Young people in particular have experienced more mass shootings than any previous generation and have witnessed a lack of government response to these massacres. This article explores the attitudes that members of the Massacre Generation express about mass shooting prevention.
Methods
We analyze data from several public opinion surveys conducted following major mass shootings in the United States using logistic regression. These surveys were fielded and sponsored by a variety of organizations and asked a nearly identical question about whether mass shootings can be prevented by societal and governmental action.
Results
We find that the Massacre Generation is indeed more likely to think the government can prevent mass shootings by implementing stricter gun control laws. We find evidence of these attitudes in multiple public opinion surveys from 2012 to 2018. Furthermore, we find no age effect in multiple surveys conducted between 1999 and 2011, suggesting that these attitudes are a relatively new phenomenon.
Conclusion
Young people today express that government regulation (i.e., stricter gun laws) can prevent gun violence, placing them at odds with older generations. We discuss the implications of our findings for gun policy development and the future of the gun debate.
... Considering the gendered role model effect on Gen Z women, we believe, merits examination for several reasons. First, examining the political behavior of younger Americans is especially crucial given that political socialization studies show that younger adults develop their participation and political habits in late adolescence and early adulthood (Denny and Doyle 2009;Michelson, Garcia Bedolla, and McConnell 2009;Niemi and Jennings 1991;Wattenberg 2015) at the age when they are likely the most susceptible to a role model effect. Not surprisingly, then, the role model effect for women is greatest on adolescent girls and young women, both in the United States Wolbrecht 2006, 2017;Mariani, Marshall, and Mathews-Schultz 2015;Wolak and McDevitt 2011) and abroad (Wolbrecht and Campbell 2007). ...
American political activism has surged recently among young citizens, particularly among women and people of color. At the same time, record numbers of women and minority candidates have been running for office. Does seeing more diverse candidates in terms of age, gender, and race propel more interest in political engagement among Generation Z, particularly women? Using a survey experiment embedded in a nationally representative survey of Generation Z citizens, we present respondents with Democratic politicians who vary based on these three criteria. Women who identify strongly with their gender express greater political engagement when presented with any candidate who does not fit the stereotypical image of a politician (older, white, male). They are spurred not only by role models who represent them descriptively, but by all politicians belonging to historically marginalized groups. These effects, which are not specific to just Democratic women, provide insights that can inform engagement efforts targeting younger Americans.
... A large body of evidence suggests that people's political views and partisan preferences are highly persistent and difficult to change (e.g., Campbell et al., 1960;Jennings and Niemi, 1974;Alwin and Krosnick, 1991;Niemi and Jennings, 1991;Green et al., 2002). Yet, our decomposition of cross-state variation in the likelihood to be affiliated with the Democratic party, the Republican Party, or either of these two parties, reveals that place effects explain 22 to 44 percent of the observed difference between states above and below the median of these outcomes. ...
... These time-specific word embeddings can calculate the partisan associations for each user's various bios. This may not reflect an actual change in underlying partisanship of the user-research has shown that a person's sense of partisanship is relatively stable later in life (see, e.g., Niemi & Jennings, 1991;Jennings et al., 2009;Iyengar & Krupenkin, 2018). Instead, it may reflect the extent that users associate themselves with specific parties or political candidates. ...
This dissertation consists of three papers about leveraging representation learning for political science research. Representation learning refers to techniques that learn a mapping between input data and a feature vector or tensor with respect to a task, such as classification or regression. These vectors or tensors capture abstract and relevant concepts in the data, making it easier to extract information. In the three papers, I show how representation learning allows political scientists to work with complex data such as text and images effectively. In the first paper, I propose using word embeddings to calculate partisan associations from Twitter users' bios. It only requires that some users in the corpus of tweets use partisan words in their bios. Intuitively, the word embeddings learn associations between non-partisan and partisan words from bios and extend those associations to all users. I apply the method to a collection of users who tweeted about election incidents during the 2016 United States general election. Which partisan accounts get retweeted, favorited, and followed, and which partisan hashtags are used closely correlate with the partisan association scores. I also apply the method to users who tweeted about masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. I find that users with more Democratic-leaning partisan association scores are more likely to use health advocacy hashtags, such as #MaskUp. In the second paper, I look at the automated classification of observations with both images and text. Most state-of-the-art vision-and-language models are unusable for most political science research, as they require all observations to have both image and text and require computationally expensive pretraining. This paper proposes a novel vision-and-language framework called multimodal representations using modality translation, or MARMOT. MARMOT presents two methodological contributions: it constructs representations for observations missing image or text, and it replaces computationally expensive pretraining with modality translation. Modality translation learns the patterns between images and their captions. MARMOT outperforms an ensemble text-only classifier in 19 of 20 categories in multilabel classifications of tweets reporting election incidents during the 2016 U.S. general election. MARMOT also shows significant improvements over the results of benchmark multimodal models on the Hateful Memes dataset, improving the best accuracy and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) set by VisualBERT from 0.6473 to 0.6760 and 0.7141 to 0.7530, respectively. In the third paper, I turn to the issue of computationally studying language usage evolution over time. The corpora that political scientists typically work with are much smaller than the extensive corpora used in natural language processing research. Training a word embedding space over each period, the usual approach to studying language usage evolution, worsens the problem by splitting up the corpus into even smaller corpora. This paper proposes a framework that uses pretrained and non-pretrained embeddings to learn time-specific word embeddings, called the pretrained-augmented embeddings (PAE) framework. In the first application, I apply the PAE framework to a corpus of New York Times text data spanning several decades. The PAE framework matches human judgments of how specific words evolve in their usage much more closely than existing methods. In the second application, I apply the PAE framework to a corpus of tweets written during the COVID-19 pandemic about masking. The PAE framework automatically detects shifts in discussions about specific events during the COVID-19 pandemic vis-a-vis the keyword of interest.
... As ideology tends to be stable throughout life (Sears and Funk, 1999;Jennings, 1996), transmission of family ideology will tend to a have long-term impact and influence subsequent generations. However, the family is not the only agent of transmission, particularly when individuals reach adolescence (Niemi and Jennings, 1991). Intergenerational studies have found patterns of transmission to be dependent on early experiences (Jennings, 1996) and situational and social factors, above all, those related to important political changes (Cameron and Summers, 1972), which have an added effect to that which the family exercises over the individual. ...
Este artículo estudia la transmisión de la identidad política en la familia desde la guerra civil española hasta nuestros días. Concretamente, se trata de encontrar: 1) qué factores son los más importantes en la socialización política de la persona, 2) cuáles específicamente juegan un mayor papel en la conformación de identidades políticas extremistas y 3) qué relevancia tiene la Guerra Civil en estos procesos. Para ello, se han realizado diversos análisis de datos de una encuesta sobre una muestra representativa de la población española. Los resultados señalan: 1) el rol materno como eje central en la conformación de la identidad política del individuo y 2) el aumento en el número de agentes de socialización política significativos con el paso de las generaciones, manteniéndose la madre y la religión como los factores más relevantes. ///
This article studies the transmission of political identity in the family from the Spanish Civil War until today. Concretely, it attempts to identify the most important factors in the political socialization of the individual, the factors that specifically play an important role in the formation of extremist political identities and the importance the Spanish Civil War has had in these processes. To do this, we have analysed data from a survey based on a representative sample of the Spanish population. The results show that the role of the mother is key in the formation of individual political identity, and that there has been an increase in the number of agents playing a role in political socialization with the passage of generations, although the mother and religion continue to be the most important factors.
... For example, different studies found that factors such as levels of parental education, political knowledge, and civic participation are positively related to outcomes such as the levels of political knowledge, civic development, and voluntary community service of their children (McLeod, Eveland, and Horowitz 1998;Niemi and Chapman 1998;Niemi and Junn 1998;Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995). Niemi and Jennings (1991) found that parental influence on the political partisanship of their children is strong in early adolescence, although this influence was seen to wane somewhat over time (Miller and Shanks 1996). The transmission of similar political attitudes from parent to child does seem to occur, but only when parental attitudes are strong and consistent over time (Jennings, Stoker, and Bowers 2009). ...
This dissertation presents research on the micro-level outcomes of public diplomacy exchange programs, which contributes to our understanding of the effectiveness of public diplomacy exchanges as tools of state-sponsored political socialization. Many evaluations conclude that public diplomacy exchange programs are successful in achieving their stated objectives of changing individuals’ attitudes and behaviors; however, many outstanding questions remain regarding these programs’ social impacts in the near term. This research largely draws on data from one cohort of individuals who participated in the U.S. Department of State-funded Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) Program, as well as indepth interviews conducted with 36 FLEX alumni from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan who participated in the same program between 2003 and 2011. First, I found that, while some socialization outcomes may fall in line with funders’ expectations, particularly immediately after completion of the program, the picture was more nuanced and complex in the near term. For example, some attitudinal indicators were not uniformly positive in the near term, which runs counter to what funders often purport to be the case. This lends favor to my argument that the rigorous selection of program participants may play a more important role than program participation in explaining alumni attitudes in the near term. Second, this research also found that a misalignment exists between alumni and funders in terms of the perspectives of each regarding program outcomes, suggesting that a divergence exists between the official and organizational intentions of public diplomacy programs and the way participants feel they have experienced them. In general, FLEX alumni saw program outcomes largely in terms of individual-level changes, such as the development of specific skills or capacities. They rarely saw outcomes along the lines of objectives and outcomes favored by program funders – that is, in terms of socialization or the development of transnational relationships. While individuals may see their status as a public diplomacy exchange program alumnus or alumna as an important part of their identity later in life, I posit that this post hoc understanding is centered on personal and professional outcomes as opposed to the objectives of program funders.
... The salience of social characteristics and social identity for vote choice is well illustrated by the pervasiveness of individual attachment towards particular political parties and that these attachments stay remarkably stable over time (Campbell et. al., 1954;Niemi and Jennings, 1991;Green and Baltes, 2017). Party identification moreover provides shortcuts for making a vote choice without having to resort to information-seeking on specific issues, thereby requiring less sophistication from voters than the so-called rational theories of vote choice (Bowler, 2017). ...
This thesis sheds light on the relationship between subjective wellbeing and political behaviour and attitudes in contemporary European democracies. The profound societal changes of the last half a decade and the unanswered questions about why some citizens engage more politically while others do not, and how persons develop into politically efficacious citizens, as well as why a part of the electorate is attracted to right-wing populist parties and ideas, have paved the way for considering citizen’s subjective wellbeing as a powerful, yet so far overlooked, predictor of political attitudes and behaviour. Through four empirical studies, this research links several dimensions of subjective wellbeing, including its evaluative, emotional, eudemonic and social components, to a sense of political efficacy (Study 1), to political participation (Studies 2 and 3) and to a right-wing populist vote choice (Study 4). The empirical studies reveal how subjective wellbeing is a significant driver of citizen’s political orientations, their participation patterns, as well as their electoral choices, thereby being highly relevant at all stages of the development of the political citizen. The implications of this relationship are profound, both from a scholarly and a policy-making perspective, in order to better understand persisting political inequality in contemporary democracies, to identify the origins of democratic support or instability, as well as to shed light on the development of illiberal political ideas and threats to liberal democracy. In this way, subjective wellbeing emerges as a crucial research agenda for the future of political science.
Intergenerational political socialization is alive and well in the polarized American polity. But, by what mechanism do parental views transmit to children? We develop a theory ( dyadic social learning theory) which posits the importance of dyadic familial communication in facilitating attitudinal concordance between parents and children. Using original survey data of 1,048 dyadic pairs of American parents and middle school-aged children, we develop a novel measure of political perception that combines the perceptive accuracy of parents with the perceptive accuracy of their children. This measure of parent-child alignment, which we argue signals quality communication in families, is a powerful determinant of parent-child congruence on political views and emotions, particularly polarization. When a dyadic pair accurately perceives each other politically, the likelihood of congruent views and shared polarization increases. This research has implications for how we understand political transference of polarized views, and for broader theories of how children are socialized into the political world. It also suggests that solutions to polarization will have to address the role of parents in initiating polarization.
Can engagement with far-right social media communities socialize users into a new political identity? This study addresses concerns about the spread of far-right groups on mainstream social media platforms by examining how newcomers are affected by their engagement with these groups. I theorize that changes in social identity expression indicative of socialization will be measurable in the language users use to express themselves on social media, and that the magnitude of this linguistic change will intensify with more frequent far-right engagement. I develop a custom dictionary of far-right-relevant terms sourced from communities like The Daily Stormer and Stormfront. Using an original dataset of Reddit user posting histories from 2015–2017, I test for increases in the frequency of this far-right vocabulary. I find that users who engage often with a far-right community like r/The_Donald begin to sound more like white nationalists within three months. Socialized users also use far-right vocabulary more frequently in other spaces on their platform, contributing to the spread and normalization of far-right rhetoric.
Scholarship on women voters using an intersectional lens has shown feminists and women of color within the Democratic Party to be a powerful force in electoral politics—specifically, Black and Latina women—are the most reliable voters. Combined, they represent the majority of women voters in the Democratic Party, and they have shown themselves to be a sizeable voting bloc in the last two American presidential election cycles. Using data from the 2016 American National Election Studies (ANES), we demonstrate important differences in support for the Democratic candidate (Hillary Clinton) between feminists and women of color—Black and Latina—underscoring the need to study gender, race, and ethnicity simultaneously (versus independently) when they are co-constitutive identity categories. By examining women and the groups the Clinton campaign appealed most to—feminists, Black, and Latina women—we add to the scholarship in political science that followed this unique election and demonstrate the importance of feminist identity for vote choice and various modes of political behavior for women voters. Knowing and understanding how women respond through affect and how this affect can result in political behaviors will help determine what it takes for future historic first candidates to emerge successful.
Throughout the U.S., Latinx communities represent a growing and critical segment of local, regional, and national electorates, but they are underrepresented at the polls. Their political disengagement stems from their historical sociopolitical marginalization and a lack of investment in their political integration. To foster more civic engagement among Latinx students, we propose recognizing their communities’ past and present “lived civics,” which are the actions that address community concerns but are often forgotten or not considered as political. The conception of lived civics that we propose provides a road map for fostering Latinx agency and political efficacy, and our “civics on the move” framework aims to strengthen democratic institutions, ensuring that they represent the needs of this critical segment of the U.S. population.
When individuals picture the two parties, what do they think of? Given the dominant understanding of partisanship as a social identity, understanding the content of these mental images—individuals’ stereotypes of the two parties—is essential, as stereotypes play an important role in how identity affects attitudes and behaviors, perceptions of others, and inter-group relations. The existing literature offers three answers to this question: one that claims that people picture the two parties in terms of their constituent social groups, a second that claims that people picture the two parties in terms of policy positions, and a third that claims that people view the two parties in terms of individual traits they associate with partisans. While not mutually exclusive, these theories have different implications for the effects of partisanship and the roots of partisan animosity. This paper adjudicates between these theories by employing a new method that measures stereotype content at the collective and individual level using a conjoint experiment. An important advantage of the conjoint measure is that it allows for the direct comparison of the importance of different attributes, and different kinds of attributes, to the stereotype. Using a pre-registered 2,909-person survey, I evaluate the relative importance of issues, groups, and traits to stereotypes of partisans. I find strong evidence that issue positions and ideological labels are the central elements of partisan stereotypes. I also find that individuals who hold issue- or ideology-based stereotypes are more affectively polarized than those whose stereotypes are rooted in groups or traits.
Objective:
We add depth and breadth to the study of the childhood personality-adult ideology link with additional data, measures, and measurement approaches.
Background:
Past research in (political) psychology has put forward that individual differences in psychological needs shape ideology. Most evidence supporting this claim is cross-sectional. Two previous longitudinal studies showed preliminary evidence that childhood personality traits linked to negativity bias correlate with political ideology in adulthood, yet these studies have limitations.
Methods:
We report the results from two longitudinal studies (combined N = 13,822) conducted in the United Kingdom that measure childhood personality (5-11 years old) and political ideology from puberty (age 16) to early (age 26) and middle adulthood (age 42).
Results:
We find very weak and inconsistent evidence that childhood personality traits related to negativity bias are directly associated with general conservatism, social conservatism, or economic conservatism across different stages of adulthood. Across the board, Bayes Factors most often indicate strong evidence for the null hypothesis.
Conclusion:
We offer evidence that the results of previous research are not as robust or as consistent as scholars in the extant literature presume. Our findings call for more, not less, research on the link between childhood personality and political ideology.
Occupying public spaces can be an effective tactic for conveying a semantic message of protest and gaining wider support; however, it may also severely disrupt the everyday lives of non-participants and causes a backfire. Therefore, it remains unclear whether and how the occupy movements have shifted political attitudes among the general public. Bringing a social-spatial perspective to the case of the Occupy Central Movement (OCM) in Hong Kong, this study investigates how the attitudinal impact of occupation has varied according to people's spatial proximity to the protest sites. Using two waves of individual-level panel data collected right before and after the OCM and detailed geo-information on the respondents' home addresses and the occupied areas, we apply a difference-in-differences (DIDs) design to identify the causal link between space and attitudes. In addition, propensity score matching (PSM) methods are used to ensure the comparability of nearby and faraway residents. The results show that after the OCM, residents living near the occupied areas not only maintained their support for the pro-democracy camp but also became more liberal as compared to faraway residents. This phenomenon can be explained by the "on-site" effect, which suggests that the direct exposure to protestors' solidarity and the repressive actions of authorities arouse bystanders' sympathy for the protestors and support for their political cause. Such influence appears to be long-lasting and can be evidenced by the local election results after the protest.
La investigación sociológica sobre los efectos de la orientación sexual en el comportamiento político y las actitudes electorales ha sido escasa; en España, casi inexistente. En el presente texto, bajo el contexto del aumento de los análisis sobre la importancia de los procesos de identidad en el voto, se pretende analizar el impacto de la orientación sexual en tres cuestiones: 1) participación política, 2) ideología y 3) identificación partidista de las personas LGBA+ (lesbianas, gays, bisexuales y otras orientaciones sexuales); y si existen diferencias significativas con los individuos heterosexuales. En base a dos encuestas del Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas de los años 2016 y 2021, los resultados permiten corroborar que las personas LGBA+ participan más electoralmente, están posicionadas más a la izquierda del eje ideológico y votan con mayor probabilidad a partidos progresistas. De este modo, el presente trabajo pone de relieve la importancia de la orientación sexual en la investigación social y muestra que estas diferencias entre heterosexuales y no heterosexuales pueden ser determinantes en nuestras campañas electorales y sistemas políticos.
Research shows that parents have a strong influence on the party preferences of their children. Yet little is known about how such preferences are transmitted in multiparty systems with weak party identification and high electoral volatility. We propose a model of intergenerational transmission that includes both direct effects of parents' party preferences on those of their children, as well as indirect effects through left–right and issue positions. We test this model with original survey data of Dutch adolescents (14–20 years old) and their parents (N = 751 adolescent‐parent pairs). We find two paths through which parents exert influence on the party preferences of their adolescent children. On the first path, parental party preferences function as a direct predictor of adolescent party preferences. On the second path, adolescent left–right and issue positions function as a mediator between parental left–right and issue positions and adolescent party preferences, with the effect of left–right positions being stronger than that of issue positions. The frequency with which adolescents discuss political topics with their parents moderates these effects.
Do economic experiences early in life affect regime support later in life? Effects of recent economic performance on regime support are extensively studied, but lasting effects of individual-level economic experiences across the lifespan remain unexplored. We argue that in democracies and autocracies alike, economic experiences in early adulthood (that is, age eighteen to twenty-eight) are wired into people's memories and become important cues for their democratic support later in life. Having lived in a well-performing economy in a democracy increases democratic support throughout most of people's lives, whereas having lived in a well-performing economy in an autocracy decreases democratic support throughout most of people's lives. Using extensive survey data on support for democracy covering ninety-seven countries from 1994 to 2015, we find support for these propositions, demonstrating that economic experiences in early adulthood, conditional on the regime in place at the time, have strong, robust and lasting effects on democratic support.
In the earlier days of politics, youths were apathetic in the field of politics as the culture of politics was more suited to the older generation. This is because the older generation had more opportunities to cast partisan votes and developed stronger affiliations to the party for which they voted. However, with the ability to access information and engage online for everyone, this heterogeneous culture has given Malaysian youths a new and tangible existence in the scene of politics. Therefore, the purposes of this study is to explore the issues faced by youths in politics, how can aspiring politicians communicate effectively with youths today and to understand how does political communication work in youth circles. The study interviewed fifteen respondents, which all of them were university students between the ages of 18 and 35. The data collection strategy was an in-depth interview followed by a semi-structured interview protocol. Through the thematic analysis, this study found that there are still barriers surrounding politics, which are age, experience, and general perception between old and new politicians, including education, which seems to be a recurring topic. Furthermore, this research also spotted out that females do not have a significant share of voice in politics. This has concluded that the youth political environment remains an undeveloped area in Malaysia.
In the United States, politics has become tribal and personalized. The influence of partisan divisions has extended beyond the political realm into everyday life, affecting relationships and workplaces as well as the ballot box. To help explain this trend, we examine the stereotypes Americans have of ordinary Democrats and Republicans. Using data from surveys, experiments, and Americans' own words, we explore the content of partisan stereotypes and find that they come in three main flavors—parties as their own tribes, coalitions of other tribes, or vehicles for political issues. These different stereotypes influence partisan conflict: people who hold trait-based stereotypes tend to display the highest levels of polarization, while holding issue-based stereotypes decreases polarization. This finding suggests that reducing partisan conflict does not require downplaying partisan divisions but shifting the focus to political priorities rather than identity—a turn to what we call responsible partisanship.
When and how does state indoctrination work? Building upon research on motivated reasoning and family socialization, I argue that only those individuals whose parents have connections to political patronage are subject to state indoctrination because their pro-regime biases transmitted from parents induce higher receptivity prior to government messages. Focusing on political education in China, I conduct a quasi-experimental analysis exploiting the sharp variation in textbook content generated by China’s most recent curriculum reform. Results based on a national survey show that the new politics textbooks successfully affected only those individuals whose parents had worked for the government. The finding survives extensive robustness checks and falsification tests. I also consider several alternative explanations of the effects: preference falsification, selective attention, parental indoctrination, and educational quality. This paper not only highlights the role of intergenerational transmission in moderating the effectiveness of state indoctrination but also casts doubt on the actual degree to which regimes can change minds by changing educational content.
Scholars have used network analysis to explore the structural properties of mass ideology. This article incorporates two important, though ignored features in past research by investigating how time shapes the properties of belief networks for different populations of people—those who exhibit high and low levels of political knowledge. We find that (1) belief network density increases asymmetrically among people with high relative to low knowledge; (2) symbolic preferences are more central to belief networks irrespective of survey timing or population; in contrast, policy beliefs exhibit some increase in centrality over time among the politically knowledgeable; and (3) a belief's centrality is unrelated to the amount of change it explains in other beliefs. Troublingly, this latter finding presents problems for describing belief networks using the vernacular of Conversian belief systems—a disconnect that seems grounded in the mismatch between Converse's individual‐level theory and network analysis' population‐based properties.
We propose that party ideological convergence reduces electoral participation in the working and self-employed classes via its impact on the representation of differing value positions. Analysing British Social Attitudes and British Election Study economic left-right and liberal-authoritarian values data from 1983-2017 combined with Comparative Manifesto Project data on party positions, we show that party ideological convergence reduces voter turnout disproportionately among the self-employed, and particularly so amongst the working class. This occurs primarily in younger, less politically integrated, cohorts. The impact of ideological convergence is shown to be mediated by respondents' economic left-right and liberal-authoritarian values: consensus between the major parties is associated with declining turnout among citizens with economically left-wing and, particularly, authoritarian values. Turnout is thus depressed among younger cohorts for the authoritarian self-employed, and even more so amongst the economically left-wing and authoritarian working class.
Extensive research on political participation suggests that parental resources strongly predict participation. Other research indicates that salient political events can push individuals to participate. I offer a novel explanation of how mundane household experiences translate to political engagement, even in settings where low participation levels are typically found, such as immigrant communities. I hypothesize that experiences requiring children of Latinx immigrants to take on “adult” responsibilities provide an environment where children learn the skills needed to overcome the costs associated with participation. I test this hypothesis using three datasets: a survey of Latinx students, a representative survey of young adults, and a 10-year longitudinal study. The analyses demonstrate that Latinx children of immigrants taking on adult responsibilities exhibit higher levels of political activity compared with those who do not. These findings provide new insights into how the cycle of generational political inequality is overcome in unexpected ways and places.
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