Page 100 - DPOL202_COMPARATIVE_POLITICS_AND_GOVERNMENT_ENGLISH

Unit 5: Political Socialisation

Self-Assessment Notes
1. Choose the correct options:
(i) Political socialisation refers to the process by which we
(a) develop our own political beliefs
(b) apply political answers to our society
(c) become politically active citizens.
(d) become saturated with political party propaganda
(ii) Political socialisation
(a) only occurs within the politically active
(b) is not particularly important
(c) is rather static in nature, and is not influenced by outside factors
(d) does not change over time
(e) beings in childhood
(iii) Party identification
(a) is a good predictor of an individual’s political behavior.
(b) is still very strong in America
(c) has increased at a steady rate since the 1960s
(d) does not serve as a filter through which individuals view the political world
(iv) A broad-based change in party identification is known as
(a) political socialisation (b) party flipping
(c) a schema (d) a realignment
(e) partisan awareness.
(v) According to the text, public opinion is
(a) malleable (b) enduring
(c) subject to changing circumstances (d) all of the above
(e) none of the aove.
5.3 Summary

• Political socialisation “is the process by which political cultures are maintained and changed.
Through the performance of this function individuals are inducted into the political culture,
their orientations towards political objects are formed.” In other words, it refers to the learning
process by which norms and behaviour acceptable to a well-running political system are
transmitted from one generation to another.
• Obviously, it has a peculiarly psychological dimension in the sense that it “is the gradual
learning of the norms, attitudes and behaviour acceptable to an on-going political system.”
• Political socialisation would encompass all political learning whether formal or informal, or
whether deliberate and unplanned, at every stage of the cycle of his life, including not only
explicitly political learning which “affects political behaviour, such as the learning of politically
irrelevant social attitudes and the acquisition of politically relevant personal characteristics.
• Political socialisation desires to achieve the goal of political stabilisation. It stands on the
premise that a political system cannot function smoothly unless the process of the
internalisation of political norms and values is at work simultaneously. As in the case of an
individual organism so in the case of body politic, nothing but maintenance or survival is
needed. And survival means nothing else than stabilisation. As Roberta Sigel says: “The goal
of political socialisation is to so train or develop individuals so that they become well-
functioning members of the political society... For without a body politic in harmony with

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