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Satyabrata Kar, Lovely Professional University Unit 5: Political Socialisation

Unit 5: Political Socialisation Notes

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
5.1 Meaning of Political Socialisation
5.2 Agents of Political Socialisation
5.3 Summary
5.4 Key-Words
5.5 Review Questions
5.6 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit students will be able to:
• Explain the meaning of political socialisation.
• Know the agents of political socialisation.

Introduction

The concept of political development has two dimensions-sociological and psychological. Further
studies in both the directions have led to the emergence of two more concepts that should be taken
as the derivatives of the concept of political development. They are political socialisation in the
psychological and political acculturation in the sociological spheres. If modernisation is a state of
mind and to a student of empirical politics it seems that a political system can be operated effectively
only by the people who share the lively and rational ingredients of the modern outlook, the task
of political development thus boils down to the blunt need to change the attitudes and feelings of
the people. According to this viewpoint, the argument about how best to facilitate development is
again relatively simple: introduce the essential structure and performance changes —by persuasion
if possible, arbitrarily if necessary— and the people will in course of time make the appropriate
changes in attitudes. Evidence can be cited to show that “once people have been placed in a
developed context, they can readily adapt their mind and spirit and thus there is little need to
show excessive concern over such murky matters as the psychic state of affairs of transitional
individuals.”

5.1 Meaning of Political Socialisation

H.H. Hyman, who coined the term ‘political socialisation’, laid emphasis on the perpetuation of
political values across generations. Picking up a thread from such an interpretation, Lasswell says
that political socialisation “unquestionably meets the criterion of significance in as much as it is an
important feature of every past, present and future body politic. Every community transmits with
varying degrees of success the mature practices of its culture to the immature. Every stable sub-
culture engages in a parallel process, since it also distinguishes between participation by the
mature and the immature.”
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

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