Political socialization 2005-2006Leiden Uni, Fac Soc Sci, Dep Pol SciLecture 3 – 22.02.2006

• Start : short recap Lecture 2 (things left)

• Today’s lecture : trends, generations, new forms

• Next time 01.03.2006 : – workshop 1 on Answer to your learning question(s) based on at least 3 sources from the assigned literature list– see course manual– we select papers and install chair/discussant at workshop

Socialization

• Key emphases :– process– not in vacuum

• resources• previous choices• other-dependency

– changes with time– as well as place

• Late-modernity :– more personal flexibility– self-initiated– self-oriented (reflexive)

Competing notions :EnculturationUpbringingMaturing

Forms : Primary – SecondaryOther – Self

Intermezzo :Self & (political) identityPhase-thinking

Political socialization

• Key calls– take account extension youth phase (Niemi & Hepburn)– go beyond phase/stage-thinking (Sears et al.)– focus on reconstruction messages in interactions (Wasburn)– include APC-effects

• life course transitions (age/life cycle effects)• events as catalysts (period effects)• formative experiences (cohort/generation effect)

– longitudinal (panel) surveys iso postmodernist theorizing

Political socialization

• Domain-specific hypotheses– effects similar for interactions with parents, teachers, peers, (new) media (incl. does message from parents change when discussed with peers; see Wasburn) ?– effects similar for values, attitudes (incl. cognitions, emotions, etc.), and actions ?– re : actions : effects similar for voting, demonstrating, volunteering, blogging, buycotts, etc. ?

Generations

• Many labels : e.g., protest generation, lost generation, backseat generation, ‘hotel mama’ generation, etc., vary by nation (similarities are there)• Conditions : similar historic location, concious of shared formative history and destiny, groups articulating generation’s voice• NL : political cleavages war/pre-war and post-war generation• Difficult necessity : disentangling APC-effects (identification problem); impossible in one-shot survey : e.g., say in a 2006-survey people aged 20 are more right-wing than people aged 30 and formative period is 15-25 years of age; why more right-wing ? Because of being 20, events of 2001-2006, or being born in 1986 vis-a-vis being 30, events of 1991-2006, or being born in 1976 ? Nobody will know in a one-shot survey !

Emerging repertoires

• Survey questions signs of the times: playing cards, occupying buildings, writing letters to Congress (what was conventional-unconventional then, is now no more)• Not innocent ! Younger generations seen as non-civic threatening the survival of smooth interactions and democracy based on these surveys• Alternative forms of engagement have developed : personalized, identity-based, consumerist, informal, spontaneous, short-lived, flexible, reflexive, feminine (Bennett; Ester & Vinken)• Outcomes of political socialization younger generation ?• What does this mean for research ? (Stolle & Hooghe)

Do new forms matter ? Does shopping make the street lights burn? Do ‘real’ politics increasingly rely on older ‘civic’ generations only?

Emerging repertoires

• Some examples (see also ‘course info’ on Blackboard)http://www.mecca-cola.com/en/ http://www.koopniets.nl/https://secure.adbusters.org/orders/tvbgone/http://www.netaction.org/ http://www.corpwatch.org/ http://www.icicp.org/index.php http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/media@lse/whosWho/soniaLivingstone.htm#ukchildrengoonline • Contribute to Discussion board forum on Blackboard