Political Socialization: Agents, Influences, and Impact

Political socialization is the study of the developmental processes by which people of all ages and adolescents acquire political cognition, attitudes, and behaviors.^[1] It refers to a learning process by which norms and behavior acceptable to a well-running political system are transmitted from one generation to another. It is through the performance of this function that individuals are inducted into the political culture and their orientations towards political objects are formed. These agents of socialization influence to different degrees an individual's political opinions: family, media, peers, education, religion, faith, race, gender, age, and geography. These factors and many others that people are introduced to as they grow up will affect their political views throughout the rest of their lives. Political beliefs are often formed during childhood, as parents pass down their ideologies to their children and so on.

Agents of Political Socialization:

1. Family: Glass (1986) recognizes family as a primary influence in the development of a child's political orientation, mainly due to the constant relationship between parents and child.^[3]
2. Schools: Most influential of all agents, after the family, due to the child's extended exposure to a variety of political beliefs, such as friends and teachers, both respected sources of information for students.
3. Mass Media: Becker (1975) argues that the media functions as a medium of political information to adolescents and young children.^[4]
4. Religion: Religious tradition can have a strong effect on someone's political views. For example, Protestants tend to be more conservative (in countries where Protestants are not the great majority).^{[citation needed]}
5. Political Parties: Scholars such as Campbell (1960) note that political parties have very little direct influence on a child due to a contrast of social factors such as age, context, power, etc.^[5]
6. Workplace

Agents of Political Socialization:

1. Family - Most important shaper of basic attitudes; teaches basic political values and loyalty to a particular political party through family members
2. Schools - Teach patriotism and American mythology; early grades build on and reinforce positive learning
3. Peers - Limited in effect because of self-selection; peer group in youth affects mostly "lifestyle issues"
4. Mass Media - Effect difficult to measure but substantial; agenda setting - telling us what to think about; framing - tells us what to think about what is presented; promotes awareness about government
5. Political Leaders and Institutions
6. Churches and Religion - Religious right and religious left

Rights:

SEDITION LAWS:

Alien and Sedition Act 1798. Sedition is any action, especially in speech or writing, promoting discontent or rebellion against government or its officials.

The Federalists, led by President Adams, enacted the Alien and Sedition Act. This was a series of laws, passed during the presidency of John Adams at the end of the eighteenth century, which sought to restrict the public activities of political radicals who sympathized with the French Revolution and criticized Adams's Federalist policies.

In response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson wrote the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, which asserted states’ rights. The resolutions declared that the Constitution merely established a compact between the states and that the federal government had no right to exercise powers not specifically delegated to it under the terms of the compact. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions declared (1799) nullification to be the rightful remedy by the states for all unauthorized acts done under the pretext of the Constitution.

No specific sedition laws were passed during the Civil War, but Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus. Basically, a writ of habeas corpus is a judicial mandate requiring that a prisoner be brought before the court to determine whether the government has the right to continue detaining them.

Espionage Act (1917)

The Espionage Act was passed by Congress in 1917 after the United States entered the First World War. It prescribed a $10,000 fine and 20 years' imprisonment for interfering with the recruiting of troops or the disclosure of information dealing with national defense.

Additional penalties were included for the refusal to perform military duty.

Schenck v. U.S. (1919) = (the Clear and Present Danger case). Schenck participated in many antiwar activities in violation of the Espionage Act, including the mailing of about 15,000 leaflets urging draftees and soldiers to resist the draft. He was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison for violating the Espionage Act of 1917.

Other convictions under the 1917/18 Espionage Acts: Abrams v US. Defendants were convicted under the Espionage Act of 1918. The defendants were convicted on the basis of two leaflets they printed and threw from windows of a building in New York City. One leaflet, signed "revolutionists", denounced the sending of American troops to Russia. The second leaflet, written in Yiddish, denounced the war and US efforts to impede the Russian Revolution.

Debs v US (1919). Eugene Debs was an American labor and political leader and five-time Socialist Party of America candidate for the American Presidency. On June 16, 1918, Debs made an anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio, protesting US involvement in World War I. He was arrested under the Espionage Act of 1917 and convicted, sentenced to serve ten years in prison and to be disenfranchised for life.

Gitlow v. New York (1925) = Benjamin Gitlow, a member of the Socialist Party of America, who had served in the New York State Assembly, was charged with criminal anarchy under New York's Criminal Anarchy Law of 1902 for publishing in July 1919 a document called "Left Wing Manifesto" in a newspaper for which he served as business manager.

Smith Act (1940) = most comprehensive sedition law. The law made it a criminal offense to advocate violent overthrow of the government or to organize or be a member of any group or society devoted to such advocacy. The constitutionality of the law was upheld by the Supreme Court in Dennis v. U.S (1951); but in a later case, (Yates v. United States, 1957) the court reversed this position.

McCarran Act (1950) A law enacted by Congress on September 23, 1950, during the Cold War and after U.S. intervention in the Korean War to require the registration of alleged communist organizations and to monitor individuals who potentially threatened U.S. security. President Harry S. Truman rejected it as a violation of civil liberties.

The Act led to "McCarthyism" after Sen Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. Today the term is used more generally in reference to demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.

The USA PATRIOT Act. The act was a response to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, significantly reduced restrictions in law enforcement agencies' gathering of intelligence within the United States.

Prior restraint also referred to as prior censorship is censorship imposed, usually by a government, on expression before the expression actually takes place.

Prior restraint can be effected in a number of ways. The exhibition of works of art or a movie may require a license from a government authority. It can also take the form of a legal injunction or government order prohibiting the publication of a specific document or subject.

Near v. Minnesota: The first notable case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled on a prior restraint issue. The Court held prior restraints to be unconstitutional, except in extremely limited circumstances.

In the Pentagon Papers case: New York Times Co v. United States, 1971. The Nixon administration sought to stop The New York Times and The Washington Post newspapers from publishing excerpts from a top-secret history of the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. The Supreme Court struck down the injunctions.

Non-verbal behavior involves protests, demonstrations, sit-ins. They are protected under the First Amendment right to free speech, expression, and assembly.

Brown v. Louisiana, 1966 was a Supreme Court case that held that protesters have a First and Fourteenth Amendment right to engage in a peaceful sit-in at a public library.

In 1968 US v O’Brien, David O’Brien was convicted for burning a draft card protesting the Vietnam War.

Smith v Goguen, 1974 = freed by Supreme Court., Massachusetts law about flag desecration was vague.

Texas v. Johnson (1989) = the famous flag-burning conviction by Texas courts. According to the Supreme Court, an individual cannot be convicted for burning the American flag.

In 1989, Congress passed The Flag Protection Act, making it unlawful to desecrate the American flag. The law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in US v Eichman, 1990.

Regimes

In 1949, George Orwell wrote 1984, a book.

Democracy comes from Greek. Demos = people, kratia = to rule.

Direct or perfect democracy is a type of government where every citizen can vote on every issue. Direct democracy is difficult to achieve because of logistics. Ancient Athens and other Greek city-states practiced it. States in New England (VT, MA, NH, RI, ME) and Switzerland still practice direct democracy.

Representative democracy is a type of government where people vote for representatives who decide issues in their name. Characteristics include popular support of government, political competition, alternation in power, popular representation, and the right of dissent and disobedience. People have the right to resist the commands of the government if those commands no longer serve the public will. Mahatma Gandhi advocated non-violent civil disobedience. Martin Luther King of the USA followed in the footsteps of Gandhi.

Reelection. Most democratic systems permit reelections, although some specify term limits. In the US, the 22nd Amendment passed in 1951 limits each president to two full terms.

Two types of representation: trustee and delegate. Trustee is a view of a member of a legislature which holds that, as trustees, legislators may believe that they were sent to think and vote independently for the general welfare, and not as their constituents determine. Representative as delegate is a view of the role of a member of a legislature which holds that, as delegates, legislators should represent the views of constituents even when personally holding different views.

Democracy in practice: elitism or pluralism?

Elitism is the belief or attitude that some individuals, who form an elite, have more influence or authority greater than that of others. Pluralism is the belief that there should be diverse and competing centers of power in society, so that there is a marketplace for ideas. In America, interest groups provide this diversity of ideas.

One of the early thinkers on elitism was Gaetano Mosca, who argued that in all societies, from underdeveloped to developed, two classes of people appear, a class that rules and a class that is ruled. Robert Michels argued that any organization, no matter how democratic its intent, ends up run by a small elite, he called this the Iron law of oligarchy. C Wright Mills wrote the Power Elite, in it he argued that few individuals dominate American politics and groups who draft laws, even could send the nation to war.

Authoritarianism is a government that demands obedience but doesn’t attempt to control everything. Franco's Spain, Taiwan, and South Korea were authoritarian. Pluralism is the belief that there should be diverse and competing centers of power in society, so that there is a marketplace for ideas. In America, interest groups provide this diversity of ideas. Totalitarianism is a political system in which the state attempts total control over citizens, even over their thoughts. North Korea, Cuba, and China are examples of totalitarian states. Right-wing totalitarianism includes Italian fascism and German National Socialism (Nazism). Hitler promised to discipline the labor unions, restore order, and renounce the humiliating Versailles Treaty of WWI. Characteristics of a totalitarian state include mass participation, restructuring of society, all-encompassing ideology, single party, organized terror, monopoly of communication, and political management of the economy.

Political culture is the values and norms a society holds about politics. It shows how people believe about the role of government, a nation’s proper place in the world, etc. Political culture and public opinion are closely linked, but not the same. Political culture focuses on longstanding values and ideas that people learn deeply. Public opinion is people’s reaction to specific issues. Determinants of public opinion include social class, education, region, religion, age, gender, and ethnic group.

Political participation is intermittent and potential. Most of the time, people do not pay close attention to politics, but politicians know that when the people are aroused, they can vote them out of office. The US has the lowest political participation among countries of the industrialized world, but Americans are more likely to join groups. Elite and mass culture: the elite, better educated, higher income, and more influential, have different political attitudes than the masses. They are more participatory and more interested. The elite have political competence and efficacy. Competence means knowing how to participate in politics because they have more knowledge and confidence. The poor usually don’t have this. Efficacy means feeling of having political power, that their voice or vote can actually make a difference in politics. Political socialization is the manner in which Americans learn political values. The agents of political socialization are family, schools, peers, and government.

Public opinion is how the public feels about an issue. It can be created, not followed. Any government is vulnerable to public opinion. Political culture and public opinion are closely linked, but not the same. Political culture focuses on longstanding values and ideas that people learn deeply. Public opinion is people’s reaction to specific issues. The determinants of public opinion include social class, education, region, religion, age, gender, and ethnic group. The way questions are asked and how they are worded can affect the outcome of a poll. Sampling error is usually + or - 3. Polls are not a perfect art, and errors frequently happen.