Political Socialization refers to a process by which political cultures are learned, maintained and changed. It helps in accommodating individuals in the political system. It is not static or one way process.
Rather, it is dynamic phenomenon by which cultures are transmitted from one generation to another. By doing so, it evolves ways by which well running political system can be maintained. Its chief aim is political stabilization. It starts in the family and continues afterwards in the outside environment.
Image Source: i.ytimg.com
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Stages in Political Socialization:
Easton and Dennis see four stages in the process of political socialization at the childhood stage
1. Recognition of authority through particular individuals such as parent, pariceninen and President of country.
2. Distinction between Public and Private Authority.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
3. Recognition of impersonal political institutions like national legislature, judiciary and voting behaviour.
4. Distinction between political institutions and persons engaged in the activities associated with those institutions.
Almond and Verba found that what the individual learn at their grown up stage, they strive to have it inculcated at the early stage of the life of their offspring.
The more stable the polity, the more specified the major agencies of political socialization will be. Conversely, the greater the degree of change in a non-totalitarian polity, the more specified the agencies of political socialization will be.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Although political socialization may involve political orientation and behaviour patterns from the maintenance and replication, it as a matter of fact strives to emphasise the point that the rest for a political system is whether the socializing agencies are sufficiently flexible and inter-dependent to allow change without violent disruption.