POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION UNIT 4 STUDENT NOTES POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION

POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION UNIT 4 – STUDENT NOTES

POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION l. Complex process by which people acquire their political values l. Political Ideology - coherent set of beliefs about public policy; set of ideas l. Political socialization is how people acquire their ideology • Americans tend to identify themselves as Conservative, Liberal, or Moderate

• Freedom (LIBERTY): • Freedom of: the absence of constraints on behavior - freedom to do something (liberty) • Freedom from: immunity from fear and want; the fight against exploitation and oppression • Order: • Preserving life and protecting property • Social Order refers to the established patterns of authority in society and to traditional modes of behavior • Equality: • Equality of opportunity: Each person has the same chance to succeed in life • Equality of outcome: Government must design policies that redistribute wealth and status so that economic and social equality are actually achieved

CONSERVATIVES (American) • Following tradition and having a reverence for authority. • Higher value placed on freedom than on equality when the two conflict. Restrict freedom when threatened with the loss of order • • • limit size of government (national) decrease regulation of business Pro-life support school vouchers freedom and tradition

LIBERALS (American) • Open to allowing the government to flexibly expand beyond establish contraints. • Gov should promote equality, even if some freedom is lost in the process, but who oppose surrendering freedom to government-imposed order • larger role for government • Increase regulation of business • Increase gun control • Pro-choice

POLITICAL IDEOLOGY • Ideological Types in the United States also include: • Libertarians: People who favor freedom over both equality and order • Oppose censorship, want lower taxes, dislike gov-imposed morality • Communitarians: People who favor equality and order over freedom

• The widely-shared beliefs, values, and norms that citizens share about their gov. • Helps define the publics expectations towards the political process and its role in the process

Political Culture v. Ideology Political Culture • A set of general attitudes, ideas and beliefs • Broadly informs and shapes a region’s politics Ideology • A set of specific attitudes, ideas and beliefs • Provides or Political culture is different from ideology because people acan disagree advocates on ideology, but still have a common political culture. coherent plan for social, political, or economic action

AMERICAN POLITICAL CULTURE • Democracy • Equality of opportunity • Individual liberty • Civic duty • Rule of law • Private property • Capitalism • Nationalism and exceptionalism

Equality • Americans strongly support: • political equality • legal equality • equality of opportunity • There is much less support for equality of results • social welfare less comprehensive than in other Western democracies