Political Socialization, Regimes, and US Constitutional Rights

Posted on Nov 8, 2025 in Social sciences

Political Socialization and Political Behavior

Defining Political Socialization

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.

The agents a child surrounds him or herself with during childhood are fundamental to the child’s development of future voting behaviors.

Primary Agents of 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] It is the most important shaper of basic attitudes, teaching basic political values and loyalty to a particular political party through family members.
  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. Schools teach patriotism and American mythology; early grades build on and reinforce positive learning.
  3. Peers: Limited in effect because of self-selection; peer groups in youth affect mostly “lifestyle issues.”
  4. Mass Media: Becker (1975) argues that the media functions as a medium of political information to adolescents and young children.[4] The effect is difficult to measure but substantial. Media performs agenda setting (telling us what to think about) and framing (telling us what to think about what is presented), promoting awareness about government.
  5. Religion/Churches: 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). Religious right and religious left groups are influential.
  6. Political Parties/Leaders & Institutions: 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] Political leaders and institutions also serve as agents.
  7. Work Place

Political Rights and Sedition Laws

Sedition Laws: Historical Context

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

The Alien and Sedition Act (1798)

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) and Key Cases

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.
  • Abrams v. U.S. (1919): 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 U.S. efforts to impede the Russian Revolution.
  • Debs v. U.S. (1919): Eugene Debs, an American labor and political leader and five-time Socialist Party of America candidate for the American Presidency, made an anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio, protesting U.S. 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, was charged with criminal anarchy under New York’s Criminal Anarchy Law of 1902 for publishing a document called “Left Wing Manifesto” in a newspaper for which he served as business manager.

Later Sedition Laws (Smith Act, McCarran Act)

  • Smith Act (1940): The 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 during the Cold 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,” named after Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. Today the term refers generally to demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.
  • The USA PATRIOT Act: A response to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, which significantly reduced restrictions in law enforcement agencies’ gathering of intelligence within the United States.

Prior Restraint and Censorship

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, such as requiring a license for the exhibition of works of art or a movie, or taking 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.
  • 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 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 Political Behavior

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

  • Brown v. Louisiana (1966): 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.
  • U.S. v. O’Brien (1968): David O’Brien was convicted for burning a draft card protesting the Vietnam War.
  • Smith v. Goguen (1974): Freed by the Supreme Court because the Massachusetts law about flag desecration was vague.
  • Texas v. Johnson (1989): The Supreme Court ruled that an individual cannot be convicted for burning the American flag, overturning the famous flag-burning conviction by Texas courts.
  • The Flag Protection Act (1989): Congress passed this act making it unlawful to desecrate the American flag. The law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Eichman (1990).

Political Regimes and Systems

Democracy: Direct vs. Representative

The word Democracy comes from Greek: Demos (people) and Kratia (to rule).

  • Direct or Perfect Democracy: 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 (Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maine) and Switzerland still practice forms of direct democracy.
  • Representative Democracy: A type of government where people vote for representatives who decide issues in their name.

Characteristics of Representative Democracy

  • Popular support of government
  • Political competition
  • Alternation in power
  • Popular representation
  • Right of dissent and disobedience: People have the right to resist the commands of government if those commands no longer serve the public will. Mahatma Gandhi advocated non-violent, civil disobedience, followed by Martin Luther King Jr. in the USA.
  • Reelection: Most democratic systems permit reelections, although some specify term limits. In the U.S., the 22nd Amendment, passed in 1951, limits each president to two full terms.

Types of Representation

  • Trustee: A view that legislators may believe they were sent to think and vote independently for the general welfare, and not strictly as their constituents determine.
  • Delegate: A view that legislators should represent the views of constituents even when personally holding different views.

Theories of Power: Elitism vs. Pluralism

Elitism is the belief or attitude that some individuals, who form an elite—a select group of people with a certain ancestry, intrinsic quality or worth, higher intellect, wealth, specialized training or experience, or other distinctive attributes—are those whose influence or authority is greater than that of others.

  • Gaetano Mosca: An early thinker on elitism who argued that in all societies, 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, arguing that few individuals dominate American politics and groups who draft laws, even having the power to send the nation to war.

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 allow people to express different ideas and make demands on the political system.

Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism

Authoritarianism: Government demands obedience but does not attempt to control everything. Examples include Franco’s Spain, Taiwan, and South Korea (historically).

Totalitarianism: A political system in which the state attempts total control over citizens, even over their thoughts. Examples include North Korea, Cuba, and China.

Right-Wing Totalitarianism

Italian fascism (Fascism) and German National Socialism (Nazism) developed when those nations were plagued by economic depression, social upheaval, and political confusion. Germany was faced with reparations after WWI. Hitler promised to discipline the labor unions, restore order, and renounce the humiliating Versailles Treaty of WWI.

Characteristics of a Totalitarian State (Brzezinski and Friedrich)

  • Mass participation
  • Restructuring of society
  • All-encompassing ideology
  • Single party
  • Organized terror
  • Monopoly of communication
  • Political management of the economy

Political Culture and Participation

Understanding Political Culture

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 overlap, but political culture aims to tap basic, general feelings towards politics and government, while public opinion captures specific views about leaders and issues. Political culture is generally deep and long-lasting; public opinion is often shallow and fleeting.

In The Civic Culture, Sidney Verba and Gabriel Almond argued that the U.S. is a strong democracy despite Americans not voting as frequently as citizens in a group of European countries.

Political Participation and the Elite

Leaders in democracies know not everybody will participate in politics. They know participation is only intermittent and potential—this is the Sleeping Dog Theory. 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 U.S. has the lowest political participation among countries of the industrialized world, but Americans, more than any other people, are more likely to join groups.

Elite and Mass Culture

The elite (better educated, higher income, more influence) have different political attitudes than the masses. They are more participatory and more interested. The elite have political competence and efficacy.

  • Competence: Knowing how to participate in politics because they have more knowledge and confidence. The poor usually lack this.
  • Efficacy: A feeling of having political power; that their voice or vote can actually make a difference in politics.

Public Opinion: Formation and Measurement

Determinants of Public Opinion

Public opinion is how the public feels about an issue. In many cases, public opinion is created, not followed. Any government is vulnerable to public opinion. Public opinion is people’s reaction to specific issues and does not necessarily imply strong, clear, united convictions.

  • Social Class: Important, according to Marx. Society is divided into lower, middle, and upper classes. Lower and manual workers tend to vote for Democrats. Republicans are generally better off and professional.
  • Education: Social class is related to the level of education. Education makes people more liberal on social issues but conservative on economic issues. College graduates are generally more tolerant and more supportive of civil rights.
  • Region: In the U.S., the South is more conservative, and the North is generally liberal. France, the U.K., Germany, and Spain all have a ‘political south.’ Outlying regions sometimes create tension between the center and periphery. In the U.S., this used to be Sunbelt versus Frostbelt.
  • Religion: The rise of the religious right in the U.S. in the 1980s had a great influence on politics; they tend to vote Republican (e.g., the Christian Coalition is the most conservative wing of the Republican Party). Catholics tend to vote Democratic, although the issue of pro-choice drove some to the Republican Party.
  • Age: Are young people radical, likely to support ultra-left or ultra-right groups? Are older people more conservative? Older Americans are divided between Democrats and Republicans over issues.
  • Gender and Ethnic Group: Women tend to vote Democratic; this is the gender gap, which Republicans attempt to close. White males are generally Republican. Black and other minorities are generally Democratic.

Public Opinion Patterns and Curves

The way people feel about an issue can be represented graphically:

  1. J-Curve: Heavily in favor or against an issue, skewed to the left or right.
  2. Bimodal or U-Shaped Curve: Represents a highly divisive issue where opinions cluster at two extremes.
  3. Normal Distribution or Bell-Shaped Curve: Represents Americans’ ideological identification, from ultra-right to ultra-left. Similar to party identification.

Polling Methods and Sampling Accuracy

The first straw polls occurred in 1824 (Andrew Jackson v. J. Q. Adams). A straw poll is an unscientific poll (e.g., when watching TV and a question comes up to answer, like “Who is going to win this basketball match?”).

In the 1910s, Literary Digest was the first magazine to develop a survey of great prestige, using a huge sample. The idea was: the more people questioned, the more dependable the result. This worked until 1936, when they predicted Alfred Landon would win against FDR, but Landon lost in a landslide.

In 1936, George H. Gallup’s first scientific poll, using a sample representative of opinion, proved more reliable. Even Gallup failed in 1948, wrongly predicting Thomas Dewey would win against President Truman.

  • Truly Random Sample: One that avoids all elements of deliberate choice and judgment in deciding which individuals to include. The ideal method is to put the name of every potential voter in a data bank. In telephone surveys, a computer dials numbers nationwide at random.
  • Stratified Quota Sampling: Tries to include a proportionally representative cross-section of the society (e.g., Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, or North, West, Midwest, Mountain West regions, etc.).
  • Sampling Error: Predicting public opinion on issues or politics is not a perfect art. Errors frequently happen. This is the sampling error, usually +/- 3. A sample of 1,200 or 1,500 is usually used.

How questions are asked could affect the outcome of a poll. Face-to-face interviews could bias how people respond to questions; mail-out ballots are unreliable. How questions are worded could also affect the outcome.