Family and Politics: Who Influences Whom, How and Why? Mechanisms and Narratives in Primary Political Socialization

This paper examines in detail the role of the family in the development and shaping of political values, attitudes, and interests in the Central European context. On the grounds of my own qualitative data, it aims to identify mechanisms and narratives in family political talks in order to answer the main research question: ‘Who influences whom, how and why in primary political socialization?’ Firstly, the mechanisms transmitting family influence to political behaviour in the families of interviewees, active as well as inactive in political and civic organizations, will be investigated. For this purpose, the mechanisms of intergeneration value transmission formulated by Michael Bruter and Sarah Harrison (2009:41–42) were creatively adapted to the Czech and German context. Secondly, attention will be paid to interviewees´ perceptions of political narratives in their families, in other words, to the character, quality, and content of family political discussions. In this respect, I will focus on what issues are discussed, as well as on themes which are avoided in political talks. Contribution of this paper is the original typology of political narratives and its connection to the mechanisms of socialization. The paper is based on the results of 60 in-depth qualitative interviews with university students aged between 18 and 30. Participants of the research were active in the OLD (political parties, trade unions) and NEW (new social movements, NGOs) types of political and civic organizations or they were organizationally non-active. Interviews were conducted in East (Jena) and West (Mannheim, Cologne) Germany and in the Czech Republic (Prague, Ostrava, Olomouc). The method of applied thematic analysis, through a qualitative software Atlas.ti, was used.