All in the Family? Political Socialization and the Legacies of State Violence

Abstract

Family socialization is a key mechanism for the transmission of political attitudes and behaviors. Work in developed democracies highlights the role of family socialization in the stability of partisanship across generations. But what of family socialization in new democracies? In this paper, we develop a framework for understanding how experiences with state repression and the process of family socialization influence new democracies after transition from authoritarian rule. In doing so, we combine findings from established literature on processes of family socialization with political psychological work on how repression crystallizes political identities. We examine how individual-level experiences of state repression shape political participation and partisanship in Tunisia, an important and rare contemporary case of successful (and still ongoing) democratic transition. Drawing on a nationally representative survey conducted in 2017, we find evidence that Tunisian citizens whose family and community members who were arrested are more likely to vote in subsequent democratic elections and to vote against the old regime. While individuals who were arrested under the previous authoritarian regime are less likely to turn out to vote, in line with research on the demobilizing effects of repression, those that do vote are strong partisans and are more likely to vote for the former opposition and anti-old regime parties. This paper lays out a broader project on how the different socialization processes in authoritarian regimes affect political attitudes and behaviors after democratization.

Political Control

“…At times, the backlash effect extends to those observing the repression or individuals connected to the victims of repression. For instance, though most Tunisians repressed by the Ben Ali regime were demobilized, their family and community members showed higher levels of democratic participation after the Arab Spring (Blackman et al 2020). Children whose parents were exposed to more violence during China's Cultural Revolution have stronger antiregime attitudes today (Wang 2021).…”