¹ Durkheim, Emile, Les règles de la m´thode sociologique (Paris, 1895), 139.Google Scholar

² “The Theoretical Relevance of Political Socialization,” Canadian Journal of Political Science, I (June 1968), 125–46. See also his A Systems Analysis of Political Life (New York, 1965) and A Framework for Political Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, 1965).

³ For example, see Bowman, Lewis and Boynton, G. R., “Recruitment Patterns among Local Party Officials: A Model and Some Preliminary Findings in Selected Locales,” American Political Science Review, LX (1966), 667–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Sorauf, Frank, Party Politics in America (Boston, 1968), 1–25.Google Scholar

⁴ Because Easton's work is connected with the earlier work of Talcott Parsons in at least an evolutionary sense, similar references to the theoretical relevance of these materials could be made in Parsonian terms. Of course, the work of both builds on that of others and so this could become an exercise in endless references. The point is that the data do bear on matters of repeated and historical theoretical relevance.

⁵ Porter, John, The Vertical Mosaic: An Analysis of Social Class and Power in Canada (Toronto, 1965).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶ The term derives from the title of Israel Zangwill's popular drama. Recently new attention has been stimulated by the study of Glazer, Nathan and Moynihan, Daniel P., Beyond the Melting Pot (Cambridge, Mass., 1963).Google Scholar

⁷ See Smith, Joel, Kornberg, Allan, and Bromley, David, “Patterns of Early Political Socialization and Adult Party Affiliation,” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, V (Aug. 1968), 123–55Google Scholar; and Joel Smith and Allan Kornberg, “Awareness, Identification, and Interest as Aspects of the Political Socialization of Party Elites” (mimeographed).

⁸ Scarrow, Howard A., “Distinguishing between Political Parties—The Case of Canada,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, IX (1965), 61–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹ Hyman, Herbert H., Political Socialization (Glencoe, 1961), 69–91.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Hess, Robert D. and Torney, Judith V., The Development of Political Attitudes in Children (Chicago, 1967).Google Scholar

¹¹ Jennings, M. Kent and Niemi, Richard G., “The Transmission of Political Values from Parent to Child,” American Political Science Review, LXII (1968), 169–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹² Kornberg, Allan and Thomas, Norman C., “The Political Socialization of National Legislative Elites in the United States and Canada,” Journal of Politics, XXVII (1965), 761–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹³ See Kornberg, Allan, Canadian Legislative Behavior: A Study of the 25th Parliament (New York, 1967).Google Scholar

¹⁴ Marvick, Dwaine and Nixon, Charles, “Recruitment Contrasts in Rival Campaign Groups,” in Marvick, Dwaine, ed., Political Decision-Makers: Recruitment and Performance (Glencoe, 1961), 193–217.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Converse, Philip E. and Dupeux, George, “Politicization of the Electorate in France and the United States,” Public Opinion Quarterly, XXVI (1962), 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁶ Allan Kornberg and Joel Smith, “The Development of a Party Identification in a Political Elite” (mimeographed).

¹⁷ A somewhat similar attempt to define a population of party activists in both the formal and informal organizations was made by Marvick and Nixon during their study of Los Angeles. See Marvick and Nixon, “Recruitment Contrasts.”

¹⁸ Milbrath, Lester, Political Participation (Chicago, 1965), 21–2.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Epstein, Leon D., Political Parties in Western Democracies (New York, 1967).Google Scholar

²⁰ Excellent surveys of the more recent literature on political socialization are currently available in Greenstein, Fred I., Children and Politics (New Haven, 1965)Google Scholar; and Hess and Torney, Development of Political Attitudes in Children. Also see the bibliographical essay by Dawson, Richard E., “Political Socialization,” in Robinson, James A., ed., Political Science Annual, 1966 (New York, 1966)Google Scholar; and the bibliography of published, unpublished, and research in progress, by Jack Dennis, “Recent Research on Political Socialization” (University of Wisconsin, mimeographed).

²¹ The concept of a psychological identification with a party was first discussed in detail by Belknap, George and Campbell, Angus, “Political Party Identification and Attitudes toward Foreign Policy,” Public Opinion Quarterly, XV (1951), 601–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar It was subsequently developed by Campbell, Angus, Gurin, Gerald, and Miller, Warren E., The Voter Decides (Evanston, 1954), 88–111Google Scholar; Campbell, Angus and Cooper, Homer C., Group Differences in Attitudes and Votes (Ann Arbor, 1956), 38–61Google Scholar; and Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E., and Stokes, Donald E., The American Voter (New York, 1960), 120–67.Google Scholar For a review of some of the other literature, see Froman, Lewis and Skipper, James, “An Approach to the Learning of Party Identification,” Public Opinion Quarterly, XXVII (1963), 473–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²² In so far as awareness is concerned, the inference to be drawn from studies of the political socialization of children such as those by Greenstein, and Hess and Torney, is that political awareness occurs relatively early in a child's life and varies with factors such as age, intelligence, and sex. The only present concern is with the age at which awareness of politics occurs.

²³ There has been considerably less research on political interest than on party identification. The principal finding to date is that an interest in politics can develop at any stage of the life cycle. See studies such as Eulau, Heinz, “Recollections,” in Wahlke, John C.et al., The Legislative System (New York, 1962), 77–95Google Scholar; and Kornberg and Thomas, “Political Socialization of National Legislative Elites.”

²⁴ In addition to the family and school, other important socializing agents that have been cited in the literature are peer groups (Karlsson); work experiences (Almond and Verba); cataclysmic events (Wright); and social conditions (Kornberg and Thomas).

²⁵ Foote, Nelson, “Identification as the Basis for a Theory of Motivation,” American Sociological Review, XVI (1951), 17.Google Scholar

²⁶ Ibid., 16.

²⁷ See, for example, Lynd, Helen M., On Shame and the Search for Identity (New York, 1961)Google Scholar; and Stone, Gregory P., “Appearance and the Self,” in Rose, Arnold M., ed., Human Behavior and Social Processes (Boston, 1962), 86–118.Google Scholar

²⁸ See Prewitt, Kenneth, Eulau, Heinz, and Zisk, Betty, “Political Socialization and Political Roles,” Public Opinion Quarterly, XXX (Winter 1966–67), 569–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁹ Whenever any one of the last four alternatives was selected, a second card detailing various potential agents of change was presented and the respondents were asked whether any were important factors in the change. From an analysis of responses to the sets of “interest-change” questions for the appropriate age periods, we developed a typology of various courses of developing interest among current party functionaries. In anticipation of the difficulties that would be introduced into our analysis by low frequencies of occurrence, we based our typology on five circumstances that might obtain in each of four time periods. The typing started with the observation that some respondents entered the first period as workers, or early on in that period became workers. At the other extreme a considerable number answered all questions and even after age 26 had not become workers. The third group was somewhere in between. If the start of an active career is interpreted as the peak of a developing interest, then one aspect of the developing course of interest is how far through the adolescent-early adult period the respondent has passed without having started a career as a worker. With respect to the beginning of a career as a worker, then, three categories were recognized. Essentially, those who began as workers no later than the high school period were considered (1) early workers; those who began during either college or professional/graduate school periods were considered intermediate workers; and those whose careers started at a later period were considered late workers.

Two distinct types of intermediate workers with regard to interest were separated. In examining the responses for preceding periods of people whose careers began during these intermediate periods, it was apparent that some had had an interest for at least two of the preceding periods whereas others either did not report an interest at all before beginning work or reported one in only the preceding period. On this basis, we separated (2) intermediate workers with short-term interests from (3) intermediate workers with longer-term interests in politics.

By far the largest block of late workers also showed a restricted number of interest patterns. Like the intermediate workers they either reported active interests throughout the period or did not do so until they reached a somewhat more advanced period of age or schooling. Essentially, we found it feasible to distinguish those who reported an interest during every one of the four periods from those who reported no interest either for at least the first period, or for subsequent periods if they had reported an interest in the first period. Further examination of the reports of interest revealed that many of the interest patterns showed constant increases whereas others were characterized by one or more periods of unchanging interest at the end of the time periods covered by the questions. Therefore, taking both these matters into account, we also chose to distinguish four types of late workers: (4) those with a continuous rising interest; (5) those with a continuous stable interest; (6) those with a late but rising interest; and (7) those with a late but stable interest.

Reports of declines in interest have not been mentioned in setting up these types because there were very few of them. Whenever such reports occurred, they were set aside for later consideration. After inspecting them, it was decided that they could not be fitted to some of the other types as minor variants, but, rather, should be treated as a separate type of (8) extreme fluctuators. (See Figure 1 for summary of these types.) There is an additional category in Canada, respondents who reported no interest or virtually no interest in politics until, presumably, the eve of their entry into party work.

³⁰ Richard G. Niemi, “Collecting Information about the Family: A Problem in Survey Methodology” (mimeographed).

³¹ Data not shown here are available upon request.

³² Wherever possible these incomes as reported are the medians. Because we currently lack the comparable Canadian data, we have shown median incomes for party officials and average incomes for provincial populations. The average incomes, particularly for upper income categories, tend to be larger than are the median incomes for these categories. Thus, in this respect the comparisons we are making actually favour the cross-sectional populations. Fortunately, our American data permit us to make direct comparisons of median incomes for party officials and for the county rather than for the state as a whole.

³³ Keyfitz, Nathan, “Human Resources,” in Leach, Richard, ed., Contemporary Canada (Durham, NC, 1968), 10–31.Google Scholar

³⁴ J. J. Servan-Schreiber also points to the superiority of the American educational system as the most crucial difference between Americans and Europeans—a difference upon which American economic hegemony ultimately rests. See Servan-Schreiber, J. J., The American Challenge (New York, 1968).Google Scholar

³⁵ Keyfitz, “Human Resources,” 26–9.

³⁶ The question Meisel employed was: “Generally speaking, do you usually think of your-self as Conservative, Liberal, Social Credit, Creditiste, NDP, Union Nationale, or what?” The survey to which we refer was initiated by Meisel and carried out by him and P. E. Converse, M. Pinard, P. Regenstreif, and M. A. Schwartz. The results have not yet been published and we are grateful to Meisel and his associates for making the data available.

³⁷ The question employed by Campbell and his associates of the Survey Research Center to delineate adult party identifications is the now-familiar, “Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent, or what? (If Republican or Democrat) Would you call yourself a strong (R) (D) or a not very strong (R) (D)? (If Independent) Do you think of yourself as closer to the Republican or Democratic Party?”

³⁸ Fully 63 per cent of Meisel's sample identified with the two major Canadian parties; 10.1 per cent were NDP identifiers; 5.6 per cent were Social Credit-Creditiste identifiers; approximately 1 per cent identified with the Union Nationale and “other” parties; 17 per cent said no party; and the remaining 3 per cent “did not know.” When the 20 per cent who did not identify were asked: “Well, do you generally think of yourself as a little closer to one of the parties than the other? (If ‘yes’) Which party?” only 10.6 per cent said ‘no.’ This group approximates the 9–10 per cent of Americans who, when probed, say they are “Independents,” and do not “lean” toward either the Democrats or Republicans.

³⁹ These percentages are calculated from the totals contained in the code book for the 1964 national election study conducted by the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan and made available through the Inter-University Consortium for Political Research.

⁴⁰ Key, V. O., “A Theory of Critical Elections,” Journal of Politics, XVII (1955), 3–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴¹ Peer groups are also fairly important socializing agents in Sweden. See Karlsson, Georg, “Political Attitudes among Male Swedish Youth,” Acta Sociologica, fasc. III (1958), 236.Google Scholar

⁴² See Campbell et al., The American Voter, 50.

⁴³ For example, Campbell et al. found that only 27 per cent of a 1956 sample of the American electorate were in the “highly involved” position of a political involvement index. The index is based on responses to questions concerning the respondent's interest in following the 1956 presidential campaign and concern about its outcome. Four years later, 26 per cent said they cared “very much” which party won the presidential election, and 19 per cent said they followed politics “very closely” between campaigns. During the 1964 campaign, 38 per cent said they were “very much interested” in the campaign and another 30 per cent claimed they followed what was going on in government “all the time.” These figures compare very closely to the data gathered by John Meisel in his 1965 national electoral study. Only 26 per cent of the Canadian sample said they cared “a good deal” about what was going on in politics. Nor is the situation different in other Western countries. Almond and Verba found about the same level of political apathy in Great Britain, more in West Germany, and especially apathetic populations in Italy and Mexico.

Thus, although Lester Milbrath was describing only the American public, his characterization is probably highly appropriate for Canada and most other Western democracies as well. According to Milbrath, “About one-third of the American adult population can be characterized as politically apathetic or passive; in most cases, they are unaware, literally, of the political part of the world around them. Another 60 per cent play largely spectator roles in the political process; they watch, they cheer, they vote, but they do not battle. In the purest sense of the word, probably only 1 or 2 per cent could be called gladiators.” See Political Participation, 21.

⁴⁴ Herbert Hyman noted that party affiliation develops without much cognitive content. See Political Socialization, 46. And Greenstein writes, “Party identifications probably develop without much explicit teaching on the part of parents, more or less in the form of a gradual awareness by the child of something which is part of him.” See Children in Politics, 73.

⁴⁵ A partisan identification seemingly functions as a kind of conceptual net that permits individuals to organize and evaluate whatever incoming political information they receive. See Stokes, Donald E., “Party Loyalty and the Likelihood of Deviating Elections,” Journal of Politics, XXIV (1963), 689–702.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ See, for example, the review of early literature by Child, Irvin L., “Socialization,” in Lindzey, Gardner, ed., Handbook of Social Psychology, II (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), 655–92.Google Scholar See, also, Elkin, Frederick, The Child and Society: The Process of Socialization (New York, 1960)Google Scholar; Remmers, H. H., “Early Socialization of Attitudes,” in Burdick, Eugene and Brodbeck, Arthur, eds., American Voting Behavior (Glencoe, 1959), 55–67Google Scholar; Lane, Robert E., “Fathers and Sons: Foundations of Political Behavior,” American Sociological Review, XXTV (1959), 502–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McCloskey, Herbert and Dahlgren, Harold E., “Primary Group Influence on Party Loyalty,” American Political Science Review, LVIII (1959), 361–82Google Scholar; Greenstein, Children in Politics; Hess and Torney, Development of Political Attitudes in Children; James E. Davies, “The Family's Role in Political Socialization,” and Pinner, Frank, “Parental Overprotection and Political Distrust,” both in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (1965), 10–19 and 58–70.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Hess and Torney, Development of Political Attitudes in Children, 212–25.

⁴⁸ Karlsson, “Political Attitudes among Male Swedish Youth.”

⁴⁹ Abramson, Paul, “The Differential Political Socialization of English Secondary School Students,” Sociology of Education, XL (1967), 246–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁰ Jennings and Niemi, “The Transmission of Political Values.”

⁵¹ Almond, Gabriel A. and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture (Princeton, 1963), 373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵² Marvick and Nixon, “Recruitment Contrasts,” 209.

⁵³ Abrams, Philip and Little, Alan, “The Young Activists in British Politics,” British Journal of Sociology, XVI (1965), 315–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁴ Converse and Dupeux, “Politicization of the Electorate in France and the United States,” 9–15.

⁵⁵ Converse and Dupeux found that 86 per cent of a cross-sectional sample of the American electorate knew at least their father's party preference, but only 26 per cent of a French sample were similarly informed. See Ibid., 12.

⁵⁶ Festinger, Leon, The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Stanford, 1957).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ A recent article focusing on the relationship between the number of civics courses taken in American public and private high schools and the political knowledge, interest, efficacy, etc., of 1669 high school seniors indicates that such courses are rather poor predictors of variation in students’ attitudes and behaviour. The authors conclude that “our findings do not support the thinking of those who look to the civics curriculum in American high schools as even a minor source of political socialization.” See Langton, Kenneth P. and Jennings, M. Kent, “Political Socialization and the High School Civics Curriculum in the United States,” American Political Science Review, LXII (1968), 865.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ For example, in response to the question, “Which of our federal parties do you feel are most alike?” Meisel et al. found that more than half the electorate (54.8 per cent) thought the Liberals and Conservatives were the same, and an additional 6.7 per cent thought the Liberals and the NDP were similar. This constitutes rather striking empirical support for Gad Horowitz who argues that the electoral success of the Liberals and, relatedly, their refusal to appear as a class party forces both right (Conservative) and left (NDP) to mitigate their class appeals and themselves to become centre parties. See Horowitz, Gad, “Conservatism, Liberalism and Socialism in Canada: An Interpretation,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, XXXII (1966), 143–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar John Porter's position that there are few if any basic differences between Liberals and Conservatives is best articulated in The Vertical Mosaic, 373–9.

With regard to public images of American parties, the authors of The American Voter recognize that such images are far from being sharply different, but note that the public tends to link the Democratic party with a positive attitude toward social welfare issues such as governmental underwriting of medical costs, aid to education, guaranteed employment, etc. Since 1964, there is little doubt that the national Democratic party also has been seen as one favouring desegregation and protection of Negro rights in areas such as jobs and housing. The American Voter, 202–3.