Читать книгу Political Science For Dummies - Marcus A. Stadelmann - Страница 70

Studies have shown that successful political socialization has to create loyalty to the political system in the following areas:

 Loyalty to the state: This is the most important because, without it, states will collapse at some point. If a majority of the people opposes the existence of the state they live in, there’s no future for the state.Recent examples include Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, both states that collapsed because a majority of the people opposed the state itself. Loyalty toward the state is created through nationalism and patriotism. The goal is to instill pride into a people through patriotic activities, such as singing the national anthem before sports events and pledging allegiance to the flag of a country.

 Loyalty to the political structure: Loyalty toward the state is important but not sufficient for the survival of a government. Besides supporting the country, the populace also has to support the current government structures and the ideas they’re based on.In the U.S., the government is based on democracy and capitalism. For this reason, the government has to artificially create loyalty toward these two. In civic education classes, mandatory in most states, children are taught about the virtues of democracy and how great capitalism works for the well-being of most Americans. At the same time, the evils of authoritarianism and communism are imprinted into children’s minds. Polls show that a vast majority of all Americans support and are very proud of their form of democracy, while a smaller majority also supports various forms of capitalism.

 Loyalty toward the current government: Loyalty toward the current government in power is a necessity. A populace has to be socialized to accept their favorite candidate losing and still supporting the new government elected. Even though a favorite candidate may have lost, people still have to consider the new government legitimate. If they don’t, they could turn against government and political violence can result.When Hillary Clinton lost the presidency to Donald Trump in 2016, many American were shocked and dismayed. However, nobody took up arms and initiated political violence to overthrow the newly elected Trump administration. This signals that Americans are well socialized into accepting losing elections and living with a president they didn’t support. In other countries, such as Kenya, this wouldn’t have happened. The losing side would have initiated political violence, and civil war would have broken out.