ABSTRACT
It is well established that partisanship is remarkably stable throughout life (Dalton 1980; Green and Palmquist 1990, 1994), indeed more stable than many other political orientations, attitudes, and behaviours (Converse 1964; Searing et al. 1976; Sears and Funk 1999; Sears et al. 1980). Alternative interpretations of this phenomenon have been proposed ranging from preadult political socialization (Butler and Stokes 1974), electoral habitualization (Green and Shachar 2000), the accumulation of political experience (Fiorina 1981; Achen 1992; Clarke et al. 2004) and right through to the lack of short term political information (Shively 1979; Popkin 1994). Each of these explanations has implications for the interpretation and nature of partisanship, though – frustratingly – they often have only slightly different observable implications. In this chapter, we briefly sketch the debate about the determinants of durable partisanship and empirically evaluate some of these positions from an individual difference perspective using unique data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), 1984–2004. These data allow us, first, to independently observe a large number of adolescents and the parents providing details about their socialization background. Second, the SOEP enables us to annually monitor individual party orientations from their assumed crystallization during young adulthood over a period of up to 20 years. Finally, the SOEP provides the rare opportunity to compare the development of partisanship of young adults that have grown up under different political regimes and party systems.
