Intergenerational Transfer of Canadian Partisanships

This note derives hypotheses about the intergenerational transfer of Canadian partisanships from a social learning model, which posits that the adoption of attitudes is affected by the homogeneity of cues in the environment. As hypothesized, data from the 1974 Canadian national election study show that the rate of adoption of parental partisanships is affected by the consistency of each parent's federal and provincial party identifications. The second hypothesis, which posits that transfer rates are affected by provincial-federal party system correspondence, is also supported in three of four regression equations. Resume. Ce document d6rive des hypotheises relatives au transfert inter-g6n6ratif de l'esprit de parti canadien a partir d'un mod'le d'etude sociale qui d6montre que l'adoption des attitudes est influenc6e par l'homog6n6it6 des signaux dans l'environnement. Tel qu'indiqu6 dans la premiere hypothese, les donn6es provenant de l'6tude sur l'61ection nationale Canadienne effectu6e en 1974, montrent que le taux d'adoption de l'esprit de parti parental est influence par la consistance de chacun des parents au niveau de leur identification B un parti f6d6ral et provincial. La deuxieme hypotheise, qui d6montre que les taux de transfert sont influences par le systeme de correspondance au sein d'un meme parti provincial et f6d6ral, est egalement corrobor6e dans trois sur quatre equations de r6gression. complexities of a federal party system. If partisan affect and identification begin developing before the child learns to associate particular parties with different levels of government, the child may interpret and affectively process a parental endorsement of a particular provincial party as a general positive cue concerning that party without regard to the level of government. Even if the child later begins to understand the relevance of the level of government to a particular party, his earlier affective responses might still have an effect on the development of later partisan attitudes. The results of that process could be a "cross-level" transfer of parental identifications (in which the child adopts a parent's federal party identification as its own provincial identification, or vice versa), or simply weaker transfer rates (because parental cues for any one party were too infrequent to allow the child to develop any particular partisanship). The first general proposition to be investigated is that the probability of successful intergenerational transfer of partisanship increases with the consistency of partisan cues provided by each parent. The cues that parents provide their children include manifestations of their own partisanships; therefore, we would expect: Hypothesis la: Intergenerational transfer of partisanships is more successful among parents with consistent identifications than among parents with single-level identifications. Moreover, parents who identify at only one level would provide more stable cues than would split-identifiers, although probably not as stable as consistent identifiers. Thus, we would also expect: Hypothesis ib: Intergenerational transfer of partisanships is more successful among parents who identify at only one level than among parents with split identifications, and Pammett, "The Development of Political Orientations in Canadian School Children," this JOURNAL 4 (1971), 132-41. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.92 on Wed, 22 Jun 2016 06:09:52 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 136 MICHAEL D. MARTINEZ Hypothesis Ic: Intergenerational transfer of partisanships is more successful among parents with consistent identifications than among parents with single-level identifications. Parents, though important, are not the only agents that influence their child's partisan responses. Peers, schools, the media and the parties themselves shape the political environment which affects partisan orientations. In areas of Canada where the provincial party system is closely tied to the federal party system, the cues a child receives from his parents are more likely to be reinforced in the political system at large. The media, peer groups and other information sources will portray the same protagonist and antagonist parties in a series of electoral and legislative battles. In provinces where the provincial party system differs from the federal party system, the contestant parties change, giving the child the opportunity to develop affect for more parties and fewer opportunities to reinforce any single party identification. Therefore, we would expect: Hypothesis 2: Party identifications will be transferred from parent to child more successfully in provinces where the federal and provincial party systems more closely resemble one another.