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Showing papers on "Voting behavior published in 1984"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors showed that congressional voting behavior can be analyzed using a simple principal-agent model, in which political competition constrains legislative agents to serve the interests of those who "pay" for their services with votes and other forms of political currency (for example, campaign funds).
Abstract: THIS article shows that congressional voting behavior can be analyzed usefully with a simple principal-agent model. This model, in which political competition constrains legislative agents to serve the interests of those who "pay" for their services-with votes and other forms of political currency (for example, campaign funds)-is often the starting point for economic analysis of legislation. But a frequent conclusion has been that political ornithology is at least as important as the interests of constituents in explaining legislative voting behavior. Thus, "liberal democrats," for example, tend to vote alike on many specific issues where the diversity of their constituencies would seem to suggest otherwise. This result has emerged in a number of empirical studies of voting that share a common methodology.' This typically starts with a statistical model such as

557 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper examined the dynamics of partisanship and voting behavior by utilizing national survey panel data gathered in 1965, 1973, and 1982 from two strategically situated generations (members of the high school senior class of 1965 and their parents).
Abstract: The present study examines the dynamics of partisanship and voting behavior by utilizing national survey panel data gathered in 1965, 1973, and 1982 from two strategically situated generations—members of the high school senior class of 1965 and their parents. At the aggregate level, generational effects appeared in the persistently weaker partisan attachments of the younger generation. At the individual level, strong effects based on experience and habituation appeared in the remarkable gains occurring in the stability of partisan and other orientations among the young as they aged from their mid-20s to their mid-30s. Dynamic modeling of the relationship between partisanship and voting choice demonstrated that the younger voters had stabilized at an overall weaker level of partisanship, leading to more volatile voting behavior which, in turn, failed to provide the consistent reinforcement needed to intensify preexisting partisan leanings.

334 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper examined voters' perceptions of negative political advertising and investigated the potential impact of the advertising on various subsets of the electorate. But the concept itself has seldom been defined and voters have not been given a role in defining the concept.
Abstract: b Political advertising has been accused of the selling of candidates like soap, the creation of candidate images which bear no relation to reality and the destruction of the political system by emphasizing personalities over issues.' Now critics of political advertising have found additional fuel for their arguments in the so-called \"negative\" advertising of the recent campaigns. The present research seeks to examine voters' perceptions of negative political advertising and to investigate the potential impact of the advertising on various subsets of the electorate. Although the term \"negative political advertising\" and its synonyms have made their way into politicians' tactical plans, and consequently into both news and editorial sections of the media, the concept itself has seldom been defined. In their research on \"direct reference\" political advertising, Surlin and Gordon2 operationalized the genre as advertising which attacks the other candidate personally, the issues for which the other candidate stands, or the party of the other candidate. One objective of this study is to provide voters a role in defining the concept.

243 citations


Book
01 Jan 1984
TL;DR: Controversies in Voting Behavior as mentioned in this paper brings together the best scholarship and organizes it around five important debates that drive research in the field of voting behavior, and includes fifteen new selections with new or updated evidence added by the authors.
Abstract: Despite all that scholars have learned about voting behavior, significant questions persist. Controversies in Voting Behavior brings together the best scholarship and organizes it around five important debates that drive research in the field. This new edition features fifteen new selections, with many of these containing new or updated evidence added by the authors just for this volume. Section introductions establish useful context while guiding readers through conflicting interpretations that emerge across the chapters and in the academic literature.

233 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article analyzed fifty-two Atlanta area elections in which black and white candidates opposed each other and found that 75 percent of the variance in black crossover voting and almost 60 percent of variance in white crossover voters can be explained by the crossover model.
Abstract: Little is known about the voting behavior of blacks aside from the observation that they are likely to vote in blocs for black candidates. In this study, we analyze fifty-two Atlanta area elections in which black and white candidates opposed each other. While Atlanta voters usually vote for candidates of their own race, this practice is more varied and less extensive than in the rural southern communities which others have analyzed. The extent to which voters support candidates not of their race varies greatly. Multivariate models can explain about 75 percent of the variance in black crossover voting and almost 60 percent of the variance in white crossovers. Incumbency and newspaper endorsements are especially important in attracting crossover votes. Three models, derived from differing expectations about the degree of prejudice, for estimating the share of votes cast for black candidates were tested. Ninety percent of the variance in election outcomes in Atlanta can be explained by the crossover model wh...

86 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used data from a new three-wave panel study to assess the properties of party identification in Canada, and to compare levels of partisan stability in Canada with those in Great Britain and the United States.
Abstract: One of the critical questions in the debate about the concept of party identification is its stability over time, particularly its stability relative to that of voting behavior. This article utilizes data from a new three-wave panel study to assess the properties of party identification in Canada, and to compare levels of partisan stability in Canada with those in Great Britain and the United States. In addition to directional stability, other features of the party identification concept and its applicability to Canada are examined, notably the constituency of identification across levels of the federal system. Analyses indicate that party identification in Canada is subject to considerable fluctuation, and that the U.S. pattern of relatively stable party identification coupled with substantial short-term swings in voting behavior reflect the institutional characteristics of the U. S. electoral system. The article concludes by suggesting that patterns of partisanship in Canada, although distinctive in certain respects, probably have important commonalities with those in many other contemporary liberal democracies.

78 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a method for estimating a political representative's personal ideology and its effect on his or her voting decisions is proposed, using the residuals from two regression equations to provide answers to two questions: Is there a systematic ideological component to the voting behavior of political representatives after taking account of other political determinants, and if a systematic ideology component exists, is it possible to determine its role in voting on particular issues?
Abstract: We suggest a method for estimating a political representative's personal ideology and its effect on his or her voting decisions. The current practice of using the ratings of a pressure group such as Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) as a proxy for personal ideology is shown to have a number of theoretical and interpretive flaws. Our technique uses the residuals from two regression equations to provide answers to two questions: Is there a systematic ideological component to the voting behavior of political representatives after taking account of other political determinants, and if a systematic ideological component exists, is it possible to determine its role in voting on particular issues? The technique developed and the currently accepted practice are compared using votes on labor issues as an empirical example.

78 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, it is shown that electoral choice in double (and approval) elections is inherently strategic in the sense that voters' beliefs about how others will vote affect their decisions (when preferences are not dichotomous).
Abstract: The chief aim of this paper is to elucidate the theory of electoral choice in an important but previously neglected electoral context: multi-member districts. Taking the simplest case of a threecandidate election in a double-member district, the paper develops a model of electoral choice as a standard decision under risk. It is found that this simplest case is essentially equivalent to approval voting with three candidates; thus, voting in double elections with three candidates is "sincere" in the same sense that approval voting is, and a unique sincere strategy exists when preferences are dichotomous. Nonetheless, it is shown that electoral choice in double (and approval) elections is inherently strategic in the sense that voters' beliefs about how others will vote affect their decisions (when preferences are not dichotomous). This point is important because it has been claimed that sincerity of choice is an important property, guaranteeing that choices reflect preferences "directly." This paper shows that there are fairly severe restrictions on the sense in which this is true, due to the strategic nature of choice. In the later sections of the paper, an examination of actual voting behavior in double-member districts is made to see if theoretically predicted strategic behavior is evident in practice. The evidence is positive.

77 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider recent research on legislative voting behavior in non-American legislatures and the U.S. Congress and state legislatures and discuss the literature in terms of whether the primary object of analysis is the collectivity or the individual decision maker.
Abstract: This article considers recent research on legislative voting behavior in nonAmerican legislatures and the U.S. Congress and state legislatures. The literature is discussed in terms of whether the primary object of analysis is the collectivity or the individual decision maker. Accordingly, research is divided into analyses that focus on cleavages and alignments, and analyses that focus on individual voting decisions. A comparative perspective on this research reveals notable differences in the approaches associated with different legislative settings as well as a number of conceptual problems regarding more specific areas of study. The review indicates both problems and prospects in this subfield of legislative studies.

73 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Akhil Reed Amar1
TL;DR: Lottery voting as discussed by the authors is an alternative method of selecting representatives to legislatures that combines features of four traditional egalitarian systems: voting, lottery, quota, and rotation, and it can be used to create a richer democracy.
Abstract: Current electoral systems, though purporting to count votes equally, in fact create legislatures that fail to represent the whole community. This Note presents a thought experiment inviting the reader to consider seriously an alternative method of selecting representatives to legislatures that combines features of four traditional egalitarian systems: voting, lottery, quota, and rotation. Under \"lottery voting,\" citizens would vote for representatives in local districts, much as they do today. Rather than automatically electing the candidate who receives a majority or plurality of votes, however, lottery voting chooses the winner in a lottery of the ballots cast: A single ballot is randomly drawn, and the candidate chosen on that ballot wins the election.' If A receives sixty percent of the overall vote and B gets forty percent, A does not automatically win; rather, A's ex ante chances of winning are sixty percent and B's are forty percent.' Section I of the Note examines the puzzle of minority participation in a majoritarian political system and suggests that justice for minorities may require a new method of selecting legislatures; Section II discusses the American jury and other historical uses of political lotteries; Section III sketches the implications of lottery voting and demonstrates how it could be used to create a richer democracy; and Section IV surveys the practical and constitutional limitations on lottery voting as a mechanism of social choice. The ideas presented furnish a novel perspective on various problems of democratic and constitutional theory.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a heuristic that voters might use to simplify voting decision problems has been proposed, based on the idea that apparent voter ignorance may reflect efficient information processing, i.e., mental economy behavior.
Abstract: A striking paradox of voting research is that, despite persuasive theoretical explanations of why voters are likely to be ignorant and empirical confirmation of voter ignorance, there has been substantial evidence of "issue voting" by large segments of the American electorate. This paper explains this paradox in terms of a heuristic that voters might use to simplify voting decision problems. Evidence from the 1980 CPS National Election Study tends to confirm the view that apparent voter ignorance may actually reflect efficient information processing--i.e., mental economy behavior.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a statistical analysis of the voting behavior of individual delegates involved in the making of the United States Constitution and their economic and personal characteristics is presented. But, the analysis is limited to the case when the government under the Articles of Confederation was replaced by a new government over the Constitution.
Abstract: An important change in the structure of U.S. institutions occurred when the government under the Articles of Confederation was replaced by a new government under the Constitution. In 1913, Charles A. Beard proposed a view of the formation of the United States Constitution—an economic interpretation—that remains a much discussed yet unresolved explanation of the behavior and motives of the men who wrote the document. This paper provides the first rigorous statistical test of this issue. We summarize the preliminary results of a statistical analysis of the relationship between the voting behavior of individual delegates involved in the making of the Constitution and their economic and personal characteristics. Contrary to current historical wisdom, significant patterns related to economic interests are found in the voting, with the division of interests generally consistent with that outlined by Charles A. Beard seventy years ago.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the effects of national issues and the strategic decisions of congressional candidates and campaign contributors on voting behavior in a presidential election year, 1980, and a midterm election year 1982.
Abstract: This article tests the strategic politicians hypothesis by examining the effects of national issues and the strategic decisions of congressional candidates and campaign contributors on voting behavior in a presidential election year, 1980, and a midterm election year, 1982. The findings indicate that national issues-the presidential contest in 1980 and the incumbent president's economic policies in 1982-directly affected voting decisions in both elections. Most of the Republican gains in the 1980 House elections can be attributed to the effects of voters' evaluations of the presidential candidates. In 1982, Democratic gains were limited because, despite a severe recession, many voters had not given up hope that Reaganomics would eventually work.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors presented a study pertaining to the relationship between selected demographic and attitudinal variables and employee voting behavior in a union decertification election, and the study was co-authored by the authors.
Abstract: The article presents a study pertaining to the relationship between selected demographic and attitudinal variables and employee voting behavior in a union decertification election. The study was co...


Posted Content
TL;DR: The 1982 election in California offers a unique natural experiment in ethnic and racial bloc voting as discussed by the authors, where the race in the predominately Hispanic 30th Congressional District matched a well-financed Anglo Republican, John Rousselot, against an incumbent Hispanic Marty Martinez.
Abstract: The 1982 election in California offers a unique natural experiment in ethnic and racial bloc voting. The race in the predominately Hispanic 30th Congressional District matched a well-financed Anglo Republican, John Rousselot, against an incumbent Hispanic Marty Martinez. On the ballot with Martinez and Rousselot were the successful Republican candidates for governor and the U.S. senator George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson, and the losing Democratic candidates, Tom Bradley (who is black) and Jerry Brown. These variations in the race and ethnicity of the candidates on the ballot in 1982 were used to estimate the impact of ethnic and racial considerations in voting decisions.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper developed a comprehensive electoral market model that takes account of potential simultaneous relationships among votes cast, campaign expenditures, and voting participation turnout, and found that own communications efforts as proxied by campaign expenditures have a positive impact on votes received, while competitive communications efforts draw votes away from a candidate.
Abstract: This paper extends previous single equation econometric modeling efforts of the “sales-advertising” relationship in elections. Operating within the perspective of the general demand context of voting behavior, it develops a comprehensive electoral market model that takes account of potential simultaneous relationships among votes cast, campaign expenditures, and voting participation turnout. The model is estimated using 3SLS techniques with aggregate electoral district data from each of eight Canadian provincial elections. The model appears to yield consistent and therefore generalizable empirical results across the eight election events. Chief among the empirical results is the expected relationship between campaign efforts and voting behavior: “own” communications efforts as proxied by campaign expenditures have a positive impact on votes received, while competitive communications efforts draw votes away from a candidate.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a study was carried out to examine the male/female differences in voting behavior, intention and beliefs, and the results of the study are consistent with the more recent literature which suggests that the female is just as involved, interested and concerned about politics as the male is.
Abstract: A study is carried out to examine the male/female differences in voting behavior, intention and beliefs. Hypotheses are generated from a review of the literature covering three areas: sex roles, innate differences and political participation. The results of the study are consistent with the more recent literature which suggests that the female is just as involved, interested and concerned about politics as the male is. Both females and males evaluate candidates primarily on the basis of personality and issues. The male, however, is more likely to act as an opinion leader. Implications for message strategies in political advertisements are made.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article found that perceptions of national economic performance played a highly significant role in determining the outcome of the UK general election in 1983, and that the latent construct underlying these variables is highly significant predictor of the probability of voting Conservative in that election.
Abstract: The evaluation of voters' perceptions of economic performance and their relationships to voting behavior has been a relatively neglected topic in British politics. A model of these relationships is specified and estimated using data from a survey of the electorate carried out at the time of the general election of 1983. The model demonstrates strong underlying links between partisanship, perceptions of economic performance, and salient noneconomic issues during the election. The latent construct underlying these variables is a highly significant predictor of the probability of voting Conservative in that election. By contrast, perceptions of personal economic conditions are not a significant predictor of voting behavior at all. Overall, these results show that perceptions of national economic performance played a highly significant role in determining the outcome of the election in 1983.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used congressional roll call data on votes for various types of transfer payment legislation during the 1970s to study the degree to which the decisions of U.S. representatives and senators are affected by election worries.
Abstract: The desire for reelection is commonly believed to pressure public officials to distribute additional benefits to potential voters. In this study, using congressional roll call data on votes for various types of transfer payment legislation during the 1970s, I present some specific evidence on the degree to which the decisions of U.S. representatives and senators are affected by election worries. Variation in the level of electoral pressure felt by members of Congress is achieved by noting the level of competition in their districts, the proximity of the next election, and the ambition for office held by the incumbent. The results indicate that while electoral pressures unmistakably cause some alteration in transfer payment voting behavior, it is easy to overestimate the importance of the desire for reelection.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jun 1984
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored negative voter support in the context of the past eight presidential elections in the United States and found that substantial numbers of voters act on the basis of negative support.
Abstract: r _ RADITIONAL studies of voting behavior have focused, with few exceptions, on "positive voting" voting for the candidate who is more or better liked than the other candidate(s). While in all presidential elections a majority of citizens express positive support for their preferred candidate, it is clear that substantial numbers of voters act on the basis of "negative support." If we assume a two-candidate contest, then negative support for candidate A is defined as that state where a citizen is neutral toward A, but dislikes the opposing candidate, B. A negative voter, therefore, does not like his/her preferred candidate. Rather, the negative voter is motivated by antipathy toward the opposition; he or she votes "against," not "for." Positive support for A involves liking A, and either disliking or being neutral toward B. Citizens who like both candidates, dislike both candidates, or are neutral toward both candidates are said to be "indifferent." These citizens may have support for a candidate, but their support is neither positive nor negative in the sense the terms are used here. The purpose of this paper is to explore negative voter support in the context of the past eight presidential elections in the United States. Our study of this phenomenon is organized around the following four questions:

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper analyzes Congressional voting behavior on the Gephardt Amendment to President Carter's hospital cost containment legislation and the impact of opposing interest groups is examined.
Abstract: This paper analyzes Congressional voting behavior on the Gephardt Amendment to President Carter's hospital cost containment legislation. The impact of opposing interest groups is examined: on one side were hospital and medical interest groups; on the other was the Carter Administration and its political party, as well as states with large Medicaid expenditures. The effect of political contributions from MEDPACs is evaluated, and the relative importance of various factors affecting the vote's outcome is analyzed.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that politically motivated business cycles could persist in a democratic society even if the electorate votes in a rational, fully informed manner, provided that government policymakers have the means to systematically generate macroeconomic fluctuations.
Abstract: This essay argues that politically motivated business cycles could persist in a democratic society even if the electorate votes in a rational, fully informed manner, provided that government policymakers have the means to systematically generate macroeconomic fluctuations. This cyclic outcome reflects the pReferences of an electorate that is composed of imperfectly altruistic voters belonging to different overlapping generations. Since each generation has a different horizon over which it would like to have elected politicians provide an optimal economic policy plan, an intergenerational conflict of interests situation arises. This conflict is placed into an explicit political context, whereby cycles become generated under the institutional constraint of periodic elections.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For instance, the authors found that voters tend to punish or reward the chancellor on the basis of their perception of his management of the economy, while individual economic circumstances appear to play a more marginal role.
Abstract: Analyses of the effects of economic perceptions on voting behavior have been mostly confined to the United States. This study utilizes data gathered from the 1972, 1976, and 1980 German national elections in order to investigate the effects of the economy on the vote. The authors find support for the hypothesis that economic voting in the Federal Republic is more accurately described in terms of a "sociotropic" or "national assessments" explanation of the economic situation. Individual economic circumstances appear to play a more marginal role. Also, economic motivations in voting are stronger with the voter's preference for chancellor than at lower levels of the electoral system. Voters tend to punish or reward the chancellor on the basis of their perception of his management of the economy.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The concept of political culture is not a particularly new one in the social sciences and has been applied to the politics of a wide variety of states as a means of pointing to the existence of long-term continuities as well as changes in the beliefs and behavior patterns of their members as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The concept of political culture is not a particularly new one in the social sciences. Defined-one of several possibilities-as the historically formed patterns of political belief and behavior of the members of a political system, whether a state or a smaller group, it has informed approaches to the study of politics since the time of Montesquieu and Rousseau, if not the Greeks, and has been applied to the politics of a wide variety of states as a means of pointing to the existence of long-term continuities as well as changes in the beliefs and behavior patterns of their members.' In recent years the use of the concept has been extended still further to the political experience of the Communist states, in which the issue of continuity versus change is raised in a particularly sharp form. These, after all, are states in which the ruling authorities claim to have broken decisively with the political beliefs and behavior-not just the institutions--of the pre-revolutionary past and in which it is asserted that new political cultures, characterized by collectivist, Marxist-Leninist values, and high levels of political knowledge and activism, have come into being in place of those of the pre-revolutionary period. The nature and extent of these changes have frequently been queried in the western academic literature. What is not, I think, in doubt is that the Communist states, precisely because of their claim to have broken so decisively with the patterns of political belief and behavior of their pre-revolutionary past, provide a particularly promising though admittedly difficult context in which to test for the explanatory utility of a political-cultural approach.2 It is to this task that the present paper is directed. At least two main reasons may be suggested for the increasing use that has been made of the concept of political culture in recent years. In the first place, it has stemmed from a renewed interest in the stability and instability of regimes and in the relationship between regimes and societies more generally, prompted by the overthrow of liberal-democratic by Nazi and later Communist regimes in Europe and more particularly by the failure of western-style political institutions in many newly independent countries in Africa and Asia during the 1960s and 1970s. In most cases the adequacy of the constitutional framework itself was not in doubt; rather, it appeared, an underlying pattern of attitudes towards and expectations of government, often of historical origin, was involved, which appeared to require more direct and explicit consideration if the performance of these political systems was properly to be understood. In the case of the Communist states more particularly, the greater degree of attention paid to the notion of political culture sprang from the

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a comparison of Norwegian and U.S. data has suggested that cognitive, social and political factors may all influence the association between personal and collectivist economic concerns.
Abstract: A body of accumulating evidence appears to support the finding that collectivist economic concerns and assessments of government economic performance directly influence voting behavior independent of other predispositions and cleavages. This seems reasonable and is well documented across both cultures and time periods. What remains more inconclusive is how to explain fluctuations in the electoral impact of personal economic worries. Our comparison of Norwegian and U.S. data has suggested that cognitive, social and political factors may all influence this association. The political information and cues for connecting the two spheres may be absent for most elections and for most people. Nevertheless, in some elections and under certain conditions individual economic worries can have a significant, independent impact on election outcomes. A major goal of future political-economy research, therefore, should be to specify more completely those factors that facilitate the linkage of personal and collectivist economic concerns. The electoral consequences of economic conditions are the subject of an increasingly voluminous literature in the United States. By comparison, research on this topic in Scandinavian countries is quite rare. However, recent years have witnessed an i~creasing interest in the topic among both economists and political scientists. Most of the Scandinavian work in this area relies on aggregate indicators to determine the relationship between economics and political behavior. Frey (1979), for example, employed rate of inflation, change in unemployment, and growth in real income to predict the popularity of the incumbent party in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden over a period of 67 years. The results are at best mixed, He found significant political effects for inflation in Denmark and unemployment in Sweden. For Sweden there is also an additional effect of real income growth but only in the bivariate model. These disappointing


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examined the misreporting of year-round forms of political activity at the local level, activity other than registration and voting, such as signing petitions, participating in public hearings before the city council, and contacting elected officials through the mayor and council answering service.
Abstract: CONCERN about self-reported measures of political participation is not new to political science. In 1978, Wahlke's presidential address (1979) to the APSA called for a strict scrutiny of perceptual measures of behaviors. In fact, for over three decades, scholars have addressed themselves to the problem of using self-reporting as valid data for measuring participation in American politics. The concern has not lacked foundation: so-called "reporting" errors have ranged from 10 to 25 percent for the participation dimension of voting and voting registration (Clausen, 1968; Katosh and Traugott, 1981). In this study we employ a method of examining the misreporting of year-round forms of political activity at the local level, activity other than registration and voting. Our focus is on three forms of political participation directed toward local officials: signing petitions, participating in public hearings before the city council, and contacting elected officials through the mayor and council answering service. The research site is a southwestern urban community of 300,000 and a metropolitan population of over 500,000.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article provided an introduction to developments in political education in Britain in the 1970s and early 1980s and in so doing notes how each of the other contributions in this collection relates to the political education debate.
Abstract: This paper provides an introduction to developments in political education in Britain in the 1970s and early 1980s and in so doing notes how each of the other contributions in this collection relates to the political education debate. The suggestion is made that there are different ideologies of political education and that these are reflected in party political differences. From this it is argued that schools should move from their current role in partisan political socialisation to a more open form of political education.