Political Socialization or Hegemony and Cultural Reproduction

The role of various agencies of political socializsation is viewed in terms of their imparting a supportive political culture. However, some New Left theorists, Gramsci and Althusser view agencies of political socialization in a capitalist society necessarily as apparatuses of non-coercive domination and means of creating conditions favourable for maintenance of the capitalist system. In this, political socialization becomes a process of imbibing dominant culture and values, values and ideology that creates hegemony. Gramsci suggests that the domination in the capitalist system is maintained not only by force and coercion but also by hegemony. Hegemony is ideological domination created by various social, religious, educational and civil society institutions. Values, attitudes, orientations and feelings that agencies such as family, schools, mass media and religious institutions inculcate amongst the people are meant to reproduce the conditions that are necessary for maintenance of the capitalist system. These agencies in a way reproduce the conditions of capitalist production. Marx and Engels in The German Ideology have discussed about ‘bourgeois ideology’ that disguises and mystifies the class divisions and contradictions in a capitalist system. They called the ideas of ruling class as ruling ideas. Gramsci analyses how hegemony is generated by using ruling class ideas. Political socialization becomes an exercise in inculcation of ruling class ideas.

Civil society creates a context of hegemony with the help of educational, religious, intellectual and moral agencies—structures of legitimation. Organizations and institutions like family, schools, church, etc. provide the basic rules of behaviour, respect and moral deference to authority. With the help of educational, religious, familial and cultural means, hegemony is achieved. Hegemony stands for ‘intellectual, moral and political leadership and not merely economic domination.’³³ Gramsci uses hegemony to define ‘the ability of a dominant class to exercise power by winning the consent of those it subjugates as an alternative to the use of coercion.’³⁴ This can be achieved by inculcating dominant values and ideas, behaviour and political institutions as the values and ideas of all. Political socialization by helping individuals acquire, retain or change attitudes and behaviours that are appropriate to the interests of the dominant economic class is a process of reproducing dominance.

Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist and J. C. Passeron have applied the concept of cultural reproduction to analyse how dominant class imposes its cultural values as general values. Cultural reproduction refers to imposition of culture of the dominant class on society as legitimate. Pierre Bourdieu and J. C. Passeron in their study Reproduction: In Education, Society and Culture have analysed the phenomenon of cultural reproduction as a contrast to the process of political socialization. Legitimacy, hegemony, political socialization and cultural reproduction draw attention to the non-coercive elements in any system of domination.³⁵ They help in maintaining and sustaining a system. On the other hand, it has been argued that in the erstwhile socialist societies of the USSR and the Eastern Europe with controlled media, institutions of education, communication and political participation, political socialization was carried out coercively and rigidly. One may also argue that during the socialist system, socialist values, feelings and attitudes were not internalized by the people but were only followed due to coercive fear. The proof of this is change in orientation and political behaviour in the aftermath of breakdown of the socialist system. It may be appropriate to note that Mao has given the theory of ‘permanent revolution’ meaning that there was a need for a continuous revolution to deal with ever-present contradictions in society.

Political socialization is a contested concept and has been associated with theorists who support the liberal–capitalist order. It has been criticized as means of reproducing domination. It is however, considered necessary for successful functioning of democracy through political training of the citizens to become active participants.