Learning who not to vote for: The role of parental socialization in the development of negative partisanship

In this paper, we explore the importance of negative orientations towards political parties in the political socialization process. We extend the traditional idea that children adopt a certain positive party attachment from their parents, and also take into account the possibility that the family can play an important role in the development of negative partisanship. We test the assumption that within the family, children learn both about the 'good ones' and the 'bad ones' of the political world, and analyze intergenerational similarities in positive and negative orientations towards the different political parties in the Flemish (Belgium) landscape. Results show that parental socialization can indeed work in two directions. Intergenerational similarity is not only observed in support - as could be expected from earlier research - but can also be observed, to a similar extent, for explicit negative orientations. This is particularly the case for parties at the far ends of the political spectrum such as the radical right Vlaams Belang (and to a lesser extent for the Green party), but this logic also applies for more mainstream, established parties, such as the Christian democrats.