My Political Socialisation - Essay Example

My Political Socialisation The essay is going to discuss my political views and what influenced and changed them to become what they are today as well as the reason behind my political interests. It will also address the similarities and differences between politics in my country and in the UK and how that has influenced my political socialization with the different social agents. I view politics as important part of human socialization and relation. This is so because to me politics symbolizes unity and togetherness as different people with different views on governance come together to exercise them. The politicians are however not always to be trusted as more often than not they deceive people, fail to fulfill their political agendas and lead people to disunity more than unity. The monarchy may not be considered important but this is only because people are unaware of what role they exactly play. The monarchy represents sovereignty across the UK and this is very important in any country. My father and I hold the same political view. He is the one that actually made me become interested in politics as he kept on talking to me about it and explaining the different political views and what they mean and giving me examples of them in the world and I became interested. My siblings, however, are still not sure about their political views and my mother is not so interested in politics coming from a country without democracy, she finds it hard to trust any political views and leadership. I know the political views of my parents and siblings as I live with them and hence we discuss regularly different subjects, politics being one of them. From their responses and body language, it is evident who likes and dislikes political discussions which leave only my father and me on the interest list. As for my friends, I have a few interested in politics and we engage with them frequently while the rest do not like it. I have known about the interests of my friends and relatives since the day I became interested in politics, prior to that, I barely noticed. I have not always been interested in politics and my interests and views only developed a few years ago. I am not exactly sure at what point they developed as it was a developmental issue. What I know however is that I started becoming interested in the political happenings in my country and around the world as well, started paying more attention and engaging in political discussions with my father and my friends and even started looking into political courses. Previously before my political enlightenment, I viewed governments and leadership as similar to each other and barely noticed any difference. Now, however, I am aware of these difference, the distrusts with politicians and the causes of democracy and lack of it in the different nations and what can be done to correct that. Nowadays I find myself thinking a lot about politics and even discussing more politics. I know that this is because of influence from my political friends and a habit we have developed with my father. My father and I spend more than half our conversation time discussing the latest in the world politics and comparing notes on anything new one have learned the other has not as well. I have picked up habits from friends as well on being keen about political news in order to have a commonality with them later and be on par with their conversations. My views are based on both factual and feelings about the subject of politics. The feelings and attitudes have developed as a result of influence from the people surrounding me also interested in the same subject. However, the views have been deeply cemented by the way I have taken the feelings to the next level and seeking factual information about the different political views and discussions as well as historical information about politics. The factual information makes me be able to connect the current happenings with history as well as try to predict the future of politics. My father reads political news from newspapers and political magazines as well as watching a lot of news and political discussions online. It is his hobby and I picked it up from him. The fact that my father is so enthusiastic about politics and he is very knowledgeable about the topic made me curious about it and soon enough learned how intriguing it was and still is and that has influenced me to date. Initially, my views were weak but as I have developed the knack for politics and have surrounded myself with political friends including my father, I have found that my views are changing from being weak to strong. I cannot really confess to being that strong but I am not weak either. On the issue of voting, however, I am fairly strong enough in political affairs to change and be sure to make the correct voting decision based on my political analysis of the candidates. I have engaged in a few political activities and one peaceful political demonstration. I am however yet to identify a good political organization to become its member but it is on my agenda and will soon happen. These political activities have been influenced by my friends and my father. The political demonstration was my friends’ idea and influence which my parents did not agree to, however on the other political activities, my father has pushed and encouraged me and some even joining me to carry them out. Lucky for me, I have interest in politics even though they did not develop that long ago. What however impeded their quick development was the lack of political interest my mother and older siblings had and I spent a lot of time with them more than with my father because of his work. However, when he reduced his work travels and was home more often, I found my political niche slowly shifting and soon became a staunch political follower. Reference Axford, B., Browning, G., Huggins, R. and Rosamond, B. (2002). Politics: An Introduction, 2ndEd.). Abingdon: Routledge. Bauer, P. and Fatke, M. (March 2014). "Direct Democracy and Political Trust: Enhancing Trust, Initiating Distrust–or Both?” Swiss Political Science Review, vol. 20 (1), pp. 49-69. Heywood, A. (2013). Politics (5th Ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. Torney-Purta, J. (2004). “Adolescents' Political Socialization in Changing Contexts.” Political Psychology, 25(3), 465-478. Vincent, A. (2010). Modern Political Ideologies (3rd Ed.). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell Read More