Political Socialization and Political Dissent

Abstract

The article studies the emergence of political dissent under non-democratic regimes and Spanish student radicalism from 1955 to 1970 is considered as a case study. The article uses a theoretical approach whose main elements are, on the one hand, the political restrictions set up against dissent and, on the other hand, the possibilities of over-coming these restrictions through particular conditions of availability of dissenting ideas, allowing for the development of political commitments. The conditions studied here are the family background as a matrix of political socialization and adolescent cultural experiences: they would be combined in typical processes of socialization leading to ideological dissent. The dominant process would include in particular: (i) politically `heterodox' (i.e. `democratic' and anti-Francoist) families of upper and upper-middle status, (ii) elite-secular schools and (iii) `heterodox' cultural influences (in reading and religious beliefs, and often associated with travels abroad), as generally related factors which allowed for a particular exposure to politically `deviant' ideas. This pattern would explain the emergence and early stages of the student movement, but thenceforward the student movement itself would become a main socializing agency and the paths towards political dissent would become more diversified.