The Formation of Party Preference in Adolescence and Early Adulthood: How and When Does It Occur in the Multiparty Context of the Netherlands?

Abstract

Keywords

Adolescence party identification left-right identification intergenerational transmission political socialization

This cohort-sequential panel study on Dutch youths (N = 3394) and their parents examined the formation of party preference between age 12 and 25. Specifically, it aimed to pinpoint the most formative component and age in a multiparty context. Opinionation, stability and correlates were examined for three components of party preference: party identification, voting intention and left-right identification. Results revealed that most youths formed a preference at some point during their early life. The 6-year stability of party preference was already substantial during early adolescence and increased until early adulthood. Party preference became increasingly related to youths’ social characteristics and issue attitudes with age, but parents remained important. Whereas studies from two-party systems emphasized the importance of party identification, this study suggested that left-right identification may instead predominate the early formation, intergenerational transmission and life-course stability of party preference in the Netherlands. The most formative period was around age 18.

Footnotes

Authors’ Bio-sketch

Roderik Rekker is a political scientist and a psychologist, who currently works as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam. His PhD dissertation focused on unraveling the mechanisms through which social inequality affects political socialization and delinquency in adolescence. His primary research interest is to examine stability and change in political attitudes across time, generations, and the lifespan.

Loes Keijsers is associate professor of Developmental Psychology at Tilburg University. She is interested in studying how intrapersonal and interpersonal developmental changes in the lives of adolescents relate to a normal or a deviant developmental trajectory. She is also an expert in advanced longitudinal methodology.

Susan Branje is professor of Adolescent Development and Socialization and chair of the division of Youth and Family, Utrecht University. Her work focuses on understanding the developmental interchange between adolescents’ individual characteristics and relationships with parents, siblings, friends, and romantic partners and the associations with development of adolescent adjustment.

Wim Meeus is Professor of Adolescent Development at Utrecht University and Developmental Psychology at Tilburg University. His research interests include personal and social development in adolescence.

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