Political Socialization of U.S. and Japanese Adults

Abstract

The study of political socialization has long neglected the influence of adult roles on adult political belief and behavior, in favor of attention to the supposedly formative experiences of childhood and adolescence. Similarly, although we have numerous studies of the background and politicization of the student activists of the 1960s, we have almost no systematic evidence of how the leftism and activism of their college years has weathered the transition to adulthood. This article presents a study of the relative effects of adult role experience—occupation, family, and voluntary associational membership—versus the enduring influence of college political beliefs and participation on samples of student activists and nonactivists of the 1960s in the United States and Japan. Citing the methodological weaknesses of earlier political socialization research, the authors use true longitudinal data and causal modeling and multivariate data analysis techniques. The results indicate that, although college identification and behavior continued to some extent into adulthood, adult role socialization also had strong and independent effects, but effects that varied greatly across the two countries. Differences in adult role cultures in the United States and Japan are used to explain these cross-national variations and their consequences for patterns of political protest in the two countries.