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Lecture

Political Parties in the Family and the Electorate

Gastvortrag mit Prof. Alan Zuckermann

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Prof. Zuckerman’s lecture gave us all an opportunity to learn something about partisanship in general and about how it reflects in families in European democracies, such as Germany, Britain and Italy, but also in Israel. These are also the main issues of his new book “Partisan Families: The Social Logic of Bounded Partisanship in Germany and Britain” (forthcoming, written with Josip Dasovic and Jennifer Fitzgerald).

In his lecture Prof. Zuckerman uses details from surveys that were done in Germany in the years 1985 – 2001 and in Britain in the years 1991 – 2001. The surveys took into account all household members above the age of 16 and examined these households year after year during the time span mentioned above (households which stopped to participate were excluded from the survey data).

The lecture also dealt with the political behavior of the members of a specific household, but not with their voting pattern. The Germany survey however also had a part of political questions and the British survey had a part dealing with voting patterns.

Prof. Zuckerman presented two arguments. The first is that people are not faithful to a specific party but are moving from party A to “No party” (and not to party B). The second is that most people know which party they will NOT vote for.

Zuckerman and his co-authors expected to see from the survey data whether the household members influenced each other.

They claim that if person A influences person B, so obviously person B influences person A. They use the survey data to demonstrate the mutual influence between spouses, parents and theirs children on partisan issues.

Prof. Zuckerman’s lecture presented the following conclusions:

- In Germany and in Britain the percentage of people who are living in the same household and partisan the same party is relatively low (only 10 – 15 %).

- In Germany and in Britain only 40 % of the couples partisan the same party and only 5 % partisan different parties. From that we understand that in all the other couples (which constitute the majority) one spouse partisans party A, while the other claims to “No party”. This is quite the same like the general “No party” percentage in the population. The high percentage of “No party” in general is also interesting.

- Husband and wife do influence each other. In Germany the husband has more influence while in Britain the wife has more influence.

- Mothers have much more influence on their children than the fathers. This conclusion has a high correlation with the EU data saying that even in our days mothers still spend much more time with theirs kids then the fathers do.

- The last and the most interesting conclusion is that if two households members partisan party A so others members of that household will not partisan party B. If two members of a household partisan party A the probability that the third person from that household will partisan party A is more than double the average percent of those who partisan the same party.

In his lecture Prof. Zuckerman showed us the importance of research regarding the mutual influence people have on each other, especially if they share the same household, in order to understand political behavior in general and partisanship in particular. In general, the lecture contributed to discussion about partisanship in Israel.

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Venue

Maiersdorf Faculty Club, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Speakers

  • Prof. Alan Zuckermann
    Contact

    Dr. Lars Hänsel

    Dr

    Head of the Department Europe and North America

    Lars.Haensel@kas.de +49 30 26996-3526

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    The Helmut Kohl Institute for European Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem