The Spanish Civil War and the intergenerational transmission of political identity through the family

Abstract

This article studies the transmission of political identity in the family from the Spanish Civil War until today. Concretely, it attempts to identify the most important factors in the political socialization of the individual, the factors that specifically play an important role in the formation of extremist political identities and the importance the Spanish Civil War has had in these processes. To do this, we have analysed data from a survey based on a representative sample of the Spanish population. The results show that the role of the mother is key in the formation of individual political identity, and that there has been an increase in the number of agents playing a role in political socialization with the passage of generations, although the mother and religion continue to be the most important factors.