THAT ‘THING’: The missing link in our politics

From Page 7 such individuals using what is called the Michigan model of political behaviour which I found to be interesting and relevant in my submission. A bit of a tutorial The Michigan Model was developed at the University of Michigan and focuses on long-term patterns of partisanship. According to this model, social location is regarded as the determining factor of who voters interact with and which political party they will support.

This model is based on findings that suggested a lack of election-specific influences, and instead an attachment to parties wherein voters tended to vote as they always had and as their families also had.

Elcock (1976:220) explains this attachment to political parties as being caused by the inheritance of a partisan selfimage. In order for partisanship to develop, early socialisation is of significance.

This is because early socialisation experiences shape subsequent information processing and political behaviour. Consequently citizens develop stable participation and partisan orientations that provide them with standing decisions both for turnout and for choice.

Early socialisation happens as children first match with their family and thereafter with the population at large, including teachers and role models and even though parents are mostly altruistic they still perceive the welfare of their children through their own “filters”, and thus parents transmit their own preferences. Long-term patterns of partisanship are subsequently developed. According to Wolak (2009:573) partisanship is a

very powerful influence on individuals’ perceptions of politics and one’s identification with a political party then strongly informs choices during campaigns.

Furthermore, when citizens’ levels of information are low, they use their partisanship as a decision heuristic to “fill in the blanks”.

When, however, new information is received, partisanship causes a bias in the interpretation thereof.

There are also factors outside the family that shape partisanship in adolescence, however, parents are usually regarded as the most influential on adolescent partisanship as they are often more respected and trusted as sources of

political information.

There is a general sense that traditional politics and representative democracy — whereby voters determine the outcome of power struggles at the ballot box — fail to attract the attention of younger cohorts who feel alienated from political processes.

Recent events have shown that youths are critical in bringing about social and political transformation in Africa.

From the dissolution of the apartheid regime in South Africa in the early 1990s, the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia in 2011; the “Y’en a Marre!” (Enough is enough!) and “Ma Carte d’Electeur and Mon Arme” (My voting card, my weapon) campaigns in Senegal in 2011-12 and the thirdterm revolution in Burkina Faso in 2014,

young people remain at the forefront of democratic struggles on the continent, and the party has to make its politics have that “thing”, make politics “cool”. To be continued . . .

Micheal Mhlanga is a research and strategic communication specialist and is currently serving Leaders for Africa Network (LAN) as the Programmes and Public Liaison Officer. He also administrates multiple youth public dialogue forums in Zimbabwe including the annual Reading Pan Africanism Symposium (REPS) and Back to Pan Africanism Conference. Feedback can be sent to michealmhlanga@ abakhokheli.org