Chapter 10. Political Socialization: The Making of a Citizen Learning Objectives · 1Describe the model citizen in democratic theory and explain the concept. · 2Define socialization and explain the relevance of this concept in the study of politics. · 3Explain how a disparate population of individuals and groups (families, clans, and tribes) can be forged into a cohesive society. · 4Demonstrate how socialization affects political behavior and analyze what happens when socialization fails. · 5Characterize the role of television and the Internet in influencing people’s political beliefs and behavior, and evaluate their impact on the quality of citizenship in contemporary society. The year is 1932. The Soviet Union is suffering a severe shortage of food, and millions go hungry. Joseph Stalin, leader of the Communist Party and head of the Soviet government, has undertaken a vast reordering of Soviet agriculture that eliminates a whole class of landholders (the kulaks) and collectivizes all farmland. Henceforth, every farm and all farm products belong to the state. To deter theft of what is now considered state property, the Soviet government enacts a law prohibiting individual farmers from appropriating any grain for their own private use. Acting under this law, a young boy reports his father to the authorities for concealing grain. The father is shot for stealing state property. Soon after, the boy is killed by a group of peasants, led by his uncle, who are outraged that he would betray his own father. The government, taking a radically different view of the affair, extols the boy as a patriotic martyr. Stalin considered the little boy in this story a model citizen, a hero. How citizenship is defined says a lot about a government and the philosophy or ideology that underpins it. The Good Citizen Stalin’s celebration of a child’s act of betrayal as heroic points to a distinction Aristotle originally made: The good citizen is defined by laws, regimes, and rulers, but the moral fiber (and universal characteristics) of a good person is fixed, and it transcends the expectations of any particular political regime.* Good citizenship includes behaving in accordance with the rules, norms, and expectations of our own state and society. Thus, the actual requirements vary widely. A good citizen in Soviet Russia of the 1930s was a person whose first loyalty was to the Communist Party. The test of good citizenship in a totalitarian state is this: Are you willing to subordinate all personal convictions and even family loyalties to the dictates of political authority, and to follow the dictator’s whims no matter where they may lead? In marked contrast are the standards of citizenship in constitutional democracies, which prize and protect freedom of conscience and speech. Where the requirements of the abstract good citizen—always defined by the state—come into conflict with the moral compass of actual citizens, and where the state seeks to obscure or obliterate t.

1. Chapter 10. Political Socialization: The Making of a Citizen
Learning Objectives
· 1Describe the model citizen in democratic theory and explain
the concept.
· 2Define socialization and explain the relevance of this concept
in the study of politics.
· 3Explain how a disparate population of individuals and groups
(families, clans, and tribes) can be forged into a cohesive
society.
· 4Demonstrate how socialization affects political behavior and
analyze what happens when socialization fails.
· 5Characterize the role of television and the Internet in
influencing people’s political beliefs and behavior, and evaluate
their impact on the quality of citizenship in contemporary
society.
The year is 1932. The Soviet Union is suffering a severe
shortage of food, and millions go hungry. Joseph Stalin, leader
of the Communist Party and head of the Soviet government, has
undertaken a vast reordering of Soviet agriculture that
eliminates a whole class of landholders (the kulaks) and
collectivizes all farmland. Henceforth, every farm and all farm
products belong to the state. To deter theft of what is now
considered state property, the Soviet government enacts a law
prohibiting individual farmers from appropriating any grain for
their own private use. Acting under this law, a young boy
reports his father to the authorities for concealing grain. The
father is shot for stealing state property. Soon after, the boy is
killed by a group of peasants, led by his uncle, who are
outraged that he would betray his own father. The government,
taking a radically different view of the affair, extols the boy as
a patriotic martyr.
Stalin considered the little boy in this story a model citizen, a
hero. How citizenship is defined says a lot about a government
and the philosophy or ideology that underpins it.

2. The Good Citizen
Stalin’s celebration of a child’s act of betrayal as heroic points
to a distinction Aristotle originally made: The good citizen is
defined by laws, regimes, and rulers, but the moral fiber (and
universal characteristics) of a good person is fixed, and it
transcends the expectations of any particular political regime.*
Good citizenship includes behaving in accordance with the
rules, norms, and expectations of our own state and society.
Thus, the actual requirements vary widely. A good citizen in
Soviet Russia of the 1930s was a person whose first loyalty was
to the Communist Party. The test of good citizenship in a
totalitarian state is this: Are you willing to subordinate all
personal convictions and even family loyalties to the dictates of
political authority, and to follow the dictator’s whims no matter
where they may lead? In marked contrast are the standards of
citizenship in constitutional democracies, which prize and
protect freedom of conscience and speech.
Where the requirements of the abstract good citizen—always
defined by the state—come into conflict with the moral compass
of actual citizens, and where the state seeks to obscure or
obliterate the difference between the two, a serious problem
arises in both theory and practice. At what point do people
cease to be real citizens and become mere cogs in a machine—
unthinking and unfeeling subjects or even slaves? Do we obey
the state, or the dictates of our own conscience?
This question gained renewed relevance in the United States
when captured “illegal combatants” were subjected to
“enhanced interrogation techniques”—an Orwellian euphemism
for torture—during the Bush administration’s war on terror
following the 9/11 attacks. One prisoner was waterboarded 183
times (strapped to a board with towels wrapped around his head
while water was poured slowly onto the towels until he
smothered).* Other harsh interrogation methods were also used.
Politics and Pop Culture Zero Dark

3. Chapter 6. The Totalitarian Model: A False Utopia
Learning Objectives
· 1Define totalitarianism.
· 2Describe the role of ideology in totalitarian states.
· 3Identify the three most infamous totalitarian rulers and how
they earned that reputation.
· 4Describe the three developmental stages in the life of a
totalitarian state.
· 5Determine the value of studying totalitarianism even though
the world’s worst examples of totalitarian rule have passed into
the pages of history.
A new and more malignant form of tyranny
called totalitarianism reared its ugly head in the twentieth
century. The term itself denotes complete domination of a
society and its members by tyrannical rulers and imposed
beliefs. The totalitarian obsession with control extends beyond
the public realm into the private lives of citizens.
Imagine living in a world in which politics is forbidden
and everything is political—including work, education, religion,
sports, social organizations, and even the family. Neighbors spy
on neighbors and children are encouraged to report “disloyal”
parents. “Enemies of the people” are exterminated.
Who are these “enemies“? Defined in terms of
whole categories or groups within society, they typically
encompass hundreds of thousands and even millions of people
who are “objectively” counterrevolutionary—for example, Jews
and Gypsies (Romany) in Nazi Germany,
the bourgeoisie (middle class) and kulaks (rich farmers) in
Soviet Russia, and so on. By contrast, authoritarian
governments typically seek to maintain political power (rather
than to transform society) and more narrowly define political
enemies as individuals (not groups) actively engaged in
opposing the existing state.
Why study totalitarianism now that the Soviet Union no longer
exists? First, communism is not the only possible form of
totalitarian state. The examples of Nazi Germany and Fascist

4. Italy are reminders that totalitarianism is not a product of one
ideology, regime, or ruler. Second, totalitarianism is an integral
part of contemporary history. Many who suffered directly at the
hands of totalitarian dictators or lost loved ones in Hitler’s
Holocaust, Stalin’s Reign of Terror, Mao’s horrific purges, or
other more recent instances of totalitarian brutality are still
living. The physical and emotional scars of the victims remain
even after the tyrants are long gone. Third, totalitarian states
demonstrate the risks of idealism gone awry. Based on a
millenarian vision of social progress and perfection that cannot
be pursued without resort to barbaric measures (and cannot be
achieved even then), they all have failed miserably as
experiments in utopian nation-building. Finally, as we will see,
totalitarianism remains a possibility wherever there is great
poverty, injustice, and therefore the potential for violence and
turmoil—recent examples include Iran, North Korea, and Burma
(Myanmar).
One of the lessons of 9/11 is that extremism remains a fact of
political life in the contemporary world. It can take many
malignant forms. Terrorism is one; totalitarianism is another.
This chapter demonstrates clearly that totalitarianism and terror
go hand in hand.
The Essence of Totalitarianism
Violence is at the core of every totalitarian state—at its worst,
it assumes the form of indiscriminate mass terror and genocide
aimed at whole groups, categories, or classes of people who are
labeled enemies, counterrevolutionaries, spies, or saboteurs.
Mass mobilization is carried out through a highly regimented
and centralized one-party system in the name of an official
ideology that functions as a kind of state religion. The state
employs a propaganda and censorship apparatus far more
sophisticated and effective than that typically found in
authoritarian states. As the late sociologist William Kornhauser
wrote in a highly acclaimed study, “Totalitarianism is limited
only by the need to keep large numbers of people in a state of
constant activity controlled by the elite.”*

5. Totalitarian