STRUCTURE

Introduction – A short introduction to political attitudes (15 words)                     

Body – Explain political attitudes and factors influencing political attitudes (120 words)

Conclusion – Mention a short conclusion  (15 words)

ANSWER

Political attitudes define the attitude of a person towards politicians, political parties or political ideologies. The political attitude may be different of an apolitical person from political person.

Political Attitude is the way of thinking in terms of political gains and losses. It is belief and action system that decides a action fruitfulness based on electoral gains. Political attitude on positive side can lead to showing zero tolerance toward corruption, pro-poor, welfare for weaker sections, listening to public grievances, but on negative side political attitude can take shape of regionalism, communalising public to polarise them during election.

Factors affecting Political Attitude

There is a multitude of factors that affect the political attitudes. Some of these are enumerated below:

• Religion: Religion is one of the strongest factors that shape a person’s moral conviction. Killing cow for Hindus is a sin and that defines the political attitude of a devout Hindu. Same sex marriage is forbid in Christianity and thus a devout Christian will oppose such marriage.
• Age: While younger people are more liberal / radical; older people are more conservative. Any political change is generally welcome by young and this is one example of how it affects the political attitudes.
• Economic Status: Generally, poor align with communist or socialist political ideology, while rich align with capitalism and free market economic policy.
• Residence: Local problems always shape the political attitudes of the people. This is one of the reasons that regional parties do good in state elections.
• Family / Gender: Family is another strong factors that shapes the political attitude. Generally, children inherit their attitude from their parents. The environment in family helps build up of their political attitude. Similarly, gender also plays role in shaping the political attitude. Females generally favour a government which promises savings in their household budget.
• Race/ Caste/ Society: Racism is one of the most important factors that shapes political attitudes in west. In India, political attitude is heavily influenced by caste factor.
• Education: The education, particularly curriculum plays an important role in getting the attitude developed. Most of us have been taught in schools that India is oldest civilization. This may not be correct but little importance is given to Mesopotamia and Middle East. Similarly, most of us were never taught about History of China during our schooling. The world history curricula of the schools in India has deliberately omitted China’s history from the syllabus. At the same time, schools in China teach their kids about greatness of Mao’s political ideology. It’s impression is so deep on their political attitude that most of them don’t understand how democracy works.