The Intergenerational Transmission of Majority-Group Ties and Their Political Consequences

Abstract

In this study, I highlight an underappreciated catalyst for political socialisation in immigrant societies—the intergenerational transmission of majority ties. Drawing on nine waves of German panel data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries (2011–2022), I demonstrate that the “Germanness” of parental networks shapes youth respondents’ majority-group ties in adolescence, and illustrate how these social inheritances influence the Germanness of adolescent networks during the transition to early adulthood. By Wave 9, when most respondents are in their late 20s, the Germanness of social networks is closely linked to political preferences: native majorities with more German-centric networks are less likely to support left-wing parties, while the inverse is true for most of their immigrant-origin peers. These patterns reflect distinct but complementary mechanisms: for immigrants and their descendants, majority ties signal structural assimilation into “mainstream” political culture and convergence with liberal-cosmopolitan norms; for natives, ethnically diverse social networks reinforce enculturation into progressive political communities. Overall, these findings show that political socialisation operates not only through the transmission of beliefs and cultural orientations, but through the concomitant reproduction of relational environments.