How History Explains Intergenerational Agreement on Political Views in Germany

This paper examines how historical attitudes and agreements within families on the interpretation of history contribute to the convergence of political views, specifically focusing on families with migratory backgrounds. The political socialization literature has underscored the significance of parental political agreement, family politicization, family history, and personal experiences of children, but often overlooks the crucial influence of views on history for understanding family dynamics. My study aims to fill this gap by investigating the relation between parent-offspring similarity in historical views and intergenerational political convergence on the hugely salient questions of support for the populist right in Germany and attitudes towards the Russian war in ukraine. The research explores various family-related characteristics, such as migratory background, family composition, religion, and engagement in transnational activities. Leveraging my own unique online survey, I explore the attitudes of young adults with a Russian migratory background in comparison to the national reference population across two generations, focusing on Germany. The innovative sampling design involves dyads, capturing both young adults and their parents from the same family, creating a multigenerational sample of 2,000 respondents.