Communist or conservative? It may be in your genes

Political party identification (PID) is among the most studied concepts in modern political science. Scholars have long held that PID was the result of socialisation factors, including parental socialisation.

The possibility that partisan identification could be transmitted genetically rather than socially was not considered and largely left untested.

Using quantitative genetic models, Peter K. Hatemi, assistant professor in  political science at the University of Iowa (U-I) and colleagues examined the sources of party identification and the intensity of that identification.

Together with recent examinations of political attitudes and vote choice, their findings  begin to provide a more complete picture of the source of partisanship and the complex  nature of the political phenotype, said an Iowa varsity release.

These findings were published recently in the Political Research Quarterly, the journal of the Western Political Science Association.