Migration and Partisan Change

As Democratic Party attachment and support for Democratic candidates has begun to grow in the South, existing theories designed to explain Republican growth—whether based on race relations, economic growth, or cultural conservatism—fare poorly. The author advances a new theory—Movers and Stayers theory—to explain this recent growth in Democratic support. This chapter includes a broad outline of the theory—one focused on population growth’s role in the expansion of Democratic support—and an explanation of the dynamics that boost progressivism in high-growth areas and inhibit its development in declining communities. The theory highlights the role of the distinctive progressivism of movers on the political attitudes of stayers in their new homes, and stayers in the communities they have left. The theory explains why community decline results in different political responses from whites and people of color, and it highlights the waning significance of Key’s “black belt” hypothesis.

Voter Loyalty

This chapter focuses on voter loyalty, looking at the barriers to entry that challenger parties face, most notably the strength of party attachments to dominant parties. First, it explores the development of party membership, which is the most formal expression of an attachment to a party. Second, it considers subjective measures of party attachment, which show cross-national volatility, but also clear signs of loosening ties. Third, the chapter studies actual behavior—namely, voter volatility, which captures individual-level party switching between elections. Here one sees that voters in the countries examined have become much more willing to switch parties. Finally, the chapter highlights the importance of different barriers to entry by comparing British and Danish case studies. Overall, the evidence suggests that voters are becoming more like consumers and more willing to switch if there is something more appealing on offer.

Examining Citizens’ Impressions of Negativity During U.S. Senate Campaigns

Chapter 6 presents the results of a national survey experiment conducted during the 2014 senatorial elections that validates central elements of the tolerance and tactics theory of negativity. First, people with low levels of tolerance for negativity are more likely to see incivility in negative messages and view negative messages as less usefulcompared to citizens who tolerate negative campaigning more easily. Second, the importance of tolerance for negativity holds up, even when controlling for important political predispositions, such as party attachment and attitudes about the issues. These findings demonstrate that tolerance for negativity is different from people’s partisan and policy profile. Third, the importance of tolerance for negativity is critical during the throes of the campaign as well as after the campaign has ended and all votes are tallied. These results indicate that tolerance for negativity is not a transient phenomenon active only during electoral campaigns.

Does Party Trump Ideology? Disentangling Party and Ideology in America

Are people conservative (liberal) because they are Republicans (Democrats)? Or is it the reverse: people are Republicans (Democrats) because they are conservatives (liberals)? Though much has been said about this long-standing question, it is difficult to test because the concepts are nearly impossible to disentangle in modern America. Ideology and partisanship are highly correlated, only growing more so over time. However, the election of President Trump presents a unique opportunity to disentangle party attachment from ideological commitment. Using a research design that employs actual “conservative” and “liberal” policy statements from President Trump, we find that low-knowledge respondents, strong Republicans, Trump-approving respondents, and self-described conservatives are the most likely to behave like party loyalists by accepting the Trump cue—in either a liberal or conservative direction. These results suggest that there are a large number of party loyalists in the United States, that their claims to being a self-defined conservative are suspect, and that group loyalty is the stronger motivator of opinion than are any ideological principles.

Elections Activate Partisanship across Countries

It has long been argued that elections amplify partisan predispositions. We take advantage of the timing of the cross-national post-election surveys included in the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems to explore the effects that elections have on individuals’ attachments to political parties. Within these surveys, under the assumption that the dates on which respondents are interviewed are assigned independent of factors known to affect partisanship, we are able to identify the causal effects of election salience on partisan attachments. We find strong evidence that election salience increases the probability of one having a party attachment, increases the strength of attachments, and heightens the relationship between partisanship and evaluations of political actors. Empirical explorations of our identifying assumption bolster its validity. Our results substantiate the causal role that elections play in activating partisanship.

Party identification in the wake of the crisis: A nascent realignment?

This chapter presents the first dedicated study of party attachment in Ireland in the wake of the economic crisis. Previous research shows that party identification has historically been an important factor in Irish voting behaviour, though – much like in other democracies – it began to decline from the 1980s onwards. This chapter examines how party attachment has evolved in recent elections. The core question it seeks to answer is whether the electoral turbulence in 2011 and 2016 was simply a symptom of a fundamentally dealigned electorate, or whether we are witnessing a realignment in Irish politics. In other words, has the number of floating voters increased in the wake of the crisis, or have people begun to form new party attachments that are likely to shape elections in the future? The analysis shows that while party attachments were ruptured in 2011 (most notably so in the case of Fianna Fáil), in 2016, by contrast, partisanship increased, and there were some interesting trends among young voters in particular, with many of them beginning to form new allegiances.

Social Networks, Predispositions and Split-Ticket Voting: The Case of the 1990 German Unification Election

When casting a split-ticket ballot, voters in established democracies have strong political predispositions and electoral experience that influence their decision. However, voters in a new democracy, lacking long-term party attachment and experience with democracy, may instead be informed and motivated by their social networks. Using the 1990 Cross-National Election Project German Unification study, I examine which factors predict split-ticket voting for East and West Germans. I find that political disagreement within a social network is more influential for East Germans, while partisan predispositions, particularly party supporter type, play a greater role for West Germans. These findings indicate that, in absence of competition between long-term partisanship and democratic experience, network characteristics may have a profound impact on political decision-making.

The Local Political Context of Latino Partisanship

The question of how partisanship is influenced by exogenous factors has been vigorously debated, yet this debate is less frequently noted in the literature on Latino partisanship. This study analyzes the 2006 Latino National Survey with geographic identifiers to explore how the political context of a county influences Latino partisan self-identification. There are a variety of reasons why the political environment might influence Latinos’ partisan choice. First, a substantial proportion of the adult Latino population in the United States is foreign-born, potentially lessening the influence of parental partisan socialization. Second, increased migration to areas outside the Southwest has exposed Latinos to new and different social, political, and economic environments. Using subgroup analysis, interactive logit models, and regression discontinuity, we find that the local political context influences the party attachment of Latino immigrants in predictable ways. However, for Latinos born in the United States, our analysis does not provide evidence of a causal connection between partisan environment and an individual's partisan identification.