Changing Sides or Changing Minds? Party Identification and Policy Preferences in the American Electorate

Carsey, Thomas M.; Layman, Geoffrey C.

doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00196.x

Cited by 404 publications

(326 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…5. Past work has also relied on political sophistication (Carsey and Layman 2006;Zaller 1992) and education (Gillion, Ladd, and Meredith 2015) to distinguish among engaged partisans. Our findings are robust to alternative measures of "engaged partisans" (see Figures 2-4, online appendix).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a result, the gender gap in party identification doubled between the 1970s and the 1990s (Norrander and Wilcox 2008). Moreover, party sorting is most prevalent among citizens who are politically aware and engaged (Carsey and Layman 2006;Zaller 1992); consequently, the partisan gender gap is largest among this subset of partisans (Gillion, Ladd, and Meredith 2015). For example, Abramowitz (2010) finds a 6-point gender gap in partisanship among citizens with low levels of political engagement compared with a 20-point gap among those with high levels of engagement.…”

Section: Gender Gaps In Public Opinion and Partisanshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

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American Party Women

Barnes

Cassese

2016

Political Research Quarterly

109

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ArticleTraditionally, women were more politically conservative than men. Yet, in the early 1980s, women began realigning, shifting to the left of men and reversing the gender gap in developed democracies across the globe (BoxSteffensmeier, De Boef, and Lin 2004;Inglehart and Norris 2003). Today, women in the United States are more likely to identify with the Democratic Party, vote for Democratic Party candidates, and hold liberal positions on social issues. Although scholars have devoted considerable attention to understanding the gender gap in public opinion, existing research focuses almost exclusively on average differences between men and womenemphasizing women's liberal tendencies and defining women's political identity almost entirely in liberal terms. While women's greater average liberalism is well established empirically, approximately one in four women identify with the Republican Party-a figure that translates into millions of American women who buck this liberal trend (Deckman 2016). Because existing research has focused on average differences between men and women, we know little about sources of heterogeneity among women.Does the gender gap extend to the Republican Party, with Republican women holding more liberal views than their male counterparts? To date, most research about Republican women has focused on the elite level, investigating factors like party structure, activists and donors, conservative women's groups, and candidates for political office (Cooperman and Crowder-Meyer 2015;Thomsen 2015). Comparatively little research has considered the attitudes and issue preferences of Republican women in the electorate. 1 In recent years, the United States has seen a rise in high-profile Republican women running for office and the development of a conservative women's movement (Schreiber 2008(Schreiber , 2014. The surge in conservative appeals to women, coupled with the increased salience of and polarization on "women's issues"-for example, the Mommy Wars and the Republican War on Women-requires that scholars revisit the conventional wisdom about women's political identities.Building on the burgeoning body of research on partisan sorting, we develop expectations regarding the intersection between gender and party. Theories of partisan sorting suggest that women and men sort themselves into the party that best represents their views-such that the AbstractResearch on the gender gap in American politics has focused on average differences between male and female voters. This has led to an underdeveloped understanding of sources of heterogeneity among women and, in particular, a poor understanding of the political preferences of Republican women. We argue that although theories of ideological sorting suggest gender gaps should exist primarily between political parties, gender socialization theories contend that critical differences lie at the intersection of gender and party such that gender differences likely persist within political parties. Using survey data from the 2012 American National Election ...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Gender Gaps In Public Opinion and Partisanshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

American Party Women

Barnes

Cassese

2016

Political Research Quarterly

109

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show abstract

“…Carsey and Layman 2006;Goren 2005;Highton and Kam 2011;Milazzo et al 2012). However, because the data we analyse is time-series cross-sectional, we instead assay the simpler task of estimating the extent to which either of these processes is taking place -i.e.…”

Section: Model Specificationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Partisan Sorting and Niche Parties in Europe

Adams¹,

Ezrow²,

Leiter³

2012

West European Politics

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“…In recent decades, clearer distinctions between the platforms of the major parties have increased the proportion of the electorate who identify with a party. (Abramowitz and Saunders 1998;Carsey and Layman 2006) This is now so pronounced that in the US, party loyalty heavily shapes one's place of residence, one's church and even one's religious denomination. (Bishop and Cushing 2008;Putnam and Campbell 2010) With fewer 5 floating voters and a more polarized electorate comes a concern over the size and endogenous growth potential of each party's base.…”

Section: The American Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%