Partisan Cues and the Media: Information Flows in the 1992 Presidential Election

Dalton, Russell J.; Beck, Paul; Huckfeldt, Robert

doi:10.2307/2585932

Cited by 287 publications

(224 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…The data, 11 Kahneman 2011. 12 E.g., Bullock 2011Dalton, Beck, and Huckfeldt 1998;Kam 2005;Mondak 1993;Rahn 1993;Squire and Smith 1988. 13 Kahneman 2011.…”

Section: Ideological Asymmetry Between the Partiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ideological Asymmetry of the American Party System

Lelkes¹,

Sniderman²

2014

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

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Most Americans support liberal policies on the social welfare agenda, the dominant policy cleavage in American politics. Yet a striking feature of the US party system is its tendency to equilibrium. How, then, does the Republican Party minimize defection on the social welfare agenda? The results of this study illustrate a deep ideological asymmetry between the parties. Republican identifiers are ideologically aware and oriented to a degree that far exceeds their Democratic counterparts. Our investigation, which utilizes cross-sectional, longitudinal and experimental data, demonstrates the role of ideological awareness and involvement in the Republicans' ability to maintain the backing of their supporters even on issues on which the position of the Democratic Party is widely popular. It also exposes two mechanisms, party branding and the use of the status quo as a focal point, that Democrats use to retain or rally support for issues on the social welfare agenda on which the Republican Party's position is widely popular. THE IDEOLOGICAL ASYMMETRY OF THE AMERICAN PARTY SYSTEMFor a half-century or more, the positions of the Democratic Party on the dominant electoral agenda in American politics have been far more popular than those of the Republican Party. How, we ask, has the Republican Party induced its supporters to continue to oppose policies that are not only widely popular in the electorate as a whole, but from which many of them would benefit?The answer to this question, our results indicate, calls attention to a neglected feature of the contemporary US party system: the ideological asymmetry between the two parties. Republican identifiers, we show, are ideologically aware and oriented to a degree that far exceeds their Democratic counterparts. Their identification with the ideological outlook of their partyindeed, their appreciation of their party as a proponent of an ideological outlook -helps fortify their opposition even to widely popular social welfare policies.The objective of this twofold study is threefold. The first is to test the hypothesis of partisan asymmetry in ideological awareness and orientation. The second objective is to explicitly evaluate counter-hypotheses. The most compelling counter-hypothesis, in our judgment, is self-interest. Republican supporters, it may reasonably be argued, oppose increases in government spending for social welfare programs not because of ideological conservatism, but out of a concern that the spending increases will come from their pockets in higher taxes. The third objective follows from results confirming that Republicans are strikingly more likely than Democrats to be ideologically aware and engaged. How, then, does the Democratic

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“…The data, 11 Kahneman 2011. 12 E.g., Bullock 2011Dalton, Beck, and Huckfeldt 1998;Kam 2005;Mondak 1993;Rahn 1993;Squire and Smith 1988. 13 Kahneman 2011.…”

Section: Ideological Asymmetry Between the Partiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ideological Asymmetry of the American Party System

Lelkes¹,

Sniderman²

2014

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

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“…Lieske (1989) shows substantial and signi¯cant e®ects on vote totals of candidates. Dalton, Beck, and Huckfeldt (1998) show modest but signi¯cant e®ects of editorial content on vote preference. MacKuen and Coombs (1981)¯nd strong correlations between endorsements and voter defection rates, but do not control for other factors, such as incumbency.…”

mentioning

confidence: 90%

“…A premise of this study, which we will revisit toward the end of this paper, is that endorse-1 Dalton, Beck, and Huckfeldt (1998)¯nd no evidence of correlation between editorial content and reporting.…”

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confidence: 96%

The Orientation of Newspaper Endorsements in U.S. Elections, 1940--2002

Ansolabehere

2006

QJPS

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“…Instead, cognitive effects like agenda-setting, priming, and framing dominated the research agenda (Iyengar/Reeves 1997). However, in recent years a number of studies have convincingly demonstrated that the possibility of persuasive media influences on electoral choices must seriously be reconsidered (Bartels 1993;Zaller 1992Zaller , 1996Joslyn/Ceccoli 1996;Curtice/Semetko 1994;Curtice 1997;Dalton et al 1998;Schmitt-Beck 2000;Curtice et al 2002). While mass communication at all times attracted considerable interest among political scientists, although mostly 'beyond the paradigm of voter persuasion' (Nimmo/Swanson 1990), personal communication was neglected almost entirely for decades (Sheingold 1973).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%