The Reputational Premium

Abstract

This book presents a new theory of party identification, the central concept in the study of voting. Challenging the traditional idea that voters identify with a political party out of blind emotional attachment, this pioneering book explains why party identification in contemporary American politics enables voters to make coherent policy choices. Standard approaches to the study of policy-based voting hold that voters choose based on the policy positions of the two candidates competing for their support. This study demonstrates that candidates can get a premium in support from the policy reputations of their parties. In particular, the book presents a theory of how partisans take account of the parties' policy reputations as a function of the competing candidates' policy positions. A central implication of this theory of reputation-centered choices is that party identification gives candidates tremendous latitude in their policy positioning. Paradoxically, it is the party supporters who understand and are in synch with the ideological logic of the American party system who open the door to a polarized politics precisely by making the best-informed choices on offer.

Moral Power: How Public Opinion on Culture War Issues Shapes Partisan Predispositions and Religious Orientations

“…Second, we have presented some of the clearest evidence to date that party id is grounded deeply in issues, albeit a narrow subset of issues. Whereas some studies show that the influence of issues on party is confined to those who care about a given issue and know where the parties stand (Carsey and Layman 2006;Sniderman and Stiglitz 2012), our work suggests that most people ground their partisan identities in judgments about the frontline issues in the culture war. Third, our findings complement an emerging line of innovative research which shows that partisan and ideological predispositions systematically affect religious orientations (Patrikios 2008;Hout and Fischer 2014).…”

Core Political Values and the Long-Term Shaping of Partisanship

“… 37 This is a particularly interesting test of the relevance of values, as partisanship has been argued by some to be a more important heuristic for less politically aware voters who do not want to expend the extensive costs in time and cognitive involvement required to make sense of politics. In comparison with uninformed voters, politically aware citizens are more interested in politics, follow debates, and are more likely to update their partisanship in line with their values (Sniderman and Stiglitz 2012; Zaller 1992). On this account, there should be an interaction between the level of political sophistication and the direction of influence.…”

The Scope of Partisan Influence on Policy Opinion

“…One set of accounts suggests few limitations on partisan influence, predicting that mass partisans will assimilate elite positions as their own (Zaller, ) and that pressure to support copartisan politicians will overpower other considerations when they evaluate policy proposals (Cohen, ; Rahn, ). Opposing studies offer a more constrained view of elite influence with party supporters weighing other information along with partisan cues (Boudreau & MacKenzie, ; Bullock, ; Peterson, ) and, while tolerating divergent position taking from copartisan elites, not adopting these elite‐endorsed views as their own preferred outcome (Fiorina et al, ; Sniderman & Stiglitz, ).…”

“…5). It has clear applications to policy support and offers a way to square prior evidence in which cues increase support for specific policy proposals (e.g., Boudreau & MacKenzie, ; Bullock, ), while also demonstrating a limited ability to change the underlying policy preferences of party supporters (Sniderman & Stiglitz, ; Appendix S1 in the online supporting information). If this mechanism holds, it places a key limit on the scope of the influence exerted by partisan elites.…”

“…New evidence is needed to distinguish these alternatives. Existing research on partisan cue‐taking either measures support for particular elite‐endorsed policies (Bullock, ; Cohen, ; Nicholson, ) or individuals’ preferred outcomes in a policy domain (Sniderman & Stiglitz, ; Appendix S1 in the online supporting information). This necessitates a study with both measures.…”