A Reputational Theory of Party Identification and Policy Reasoning

Sniderman, Paul M.; Stiglitz, Edward H.

doi:10.23943/princeton/9780691154145.003.0002

Cited by 46 publications

(71 citation statements)

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“…Partisan identity has occupied a prominent role in political behavior since The American Voter (Campbell et al 1960). These identities influence policy attitudes through a number of processes, including priming, cue-taking, framing, projection, and dissonance reduction (Alvarez and Brehm 2002;Feldman 1988;Goren 2005;Green, Palmquist, and Schickler 2002;Sniderman and Stigliz 2012). We expect that party identities will influence ideological congruence due to the differing sentiments toward the conservative and liberal labels in contemporary American politics: the former being viewed more favorably than the latter (Schiffer 2000).…”

Section: Determinants Of Symbolic-operational Inconsistency At the Ismentioning

confidence: 99%

Ideological Labels in America

2014

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This paper extends Ellis and Stimson's (2012) study of the operational-symbolic paradox using issue-level measures of ideological incongruence based on respondent positions and symbolic labels for these positions across 14 issues. Like Ellis and Stimson, we find that substantial numbers-over 30 percent-of Americans experience conflicted conservatism. Our issue-level data reveal, furthermore, that conflicted conservatism is most common on the issues of education and welfare spending. In addition, we also find that 20 percent of Americans exhibit conflicted liberalism. We then replicate Ellis and Stimson's finding that conflicted conservatism is associated with low sophistication and religiosity, but also find that it is associated with being socialized in a post-1960s generation and using Fox News as a main news source. Finally, we show the important role played by identities, with both conflicted conservatism and conflicted liberalism linked with partisan and ideological identities, and conflicted liberalism additionally associated with ethnic identities.

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Section: Determinants Of Symbolic-operational Inconsistency At the Ismentioning

confidence: 99%

Ideological Labels in America

2014

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“…3 First, potential candidates draw on this reputation to estimate their likelihood of winning. Sniderman and Stiglitz (2012) show that candidates receive a reputational premium if they take a position that is consistent with the policy outlook of their party, and those who are positioned to run for office use the party's reputation to evaluate their own chance of winning. Second, potential candidates rely on the party's reputation to assess their future policy impact and their prospective influence in the legislative chamber (Fenno 1973).…”

Section: A Party Fit Explanation For Polarization In Congressmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Party Fit is the congruence between a candidate's ideology and the ideological reputation of the party delegation to which she would belong upon election. The party's ideological reputation is about "what the party stands for-and acts on-in terms of policy" (Aldrich and Freeze 2011, 186), and it gives meaning to its label and distinguishes the party from its opponent (Grynaviski 2010;Snyder and Ting 2002;Sniderman and Stiglitz 2012). While a party's ideological reputation matters in clear ways for the kinds of policies it pursues, scholars have paid less attention to how this reputation matters for the inclusion and exclusion of political candidates in the electoral process.…”

Section: A Party Fit Explanation For Polarization In Congressmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3 First, potential candidates draw on this reputation to estimate their likelihood of winning. Sniderman and Stiglitz (2012) show that candidates receive a reputational premium if they take a 3 Potential candidates can learn about the party's reputation through a variety of ways, such as polls, the media, and past candidates, but the ideological makeup of the party delegation is the best measure of the party's reputation. What is important is that this reputation provides different information than just knowing the ideology of the district.…”

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Ideological Moderates Won’t Run: How Party Fit Matters for Partisan Polarization in Congress

Thomsen

2014

The Journal of Politics

109

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Scholars have focused on elite-level and mass-level changes to explain partisan polarization in Congress. This article offers a candidate entry explanation for the persistence of polarization and the rise in asymmetric polarization. The central claim is that ideological conformity with the party-what I call Party Fit-influences the decision to run for office, and I suggest that partisan polarization in Congress has discouraged ideological moderates in the pipeline from pursuing a congressional career. I test this hypothesis with a survey of state legislators and with ideology estimates of state legislators who did and did not run for Congress from 2000 to 2010. I find that liberal Republican and conservative Democratic state legislators are less likely to run for Congress than those at the ideological poles, though this disparity is especially pronounced among Republicans. The findings provide an additional explanation for recent patterns of polarization in Congress. This article contributes to the polarization literature by offering a candidate entry explanation that highlights ideological variation in the types of candidates who run for Congress.The central claim is that ideological conformity with the party's ideological reputation-what I call Party Fit-influences the decision to run for office. A party's ideological reputation conveys information about the type of candidate that belongs in the party, and potential candidates draw on this reputation to determine if they can achieve their electoral and policy goals and to decide whether to run for office. The Party Fit hypothesis suggests that in the contemporary political context, partisan polarization in Congress has discouraged ideological moderates in the political pipeline from pursuing a congressional career. I test this hypothesis with survey data of the perceptions of state legislators (Maestas et al. 2006;Stone et al. 2004) article focuses on the self-selection mechanism. However, the argument does not preclude a role for parties, and it is likely that party recruitment also shapes perceptions of Party Fit. In addition, the theoretical expectations apply to both incumbent and non-incumbent candidates, but because replacement processes have been central to the rise in polarization, I focus on the latter, and more specifically, on non-incumbents who are well situated to run for Congress.There are many reasons to expect that potential candidates rely on the party's reputation to determine if they can achieve their electoral and policy goals (Fenno 1973; Mayhew 1974). 3 First, potential candidates draw on this reputation to estimate their likelihood of winning. Sniderman and Stiglitz (2012) show that candidates receive a reputational premium if they take a 3 Potential candidates can learn about the party's reputation through a variety of ways, such as polls, the media, and past candidates, but the ideological makeup of the party delegation is the best measure of the party's reputation. What is important is that this reputation provides diffe...

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“…If partisanship is stable Hajnal and Lee (2011, 20) note "informational environments" are one of three key factors in determining whether an individual will affiliate with a party and which party that might be. Recent studies on partisanship seem to borrow from both the Michigan and the Downsian schools of thought (Hajnal and Lee 2011;Sniderman and Stiglitz 2012). Grofman, Wayman, and Barreto (2009, 71) suggest that "pitting" the traditionalist and revisionist approaches against each other is "counterproductive".…”

Section: Contextual Effects and Latino Partisanshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Local Political Context of Latino Partisanship

Fernandez

Dempsey

2017

J. Race Ethnicity Politics

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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 foreignborn, 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.

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A Reputational Theory of Party Identification and Policy Reasoning

Cited by 46 publications

References 0 publications

Ideological Labels in America

Ideological Labels in America

Ideological Moderates Won’t Run: How Party Fit Matters for Partisan Polarization in Congress

The Local Political Context of Latino Partisanship

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