Conflict, Fusion, or Coexistence? The Complexity of Contemporary American Conservatism

Abstract

This paper draws on an original survey and on the 2004 NES to explore the complexity of contemporary American conservatism. In both datasets, we find evidence that economic and cultural conservatism stand as distinct strands of conservative attitudes. The original survey also allows us to further explore the role of beliefs about the market in economic conservatism. In the end, we find little support for either liberal hopes of fundamental ideological conflict among conservatives or conservative hopes of ideological fusion. Instead, our data suggests that a particular type of ideological coexistence among economic and cultural conservatives is the norm.

A Dual‐Process Motivational Model of Social and Economic Policy Attitudes

“…Recent findings suggest that political ideology, and policy support in particular, may be represented by at least two dimensions: economic and social Feldman & Johnston, 2009;Treier & Hillygus, 2009;Zumbrunnen & Gangl, 2008). In Feldman and Johnston (2009), for example, traditional conservatism (i.e., conservative on both dimensions) and liberalism (i.e., liberal on both dimensions) accounted for only two of six classes of political ideology, with the remaining four comprising different combinations of economic and social dimensions.…”

“…Recent research detailing the structure of political ideology suggests that they may consist of a combination of social-type attitude content, on the one hand; and economic-type content, on the other (Feldman & Johnston, 2009;Treier & Hillygus, 2009;Zumbrunnen & Gangl, 2008). We use the term social policy attitudes to refer to attitudes toward polices relating to the maintenance of symbolic elements of culture, particular group values, and cultural practices.…”

Ideological Labels in America

“…The first critique is implicit in the observation that Americans' policy preferences are not unidimensional, even in an era of partisan polarization, and are probably best characterized by at least two dimensions, an economic or social welfare dimension and a social, moral, or cultural 6 dimension (Feldman and Johntson 2013, Layman and Carsey 2002, Shafer and Claggett 1995, Treier and Hillygus 2009, Zumbrunnen and Gangl 2008. These two dimensions are only modestly correlated: at 0.30 in Treier andHillygus (2009) and0.21 and0.36 in Feldman andJohnston's (2013) two samples.…”

Measuring Latent Constructs in Nonprofit Surveys with Item Response Theory: The Example of Political Ideology

“…Although it has been shown that political ideology can be measured on multiple dimensions (Feldman and Johnston 2014;Layman and Carsey 2002;Zumbrunnen and Gangl 2008), this study makes use of the most common conceptualization, which is a single dimension along a left-right continuum. The left end of the spectrum is most often defined as the liberal space and is often associated with advocating social change and rejecting inequality, and the right side is associated with conservatism, characterized with rejecting social change and accepting inequality (Jost et al 2003b(Jost et al , 2003a.…”

“…In additional exploration of political ideology, some scholars have explored ideology as a multi-dimensional construct (Feldman and Johnston 2014), particularly among the voting public (Layman and Carsey 2002). In a study of conservative voters, Zumbrunnen and Gangl (2008) found that conservatism was defined by two separate dimensions, cultural and economic. Cultural conservativism is identified as identifying strongly with "traditional values" and religious beliefs, while economic conservativism is related to both a free-market orientation and limited government.…”