Partisan Ambivalence, Partisan Intensity, and Racial Attitudes: The Impact of Shifting Policy Positions on Partisan Evaluations in the 1960s

Abstract

The concept of ambivalence is important to the study of political psychology and behavior. We examine the causes of partisan ambivalence following the passage of major civil rights legislation to test our argument that the correlates of ambivalence will change following the alteration of long-standing party positions on a highly salient issue. We find support for this hypothesis for White Southerners during this time period—Indeed, our results demonstrate that the strength of one’s partisan attachment is unrelated to partisan evaluations for such individuals immediately following the passage of major civil rights legislation, but is again a predictor by the early 1970s.

Examining Trends in Ideological Identification: 1972–2016

“… 9 While our focus is on the entire electorate, it may be the case that certain subgroups might respond differently to increasingly polarization. While extensively examining this possibility is beyond the scope of this paper, there is increasing evidence the that reaction by white Southerners to polarization is unique (e.g., Hill & Tausanovitch, 2018; Lupton & McKee, 2020; Lupton & Thornton, 2019). We provide descriptive evidence of white Southerners as well as our main models while controlling for white Southerners in the supplementary material (Appendix B). …”