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PARTYIDENTIFICATION,
REALIGNMENT,AND PARTY
VOTING: BACK TO THE BASICS
WARREN E. MILLER
Arizona State University
he argumentis presentedfor definingparty identificationby the root question,
"Generallyspeaking,do you usually think of yourselfas a Republican,a Democrat,an
independent,or what?"Withthis definitionalbase, the partisanbalancebetweenDemocratsand Republicansbetween1952 and 1980shows no evidenceof realignmentoutside
the South, belying the implicationsof the Markus-Converseand Fiorinaanalyses that
suggest volatility in responseto short-terminfluences.It also appearsthat the correlation betweenparty identificationand voter choicesfor presidentare very constantover
time in the South as well as outside the South. Party line voting by party identifiers
varies by region and party but did not decreasebetween1952 and 1988.
a nationalparty realignmentprecededthe
election of 1984. I shall also question the
conclusion that dealignmenthas reduced
the relevance of party identificationfor
the vote choice. Finally,in pursuingthese
conclusions I shall question some revisionist argumentsconcerningthe impact
of short-terminfluenceson party identification.
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also to createan indicatorthat would differentiate among degrees of "partisanship"or "partisancoloration."Withhindsight, it now seemsthat the effortto maximize the versatility of an operational
measure blurred the clarity of the basic
concept of identificationwith a political
party. On the one hand, going beyondthe
root question to differentiateadditional
degrees of partisanship muddled the
dimensionalityof the resultingmeasure.It
introducedintransitivityinto a presumed
continuum.Most importanthere, it also
created indicators of partisanship that
were reflectiveof short-terminfluencesof
preferencesfor issues or for candidatesas
well, perhaps, as variations in the relatively enduringsense of partisanpolitical
self that is the explicitheartof the concept
of identification(Brody1978;Keithet al.
1986; Miller1991).
The significance of attending to
"details"of measurementwhen analyzing
party identification has recently been
forcefullyarguedby Converseand Pierce.
They emphasizethat there are "two elementswhich have been absolutelycentral
to the whole notion of party identification: an extendedtime horizon and some
engagementof partisanfeelingswith selfidentity. . . . These two elements ...
imply ... that numerousforms of partisan feelingsmay be experiencedby an individual, and reportedupon to investigators, which do not constitutethe possession of a partyidentificationas such"(emphasis added; Converseand Pierce 1987,
143). In this exercisewe have set aside the
differentiationof independentleaners.We
have done so in part becausein the original interview sequence the independent
leaners clearly deny a "temporallyextended self-identity" as Democrat or
Republican.It is also truethat the followup question, "Do you think of yourselfas
closer to the Republicanor Democratic
party?"does not attemptto elicit a qualified or limited sense of an "enduring
engagementof partisanfeelingswith self-
558
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The HistoricalRecord
The second major structural component of my analysis is the decisionto exploit the full 36-year time series array of
National Election Studies presidential
election study data, 1952-88. Examining
the full sweep of the period covering 10
elections provides a historical context
essential to the analysis of party realignment, as well as to the simplestudy of aggregateindicatorsof stabilityand change
throughtime.
SubgroupDifferences
The thirdelementin my strategyof inquiry is to consider, more or less in
tandem, several strandsof evidence that
are usually presented in isolation, one
from the other, in the literature.To this
end I shall "disaggregate"the electorate
and examinesuch constituentsegmentin
the presence of all other segments; the
parts will sum to the whole, but I will be
able to assess the contribution of each
part to the whole.
ElectoralParticipation
My firstdisaggregationseparatesvoters
fromnonvoters.I shallnote that the party
identifications of nonvoters among
various subgroupsin the electoratediffer
from the party identificationsof voters in
the same subgroups.I shall also note that
combining the two often obscures patterns that characterizevoters alone. This
must certainlymeanthat analysesrelating
aggregatenational distributionsof party
559
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The Distribution of
Party Identification
Somewhat arbitrarily,I first draw attention to evidence related to party
realignment and the regional contrast,
South and North, depicted among white
voters in Table1. Betweenthe electionsof
1952 and 1980, outside the South, neither
560
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ElectionYear
Votersb
1952
1956
1960
1964
1968
1972
1976
1980
1984
1988
% Distribution
1952
1988
Nonvoters
1952
1956
1960
1964
1968
1972
1976
1980
1984
1988
% Distribution
1952
1988
Men
South
Women
Nation
Blacks
All
4
3
1
10
3
1
3
3
-10
-9
3
2
3
6
4
0
-3
5
-3
-7
57
57
58
39
28
21
25
3
5
-3
54
43
43
39
39
23
14
21
19
23
52
36
30
75
87
68
70
80
73
80
15
12
15
32
22
13
12
15
5
4
41
30
38
36
8
11
9
13
4
10
100
100
24
14
10
31
8
12
-4
0
7
-2
22
-4
20
47
18
16
12
24
8
-1
49
53
44
49
21
19
16
28
20
8
50
46
59
35
27
29
48
18
13
26
43
41
30
69
71
55
52
60
52
43
39
24
34
48
32
24
24
24
17
14
19
21
27
29
9
14
24
20
20
17
100
100
aEachentryis the proportionof Democraticidentifiers(strongplusweak)minus(-) theproportionof Republicansidentified(strongplus weak). A negativesign indicatesa Republicanplurality.
bVotersdefinedas "validatedvoters"in 1964, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988;in all otheryears the definitionis provided by the respondents'self-reportsin the postelectioninterview.
561
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The GenderGap
The possible unitarynatureof regional
factors capable of producing such party
realignmentamong Southernwhite male
voters is initially reflectedin the parallel
562
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Bivariate
Partiala
1952
1956
1960
1964
1968
1972
1976
1980
.69
.67
.68
.57
.69
.52
.69
.73
.64
.65
.60
.48
.55
.43
.64
.63
1984
.74
.65
1988
Mean
.75
.67
.68
.60
aPartial correlationwith controls on race, education, gender, religion, income, and union
membership.
Party Voting
The more generalconclusionthat there
has been no across-timedecreasein the
extent to which the national presidential
vote is a party vote is neitherchallenged
nor furtherilluminatedby our disaggregation of voters by gender, region, or
race. Yearin and year out, women have
been no more likely than men to cast a
party vote nor to defect and cross party
lines to vote for a president.After 1960,
the black vote was as unwaveringly
Democraticas were blackvoters'partisan
loyalties. And within regional comparisons, as with the others, party voting in
the 1980s was every bit as common-or
uncommon-as it had been in the 1950s.
Votingin line with one'spartyin 1984and
1988 was as common as it had been in
1952 and 1956.
565
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