Partisanship is a socially derived choice. In this statement, we draw together two divergent theoretical sources: a socialized understanding of humans and a perspective that emphasizes persons as beings that seek to make reasoned decisions. Our perspective denies that social groups subsume individuals; people do more than simply act as reflections of their social categories and locations. As important, persons are also not “free floating atoms” (to recall Marx's criticism of liberal theory). People reason, but they do not necessarily maximize expected utility or make the objectively correct choices. Instead, they employ subjective or bounded rationality, seeking to do the best they can with the intellectual and informational means available to them.