Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-zzh7m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T15:13:31.988Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Institutional Context, Cognitive Resources and Party Attachments Across Democracies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2017

John D. Huber
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027. e-mail: jdh39@columbia.edu
Georgia Kernell
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027. e-mail: gck2001@columbia.edu
Eduardo L. Leoni
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027. e-mail: ell2002@columbia.edu

Abstract

This paper develops and tests arguments about how national-level social and institutional factors shape the propensity of individuals to form attachments to political parties. Our tests employ a two-step estimation procedure that has attractive properties when there is a binary dependent variable in the first stage and when the number of second-level units is relatively small. We find that voters are most likely to form party attachments when group identities are salient and complimentary. We also find that institutions that assist voters in retrospectively evaluating parties—specifically, strong party discipline and few parties in government—increase partisanship. These institutions matter most for those individuals with the fewest cognitive resources, measured here by education.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Political Methodology 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achen, Christopher H. 1992. “Social Psychology, Demographic Variables, and Linear Regression: Breaking the Iron Triangle in Voting Research.” Political Behavior 14(3): 195211.Google Scholar
Achen, Christopher H. 2002. “Parental Socialization and Rational Party Identification.” Political Behavior 24(2): 151170.Google Scholar
Alesina, Alberto, Devleeschauwer, Arnaud, Easterly, William Russell, Kurlat, Sergio, and Wacziarg, Romain. 2003Fractionalization.” Journal of Economic Growth 8: 155194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Almond, Gabriel Abraham, and Verba, Sidney. 1963. The Civic Culture; Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry. 2002. “Beyond the Running Tally: Partisan Bias in Political Perceptions.” Political Behavior 24(2): 117150.Google Scholar
Borjas, George J. and Sueyoshi, Glenn T. 1994. “A two-stage estimator for probit models with structural group effects.” Journal of Econometrics 64 (1–2): 165182.Google Scholar
Bowler, Shaun, Lanoue, David J. and Savoie, Paul. 1994. “Electoral Systems, Party Competition and Strength of Partisan Attachment: Evidence from Three Countries.” Journal of Politics 56(4): 9911007.Google Scholar
Brader, Theodore, and Tucker, Joshua A. 2002. “Pathways to Partisanship in New Democracies: Evidence from Russia.” Unpublished manuscript, Princeton University.Google Scholar
Brader, Theodore, and Tucker, Joshua A. 2003. “It's Nothing Personal? The Appeal of Party Leaders and the Development of Partisanship in Russia.” Unpublished manuscript, Princeton University.Google Scholar
Butler, David, and Stokes, Donald E. 1976. Political Change in Britain. New York: St. Martin's.Google Scholar
Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E., and Stokes, Donald E. 1960. The American Voter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Carey, John M. 2004. “Political Institutions, Competing Principals, and Party Unity in Legislative Voting.” Unpublished manuscript, Dartmouth University.Google Scholar
Carey, John M., and Shugart, Matthew Soberg. 1995. “Incentives to Cultivate a Personal Vote: A Rank Ordering of Electoral Formulas.” Electoral Studies 14(4): 417439.Google Scholar
Center for Political Studies. 2003. The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. CSES Module 1 Full Release. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan. (Available from www.cses.org).Google Scholar
Converse, Philip E. 1969. “Of Time and Partisan Stability.” Comparative Politics 2: 139171.Google Scholar
Converse, Philip E., and Dupeux, Georges. 1962. “Politicization of the Electorate in France and the United States.” Public Opinion Quarterly 26: 1.Google Scholar
Converse, Philip E., and Pierce, Roy. 1992. “Partisanship and the Party System.” Political Behavior 14(3): 239259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crewe, Ivor. 1976. “Party Identification Theory and Political Change in Britain.” In Party Identification and Beyond, eds. Budge, Ian, Crewe, Ivor, and Farlie, Dennis. New York: Wiley, pp. 3361.Google Scholar
Dalton, Russell. 2002. Citizen Politics: Public Opinion and Political Parties in Advanced Western Democracies, 3rd ed. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers/Seven Bridges.Google Scholar
DeBoef, Suzanna, and Kellstedt, Paul M. 2004. “The Political (and Economic) Origins of Consumer Confidence.” American Journal of Political Science 48(4): 633649.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erikson, Robert S., Mackuen, Michael B., and Stimpson, James A. 2002. The Macro Polity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fay, Michael P., and Graubard, Barry I. 2001. “Small-Sample Adjustments for Wald-Type Tests Using Sandwich Estimators.” Biometrics 57: 11981206.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P. 1981. Retrospective Voting in American National Elections. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Gelman, Andrew, Carlin, John B., Stern, Hal S., and Rubin, Donald B. 2004. Bayesian Data Analysis, 2nd ed. Boca Raton, FL: Chapman and Hall/CRC.Google Scholar
Green, Donald P., Palmquist, Bradley, and Schickler, Eric 2002. Partisan Hearts and Minds: Political Parties and the Social Identities of Voters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Jennings, M. Kent. 1979. “Another Look at the Life Cycle and Political Participation.” American Journal of Political Science 23: 755771.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laakso, M., and Taagepera, R. 1979. “Effective Number of Parties: A Measure with Application to West Europe.” Comparative Political Studies 12: 327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipset, Seymour M., and Rokkan, Stein. 1967. Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Maas, Cora J.M., and Hox, Joop J. 2004. “Robustness Issues in Multilevel Regression Analysis.” Statistica Neerlandica 58(2): 127137.Google Scholar
Mainwaring, Scott. 1999. Rethinking Party Systems in the Third Wave of Democratization: The Case of Brazil. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, Arthur H., and Klobucar, Thomas F. 2000. “The Development of Party Identification in Post-Soviet Societies.” American Journal of Political Science 44(4): 667–86.Google Scholar
Miller, Warren. 1976. “The Cross-National Use of Party Identification as Stimulus to Political Inquiry.” In Party Identification and Beyond, eds. Budge, Ian, Crewe, Ivor and Farlie, Dennis. New York: Wiley, pp. 7788.Google Scholar
Murray, David M., Varnell, Sherri P., and Blitstein, Jonathan L. 2004. “Design and Analysis of Group-Randomized Trials: A Review of Recent Methodological Developments.” American Journal of Public Health 94(3): 423432.Google Scholar
National Election Study (NES). 1996. (Available from www.umich.edu/∼nes.)Google Scholar
Niemi, Richard G., and Weisberg, Herbert F. 2001. Controversies in Voting Behavior, 4th ed. Washington DC: CQ Press.Google Scholar
Ordeshook, Peter C., and Shvetsova, Olga V. 1994. “Ethnic Heterogeneity, District Magnitude, and the Number of Parties.” American Journal of Political Science 38(1): 100123.Google Scholar
Polity IV Project. 2005. “Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800–2003. Marshall, Monty G. and Jaggers, Keith, principle investigators. (Available from www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/polity/.)Google Scholar
Powell, G. Bingham. 2000. Elections as Instruments of Democracy: Majoritarian and Proportional Visions. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Powell, G. Bingham, and Whitten, Guy D. 1993. “A Cross-National Analysis of Economic Voting: Taking Account of the Political Context.” American Journal of Political Science 37(2): 391414.Google Scholar
Raudenbush, Stephen W., and Bryk, Anthony S. 2002. Hierarchical Linear Models: Applications and Data Analysis Methods, 2nd ed., Advanced Quantitative Techniques in the Social Sciences, 1. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Shively, W. Phillips. 1979. “The Development of Party Identification among Adults: Exploration of a Functional Model.” American Political Science Review (73)4: 10391054.Google Scholar
Wallack, Jessica Seddon, Gaviria, Alejandro, and Panizza, Ugo. 2003. “Political Particularism around the World.” World Bank Economic Review 17: 133–43.Google Scholar
Western, Bruce. 1998. “Causal Heterogeneity in Comparative Research: A Bayesian Hierarchical Modelling Approach.” American Journal of Political Science 42(4): 12331259.Google Scholar
Wooldridge, Jeffrey M. 2003. Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Huber et al. supplementary material

Figures

Download Huber et al. supplementary material(File)
File 60.1 KB
Supplementary material: File

Huber et al. Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material

Download Huber et al. Supplementary Material(File)
File 456.5 KB