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The Dynamics of Aggregate Partisanship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier  and
Renée M. Smith
Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier
Affiliation:
The Ohio State University
Renée M. Smith
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
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Abstract

Despite extensive research on party identification, links between partisanship at the individual and aggregate level have largely been ignored. This leaves a gap in our understanding of the dynamics of aggregate partisanship. To remedy this, we identify a set of ideal types that capture the essential arguments made about individual-level party identification. We then combine the behavioral assumptions for each type with existing results on statistical aggregation to deduce the specific temporal pattern that each type implies for aggregate levels of partisanship. Using new diagnostic tests and a highly general time series model, we find that aggregate measures of partisanship from 1953 through 1992 are fractionally integrated. Our evidence that the effects of a shock to aggregate partisanship last for years—not months or decades—challenges previous work by party systems theorists and students of “macropartisanship.” Our arguments and empirical evidence provide a conceptually richer and more precise basis for theories of issue evolution or endogenous preferences—in which partisanship plays a central role.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 90 , Issue 3 , September 1996 , pp. 567 - 580
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1996

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