Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-mzp66 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-06T10:57:29.133Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Resurgent Mass Partisanship: The Role of Elite Polarization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2002

Marc J. Hetherington
Marc J. Hetherington*
Affiliation:
Bowdoin College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

For the most part, scholars who study American political parties in the electorate continue to characterize them as weak and in decline. Parties on the elite level, however, have experienced a resurgence over the last two decades. Such a divergence between elite behavior and mass opinion is curious, given that most models of public opinion place the behavior of elites at their core. In fact, I find that parties in the electorate have experienced a noteworthy resurgence over the last two decades. Greater partisan polarization in Congress has clarified the parties’ ideological positions for ordinary Americans, which in turn has increased party importance and salience on the mass level. Although parties in the 1990s are not as central to Americans as they were in the 1950s, they are far more important today than in the 1970s and 1980s. The party decline thesis is in need of revision.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 95 , Issue 3 , September 2001 , pp. 619 - 631
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2001

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

Aldrich, John H. 1995. Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Party Politics in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aldrich, John H., Berger, Mark M., and Rohde, David W.. 1999. “The Historical Variability in Conditional Party Government, 1877– 1986.” Paper presented at Conference on the History of Congress, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, January 14–15.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. 2000. “Partisanship and Voting Behavior. 1952–1996.” American Journal of Political Science 44 (January): 35–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paul Allen, Beck. 1997. Party Politics in America. 8th ed. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Brady, Henry E., Herron, Michael, Mebane, Walter, Jr., Skehon, Jasjeet, Shotts, Kenneth W., and Wand, Jonathan. 2001. “Law and Data: The Butterfly Ballot Episode.” PS: Political Science & Politics 34 (March): 59–70.Google Scholar
Brody, Richard A. 1991. Assessing the President: The Media, Elite Opinion, and Public Support. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burden, Barry C., and Kimball, David C.. 1999. “A New Approach to the Study of Ticket Splitting.” American Political Science Review 92 (September): 533–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burns, Nancy, Kinder, Donald R., Rosenstone, Steven J., Sapiro, Virginia, and the National Election Studies. 2001. National Election Studies, 2000: Pre-/Post-Election Study [data set]. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Political Studies [producer and distributor].Google Scholar
Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E., and Stokes, Donald E.. 1960. The American Voter. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Carmines, Edward G., and Stimson, James A.. 1989. Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craig, Stephen C. 1985. “The Decline of Partisanship in the United States: A Reexamination of the Neutrality Hypothesis.” Political Behavior 7 (March): 57–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delli Carpini, Michael X., and Keeter, Scott. 1996. What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
DeSart, Jay A. “Information Processing and Partisan Neutrality: A Reexamination of the Party Decline Thesis.” Journal of Politics 57 (August): 776–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dionne, E. J., Jr. 1991. Why Americans Hate Politics. New York: Touchstone.Google Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert S., MacKuen, Michael B., and Stimson, James A.. 1998. “What Moves Macropartisanship: A Response to Green, Palmquist, and Schickler.” American Political Science Review 92 (December): 901–12.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P. 1992. “An Era of Divided Government.” Political Science Quarterly 107 (Autumn): 387–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P. 1996. Divided Government. 2d ed. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.Google Scholar
Graber, Doris A. Mass Media and American Politics. 5th ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press.Google Scholar
Green, Donald P., Palmquist, Bradley, and Schickler, Eric. 1998. “Macropartisanship: A Replication and Critique.” American Political Science Review 92 (December): 883–900.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, Donald P., Palmquist, Bradley, and Schickler, Eric. 2000. “The Coming Democratic Realignment.” PS: Political Science & Politics 33 (June): 199–200.Google Scholar
Hetherington, Marc J. 1999. “The Effect of Political Trust on the Presidential Vote: 1968–96.” American Political Science Review 93 (June): 311–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hibbing, John R., and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse. 1995. Congress as Public Enemy: Public Attitudes Toward American Political Institutions. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hinich, Melvin J., and Munger, Michael C.. 1994. Ideology and the Theory of Political Choice. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keefe, William J. 1998. Parties, Politics, and Public Policy in America. 8th ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press.Google Scholar
Keith Bruce, E., Magleby, David B., Nelson, Candice J., Orr, Elizabeth, Westlye, Mark C., and Wolfinger, Raymond E.. 1992. The Myth of the Independent Voter. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Key, V. O. 1966. The Responsible Electorate. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, David C. 1997. “The Polarization of American Parties and Mistrust of Government.” In Why People Don't Trust Government. ed. Nye, Joseph S., Jr., Zelikow, Philip D., and King, David C.. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pp. 155–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Konda, Thomas M., and Sigelman, Lee. 1987. “Public Evaluations of the American Parties, 1952–1984.” Journal of Politics 49 (August): 814–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luskin, Robert C. 1987. “Measuring Political Sophistication.” American Journal of Political Science 31 (November): 856–99.Google Scholar
Luskin, Robert C. N.d. “From Denial to Extenuation (and Finally Beyond): Political Sophistication and Citizen Performance.” In Thinking about Political Psychology. ed. Kuklinski, James H.. New York: Cambridge University Press. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
MacKuen, Michael B., Erikson, Robert S., and Stimson, James A.. 1989. “Macropartisanship.” American Political Science Review 83 (December): 1125–42.Google Scholar
Markus, Gregory B. 1988. “The Impact of Personal and National Economic Conditions on the Presidential Vote: A Pooled Cross-Sectional Analysis.” American Journal of Political Science 32 (January): 137–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mermin, Jonathan. 1999. Debating War and Peace: Media Coverage of U.S. Intervention in the Post-Vietnam Era. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Warren E. 1998. “Party Identification and the Electorate of the 1990s.” In The Parties Respond: Changes in American Parties and Campaigns. 3d ed., ed. L. Sandy Maisel. Boulder, CO: Westview. Pp. 109–27.Google Scholar
Mondak, Jeffrey J. 1999. “Reconsidering the Measurement of Political Knowledge.” Political Analysis 8 (1): 57–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nie, Norman H., Verba, Sidney, and Petrocik, John R.. 1979. The Changing American Voter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Page, Benjamin I. 1978. Choices and Echoes in Presidential Elections: Rational Man and Electoral Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Page, Benjamin I., and Shapiro, Robert Y.. 1992. The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in Americans’ Policy Preferences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Pomper, Gerald M. 2001. “The Presidential Election.” In The Election of 2000. ed. Pomper, Gerald M.. New York: Chatham House. Pp. 125–54.Google Scholar
Poole, Keith T. 1998. “Recovering a Basic Space from a Set of Issue Scales.” American Journal of Political Science 42 (July): 954–93.Google Scholar
Poole, Keith T., and Rosenthal, Howard. 1997. Congress: A Political-Economic History of Roll Call Voting. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Popkin, Samuel L. 1994. The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Price, Vincent, and Zaller, John. 1993. “Who Gets the News? Alternative Measures of News Reception and Their Implications for Research.” Public Opinion Quarterly 57 (Summer): 133–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rhode, David W. 1991. Parties and Leaders in the Postreform House. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rosenstone, Steven J., Behr, Roy L., and Lazarus, Edward H.. 1996. Third Parties in America: Citizen Response to Major Party Failure. 2d ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Saad, Lydia. 2000. “Gore's Image Slipping as Election Contest Drags On.” Gallup Poll News Release. December 6.Google Scholar
Sapiro, Virginia, Rosenstone, Steven J., Miller, Warren E., and the National Election Studies. 1997. 1948–1996 Cumulative Data File [data set]. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Political Studies [producer and distributor].Google Scholar
Schattschneider, E. E. 1975. The Semisovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America. 2d ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.Google Scholar
Sniderman, Paul M., Brody, Richard A., and Tetlock, Philip E.. 1991. Reasoning and Choice: Explorations in Political Psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stanga, John E., and Sheffield, James F.. 1987. “The Myth of Zero Partisanship: Attitudes Toward the American Political Parties.” American Journal of Political Science 31 (November): 821–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wattenberg, Martin P. 1984. The Decline of American Political Parties, 1952–1980. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wattenberg, Martin P. 1990. The Decline of American Political Parties, 1952–1988. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wattenberg, Martin P. 1994. The Decline of American Political Parties, 1952–1992. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wattenberg, Martin P. 1996. The Decline of American Political Parties, 1952–1994. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wattenberg, Martin P. 1998. The Decline of American Political Parties, 1952–1996. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Zaller, John. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.