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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: [email protected]
Georgia Kernell
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027. e-mail: [email protected]
Eduardo L. Leoni
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027. e-mail: [email protected]

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 

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