Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-mwx4w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-03T21:35:58.344Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Does issue importance attenuate partisan cue-taking?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2023

Michael Barber Open the ORCID record for Michael Barber [Opens in a new window]  and
Jeremy C. Pope Open the ORCID record for Jeremy C. Pope [Opens in a new window]
Michael Barber
Affiliation:
Political Science, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA
Jeremy C. Pope*
Affiliation:
Political Science, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA
*
Corresponding author: Jeremy C. Pope; Email: jpope@byu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Are cues from party leaders so important that they can cause individuals to change their own issue positions to align with the party's position? Recent work on the importance of party cues suggests they do, especially given the literature on partisanship as a strong and persistent group identity. However, in this paper we test the limits of those partisan cues. Using a unique two-wave panel survey design we find that the effect of party cues is moderated by the prior level of importance individuals place on an issue. We find that when a person believes an issue area to be more important, party cues are less likely to move that citizen's position, particularly when the cue goes against partisan ideological norms. Our results show evidence that an individual's own issue positions—at least the important ones—can be resilient in the face of party cues.

Keywords

American politicsvoting behavior
Type
Research Note
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , April 2024 , pp. 435 - 443
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Political Science Association

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, CH and Bartels, LM (2016) Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Agadjanian, A (2020) When do partisans stop following the leader?. Political Communication 38, 1–20.Google Scholar
Ansolabehere, S, Rodden, J and Snyder, JM (2008) The strength of issues: using multiple measures to gauge preference stability, ideological constraint, and issue voting. American Political Science Review 102, 215–232.Google Scholar
Asch, SE (1952) Social Psychology. New York, NY: Prentice Hall.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barber, M and Pope, JC (2019) Does party trump ideology? disentangling party and ideology in America. American Political Science Review 113, 38–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolsen, T, Druckman, JN and Cook, FL (2014) The influence of partisan motivated reasoning on public opinion. Political Behavior 36, 235–262.Google Scholar
Campbell, A, Converse, PE, Miller, WE and Stokes, DE (1960) The American Voter. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, GL (2003) Party over policy: the dominating impact of group influence on political beliefs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85, 808–822.Google ScholarPubMed
Converse, P (1964) Ideology and Discontent, The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics. New York, NY: Free Press.Google Scholar
Costa, M (forthcoming) Ideology, not affect: What Americans want from political representation. American Journal of Political Science 65, 342–358.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Druckman, JN, Peterson, E and Slothuus, R (2013) How elite partisan polarization affects public opinion formation. American Political Science Review 107, 57–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Egan, PJ (2013) Partisan Priorities: How Issue Ownership Drives and Distorts American Politics. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, D, Palmquist, B and Schickler, E (2004) Partisan Hearts and Minds: Political Parties and the Social Identities of Voters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Henderson, M (2013) Issue publics, campaigns, and political knowledge. Political Behavior 36, 631–657.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, SJ and Huber, GA (2019) On the meaning of survey reports of roll call “votes”. American Journal of Political Science 63, 611–625.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hillygus, DS and Shields, TG (2008) The Persuadable Voter: Wedge Issues in Presidential Campaigns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huddy, L, Mason, L and Aarøe, L (2015) Expressive partisanship: campaign involvement, political emotion, and partisan identity. American Political Science Review 109, 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyengar, S, Hahn, KS, Krosnick, JA and Walker, J (2008) Selective exposure to campaign communication: the role of anticipated agreement and issue public membership. The Journal of Politics 70, 186–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacks, JZ and Devine, PG (2000) Attitude importance, forewarning of message content, and resistance to persuasion. Basic and Applied Social Psychology 22, 19–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krosnick, JA (1988) Attitude importance and attitude change. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 55, 196–210.Google Scholar
Lavine, H, Sullivan, JL, Borgida, E and Thomsen, CJ (1996) The relationship of national and personal issue salience to attitude accessibility on foreign and domestic policy issues. Political Psychology 17, 293–316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lenz, GS (2012) Follow the Leader? How Voters Respond to Politicians’ Policies and Performance. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mason, L (2018) Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became our Identity. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, JM and Peterson, DAM (2004) Theoretical and empirical implications of attitude strength. The Journal of Politics 66, 847–867.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, JM, Krosnick, JA and Fabrigar, LR (2017) Political Psychology: New Explorations, chapter The origins of policy issue salience: Personal and national importance impact on behavioral, cognitive, and emotional issue engagement. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.Google Scholar
Mullinix, KJ (2015) Partisanship and preference formation: Competing motivations, elite polarization, and issue importance. Political Behavior 38, 383–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mummolo, J, Peterson, E and Westwood, S (2019) The limits of partisan loyalty. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-019-09576-3.Google Scholar
Niemi, RG and Bartels, LM (1985) New measures of issue salience: An evaluation. The Journal of Politics 47, 1212–1220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orr, LV and Huber, GA (2020) The policy basis of measured partisan animosity in the United States. American Journal of Political Science 64, 569–586.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petrocik, JR (1996) Issue ownership in presidential elections, with a 1980 case study. American Journal of Political Science 40, 825–850.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zaller, J and Feldman, S (1992) A simple theory of the survey response: answering questions versus revealing preferences. American Journal of Political Science 36, 579–616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Barber and Pope supplementary material

Barber and Pope supplementary material
Download Barber and Pope supplementary material(File)
File 225.1 KB