Waves 1 through 4 occurred before the general election on May 7, 2015, and wave 7 occurred roughly a year after the election. To model the stability of partisan strength across the election cycle, we tested an auto regressive (AR2) model, regressing each estimate on its prior and lagged prior estimate. Enter your email address below and we will send you your username, If the address matches an existing account you will receive an email with instructions to retrieve your username, By continuing to browse this site, you agree to its use of cookies as described in our, I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of Use, The decline of electoral participation in America, Is anybody listening? Defensive motivation increases with identity strength, leading to the prediction that the strongest partisans will work most actively to increase their party's status, including electoral victory (Andreychick et al., 2009; Ethier & Deaux, 1994; Fowler & Kam, 2007). Two key issues were identified for each party and the rated importance of each issue was combined for that party's identifiers to create a measure of issue importance (see Table S1.3 in the online supporting information). The two approaches diverge, however, in their explanation for the link between partisanship and in‐party voting or political action. A similar, albeit weaker pattern, is observed for wave 7. The full text of this article hosted at iucr.org is unavailable due to technical difficulties. “2014 is going to be an important election for the Moderates. We had expected strongly identified partisans to react most emotionally to status threats, and this prediction was confirmed. Expressive partisanship generates many negative outcomes, including defensive reasoning and hostility toward out‐partisans that are incompatible with the instrumental model. Partisans also evaluate factual outcomes, such as economic indicators, in a more positive light when their party is in power (e.g., Lebo & Cassino, 2007). We address potential concerns emerging from this lack of uniformity at a later point in the article. Instrumental Motivation of Turnout, Partisanship and Political Learning1 Gábor Tóka Central European University, Hungary & University of Oxford, United Kingdom Draft of chapter 10 for Hans-Dieter Klingemann (ed.) We create two measures of affective polarization by subtracting ratings of all parties in the in‐coalition from one's own party and all parties in the out‐coalition from one's own coalition. Definition, Rechtschreibung, Synonyme und Grammatik von 'Partisan' auf Duden online nachschlagen. The survey was conducted some nine months before the election when the outcome was quite uncertain. We focus on several European democracies and contrast the expressive and instrumental models of partisanship. The partisan identity questions elicit considerable variance across countries, but that is partly a function of the inclusion of nonpartisans in the Netherlands (29% who were not an adherent nor attracted to the party but had simply voted for one in the last election) where the average score was quite low. The analysis also contains dummy variables for each party. In the United States, Huddy and colleagues (2015) demonstrated that partisan identity is a more powerful predictor of political engagement than ideological intensity or political issue importance. The partisan identity questions elicit considerable variance across countries, but that is partly a function of the inclusion of nonpartisans in the Netherlands (29% who were not an adherent nor attracted to the party but had simply voted for one in the last election) where the average score was quite low. We (Bankert et al., 2017) developed a measure of partisan identity for inclusion in election studies conducted in the United Kingdom, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Italy based on the Identification with a Psychological Group (IDPG) scale created by Mael and Tetrick (1992; see also Greene, 1999, 2002, 2004). All variables are scaled to range from 0 to 1 (see Table S2.9a in the online supporting information for complete analyses). an online and phone survey panel that is comprised of five waves. We have been able to document the nature of changes in partisan strength in this study because we have access to the fine‐grained BES panel data that included repeat measurement of a multi‐item identity scale. As a test of instrumental partisanship, researchers have contrasted its origins in long standing socioeconomic cleavages with the effects of contemporary forces such as issue proximity and leader evaluations (Dalton & Weldon, 2007; Garzia, 2013). Each condition is interacted with partisan identity strength to determine whether strong partisan identifiers react most emotionally to status threat and reassurance, as predicted by an expressive partisan approach. On one hand, these links could be misestimated in the different nonprobability samples. In contrast, a strong ideological stance consistent with that of one's party decreases the distance between liking of one's own and other left‐right coalition party members in synch with the ideological nature of Swedish party coalitions. Affective Polarization in Sweden (Coalition) (corresponding to Figure 9), Table S2.9a. Moreover, the magnitude of this effect is roughly comparable among Labour and Conservative supporters. Are Americans alone in defensively supporting their political party, ignoring disagreeable facts, distancing themselves from their partisan opponents, and exonerating their party even when it fails? Data: Swedish Citizen Panel (Panel 8, Panel 8‐2). Partisan identity strength thus seems especially powerful in shaping perceptions of political reality when that reality is at least somewhat ambiguous. The link between strong partisanship, vote choice, and political action is a well‐established fact that is consistent with both the instrumental and expressive approaches. Coefficient plot shows ordered probit regression coefficients (dots) and their respective 95% confidence intervals (lines). In contrast to Sweden, ideological intensity is also a positive predictor of motivated reasoning significantly boosting electoral confidence in the Netherlands (see Table S2.5 in the online supporting information).1818 In our past research, we have extended the study of partisan identity to several European democracies and find evidence that partisan identity increases in‐party voting (Bankert et al., 2017). Supplement: Advances in Political Psychology. This evidence is consistent with motivated reasoning and the notion that partisans are less likely to argue against a policy advocated by their party. Please check your email for instructions on resetting your password. I am interested in what other people think about this party. We used a similar approach to construct the reassurance conditions: In the Party Status × Reassurance condition, the blog entry highlights the promising future of the Social Democrats (and the declining status of the Moderates) while in the Issue × Reassurance condition, the blog promises a bright future for “sensible political ideas” that are associated with the Social Democrats without mentioning the party itself. Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache. We refer to partisanship grounded in this type of responsive and informed deliberation as instrumental.11 In support of the expressive model, Miller and Conover (2012) found that a greater number (41%) of American partisans become engaged in politics in order to win an election than to primarily pursue policy or ideological goals (35%). In contrast to other intergroup research paradigms such as realistic group‐conflict theory, social identity theory does not focus on competition over scarce resources as the precursor to identity formation and intergroup conflict. We extend our analysis to Sweden, a multiparty system characterized by coalitional governments aligned along an ideological left‐right dimension. To test the existence of defensive reasoning, electoral confidence was regressed onto partisan identity strength; several other variables were included as controls, including issue intensity (analogous to the ideological intensity measure in the United Kingdom) and dummy variables for each party.1717 We might also expect this kind of animosity to be heightened in two‐party systems or a multiparty system characterized by a strong left‐right dimension on which parties are arrayed and compete. In our past research, we have documented the effects of partisan identity on political action (Bankert et al., 2017; Huddy et al., 2015). Performance pressure: Patterns of partisanship and the economic vote, Group‐level self‐definition and self‐investment: A hierarchical (multicomponent) model of in‐group identification, The aggregated consequences of motivated reasoning and the dynamics of partisan presidential approval, Insecure majorities: Congress and the perpetual campaign, Follow the leader? Affective polarization is not just confined to the U.S. two‐party system, however. The scale measures partisan identity well across its range and in contrast to the traditional single item of partisan strength better identified differing levels of partisan identity across its range. This resulted in 61% who adhered to or were attracted to a political party. We invited 16,130 panelists to take the Panel 8 survey and 9,279 completed it for a completion rate of 64%; 2,000 panelists were invited to complete Panel 8‐2 of which 1,496 answered the survey. We start with the United Kingdom. Obviously, this question is better suited to multiparty systems than the American version because it does not confine the question to just two major parties. From an expressive perspective, if partisan identity strength is affected by short‐term forces, it should revert to prior levels of strength over time consistent with its grounding in stable social factors. In the United States, partisanship is typically measured with a single standard question: “Generally speaking, do you think of yourself as a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent?” Partisans are then asked if they are strong or not so strong partisans and independents whether they are closer to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. In theory, strong emotions such as anger can arise in response to a blocked policy goal or defeated legislation. It is difficult to explain why strong partisan identifiers overestimate their electoral chances in the absence of a defensive motivation to view the party in a positive light. Schickler and Green (1997) analyzed several panel studies in Germany and the United Kingdom and found that partisanship was indeed just as stable in these two European countries as in the United States once measurement error was taken into consideration. To test the existence of defensive reasoning, electoral confidence was regressed onto partisan identity strength; several other variables were included as controls, including issue intensity (analogous to the ideological intensity measure in the United Kingdom) and dummy variables for each party.1717 This resulted in an effective sample of 1,538 respondents for the stability analyses. Finally, the day is arriving when these ideas will once again hold a central place in the leadership of the country.”. Consistent with political reality, the Sweden Democrats, an anti‐immigration party shunned by parties on both the left and right, were least confident that they would form part of a new government. Ultimately, a VVD‐Labour centrist government was formed in November minus the inclusion of any of the minor parties. Partisanship definition is - the quality or state of being partisan : strong and sometimes blind adherence to a particular party, faction, cause, or person. Table 1 provides wording and responses to all eight partisan identity questions included in preelection wave 3 of the British Election Study (BES) (all original item wording is listed in Tables S1.1a and S1.1b in the online supporting information). We adopted this blog paradigm for inclusion in Panel 8 and 8‐2 of the Swedish Citizen Panel. A social identity is a subjective sense of belonging to a group which is internalized to varying degrees, resulting in individual differences in identity strength, a desire to positively distinguish the group from others, and the development of ingroup bias, a preference for one's own group over others (Tajfel, 1981). Predicted levels are calculated while holding issue importance (left) and partisan identity (right) constant. The results of this analysis are shown in a regression coefficient plot (Figure 5; for the complete analysis, see Table S2.4 in the online supporting information). The results of this OLS regression are displayed in Figure 4 separately for Labour and Conservative identifiers. This definition has generated two competing views of partisanship: instrumental and expressive (Arceneaux & Vander Wielen, 2013; Lupu, 2013). In the Netherlands, respondents in the preelection survey were asked if they thought of themselves as an adherent of a political party, if so which party, and whether they would call themselves a very convinced adherent, convinced adherent, or not so convinced adherent. There are numerous possibilities at both the individual, group, and societal level worthy of investigation including party instability, pervasive corruption that erodes trust in parties, individual differences in the ability and desire to affiliate with groups, and finding a party that closely matches one's political and social attributes. Yet there are at least two other reasons for what is often deplored as “partisanship,” and those reasons are worth pondering in the summer before a national election. All variables are scaled to range from 0 to 1 for ease of comparison, except for age, which is measured in decades (see Table S2.7 in the online supporting information for complete analyses). All variables are scaled to range from 0 to 1 for ease of comparison, except for age, which is measured in decades (see Table S2.7 in the online supporting information for complete analyses). Emotions in Sweden – Anger (corresponding to Figure 10), Table S2.9b. Affective polarization in Sweden. In Italy, respondents were asked if there was a political party to which they felt closer than others, and if not whether there was a political party to which they felt a little bit closer. Graph depicts the predicted probability that someone believes their party will be part of the governing coalition based on logistic regression analyses shown in Table S2.5 in the online supporting information. The 2015 British Election Study (Wave 4), the Swedish Citizen Panel (panel 8), the Dutch Parliamentary Election Study (2012), and the 2013 Italian National Election Study (wave 1). In Italy, respondents were asked if there was a political party to which they felt closer than others, and if not whether there was a political party to which they felt a little bit closer. On the 0–10 scale, Labour supporters rated their party at 7.3 and Conservatives at 1.7 on average. Partisan identity has powerful influence on a preference for one's own over other parties within one's left‐right coalition. In a similar vein, Fernandez‐Vazquez (2014) report that voters' perceptions of the party's platform change very slightly when its issue positions change but that this shift falls far short of the magnitude of actual party change. Respondents in the Dutch Parliamentary Election Study, which was conducted just after the 2012 election, were asked whether they thought their party would be included in the government. We examine the determinants of motivated reasoning among all partisans in the Swedish Citizen Panel. Data: 2015 British Election Study online panel (Wave 1, 3, 4, and 7). (2015) experimentally threatened or reassured a respondent's party's position on health care and gay marriage. This analysis makes clear that weak partisans cannot be counted on to vote for the party. In the 2013 ITANES data, more than 50% of Italian respondents reported no party identification, hinting at the power of novice political parties such as Grillo's Five Star Movement to recruit supporters. As someone responds to campaign events and updates their assessment of, and attachment to, the party, the strength of their partisan identity should shift in a more enduring fashion. Wave 4 of the BES (conducted some two months before the May 2015 general election) includes questions on the likelihood that the Conservative and Labour Party will win a majority of votes in the general election. To what extent do politicians muddy the waters by espousing vague issue positions or stressing emotionally laden values and attitudes? This wave entails the partisan identity battery (N = 3,317) as well as other key variables that gauge political‐issue preferences. The instrumental approach to partisanship has dominated political science research since at least the mid-1970s, eclipsing the original conception of partisanship developed by Campbell and colleagues in The American Voter which involved a mix of instrumental beliefs and expressive feelings. These results suggest that both the success of important political issues and party victory increase enthusiasm among partisans. As we evaluate the expressive partisan identity model, it is important to keep in mind that nonpartisans are excluded from the analysis. To corroborate this point, we generated predicted values of affective polarization for the strongly identified partisans among Conservative and Labour Party supporters: On a scale from 0 to 1 whereby 1 indicates the highest level of affective polarization, these two groups of partisans reach a value of 0.98 and 0.97, respectively. Obviously, this question is better suited to multiparty systems than the American version because it does not confine the question to just two major parties. Use the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. (2015) experimentally threatened or reassured a respondent's party's position on health care and gay marriage. The extent to which partisanship reflects agreement with a party's issue stances moves in response to leader performance and reacts to a party's policy successes and failures and remain central concerns for normative democratic theorists. “Partisanship” that concedes no possible rectitude or good will to the other party is obviously problematic; so is the self-righteousness and bullheadedness that help explain congressional gridlock. First, we consider the stability of partisan identity; greater stability is more consistent with the expressive than instrumental account. Despite the considerable instability in political parties and governments during data collection for the ITANES (2011–13), partisan identity measured in early 2011 had a substantial effect on expected in‐party vote in Italy obtained from wave 4 (just prior to the 2013 election). The AR2 model provides a good fit to the data (RMSEA = .06; CFI = .96). In other analyses, we create a four‐wave panel from respondents who completed data in wave 1 (February to March 2014), wave 3 (September to October 2014), wave 4 (March 2015), and wave 7 (April to May 2016). For item wording, see Table S1.2c. Partisan identity strength is the strongest predictor of partisan‐motivated reasoning in Figure 4, which compares the size of regression coefficients for various predictors of electoral confidence (for the complete analysis, see Table S2.3 in the online supporting information). This does not mean that members of the public are paying close attention to issues, however. Electoral involvement is one way in which partisans can defend their party against such potential losses and ensure electoral gains. In the Party Status × Threat condition, supporters read a blog entry praising the electoral chances of the Moderate Party, the main party in the opposing center‐right coalition. Fit Statistics for 4‐Wave Multigroup Measurement Model (BES Data), Table S2.3. The expressive approach to partisanship, grounded in social identity theory, generates the need for a more finely differentiated measure of partisanship that taps partisan identity and does so across a greater range of intensity than typical questions. Ultimately, weak partisanship in Europe and elsewhere is a cause for concern. Partisans also evaluate factual outcomes, such as economic indicators, in a more positive light when their party is in power (e.g., Lebo & Cassino, 2007). This conclusion holds for the United Kingdom, Sweden, and the Netherlands, countries with differing levels of partisanship and differing numbers of major and minor political parties. This finding is potentially at odds with an instrumental model of partisanship in which citizens are expected to hold a more clear‐sighted view of the electoral landscape. But partisans in Sweden also felt this way when key party issues were threatened or bolstered. Going forward, there are a number of unanswered questions that are worthy of future research. In sum, there is evidence of substantial inertia in partisan identity that is more consistent with an expressive than instrumental model of partisanship. Learn about our remote access options. First, the interplay of instrumental and expressive aspects of partisanship requires closer attention. These effects are far weaker than those observed for partisan identity strength. The introduction of a multi‐item partisan identity scale, however, alters that situation and makes it easier to study variation in partisan strength over time and across situations. Nonetheless, it is also clear that the more strongly identified a partisan is with their party the greater their confidence in electoral victory. In the Issue × Threat condition, on the other hand, the blog entry emphasizes that the election will threaten key policies in the Social Democrats' political platform but does not specifically mention the electoral chances of the Social Democrats.