Partisan hearts and minds : political parties and the social identities of voters

A treatment of party identification, in which three political scientists assert that identification with political parties still powerfully determines how citizens look at politics and cast their ballots. Challenging prevailing views, they build a case for the continuing theoretical and political significance of partisan identities. The authors maintain that individuals form partisan attachments early in adulthood and that these political identities, much like religious identities, tend to persist or change only slowly over time. Scandals, recessions, and landslide elections do not greatly affect party identification; large shifts in party attachments occur only when the social imagery of a party changes, as when African Americans became part of the Democratic Party in the South after the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Drawing on a wealth of data analysis using individual-level and aggregate survey data from the United States and from other countries, this study seeks to offer a new perspective on party identification that will set the terms of discussion for years to come.

In this authoritative study, three political scientists demonstrate that identification with political parties powerfully determines how citizens look at politics and cast their ballots. "Partisan Hearts and Minds is a profound breakthrough in our understanding of partisan loyalties and makes a major contribution to the study of political attitudes and voting behavior."-Paul Abramson, Michigan State University "This book will be influential the moment it appears. It will be the starting point for all further treatments of the topic."-Richard Johnston, University of British Columbia "The grounding of partisanship in social identities is the most important theoretical contribution to the study of partisanship in the last two decades."-Morris P. Fiorina, Stanford University