Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T08:33:48.205Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Political Independence in America, Part I: On Being an Independent Partisan Supporter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Jack Dennis
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

With the decline in popular attachment to the two major parties in the United States since the mid-1960s, collective political independence has risen. Using new survey questions introduced in 1980, this article employs alternative measures of independence to reassess the phenomenon of independence in America. These new measures give us fresh insights beyond what we had using only the traditional measures. One casualty of this new approach is the portrait of the Independent given by The American Voter. This portrait appears seriously misleading, given that it is those who deny being either partisan or Independent who fit that portrait – not Independents per se. And the most politically involved voters turn out to be Independent Partisan Supporters; not simple partisans.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , January 1988 , pp. 77 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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

1 See Dennis, Jack, ‘Changing Public Support for the American Party System’, in Crotty, William J., ed, Paths to Political Reform (Lexington, Mass.: Heath, 1980), pp. 35–66Google Scholar; Miller, Warren E., Miller, Arthur H. and Schneider, Edward J., American National Election Studies Data Sourcebook (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1980). p. 81Google Scholar; and King, Anthony, ‘Whatever is Happening to the British Party System?’ PS, 15 (1982), 10–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also see Nie, Norman H., Verba, Sidney and Petrocik, John R., The Changing American Voter (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976)Google Scholar; and Crewe, Ivor, Särlvik, Bo and Alt, James, ‘Partisan Dealignment in Britain 1964–1974’, British Journal of Political Science, 7 (1977), 129–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Burnham, Walter Dean, Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics (New York: Norton, 1970).Google Scholar

3 Dennis, Jack, ‘Support for the Party System by the Mass Public’, American Political Science Review, 60 (1966), 600–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and also ‘Trends in Public Support for the American Party System’, British Journal of Political Science, 5 (1975). 187–230.Google Scholar

4 Miller, , Miller, and Schneider, , American National Election Studies Data Sourcebook, pp. 80–1.Google Scholar

5 Keith, Bruce E., Magleby, David R., Nelson, Candice J., Westlye, Elizabeth Orr. Mark and Wolfinger, Raymond E., ‘The Myth of the Independent Voter’, paper delivered at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, 1977Google Scholar, and published in the British Journal of Political Science. 16 (1986), 155–86Google Scholar as ‘The Partisan Affinities of Independent “Leaners”’; and ‘Further Evidence on the Partisan Affinities of Independent “Leaners”’, paper delivered at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, 1983.Google Scholar

6 See, for example, Huckshorn, Robert J. and Bibby, John F., ‘State Parties in an Era of Political Change’, in Fleishman, Joel L., ed., The Future of American Political Parties (New York: American Assembly, 1982). pp. 70–100.Google Scholar

7 See the sceptical observations of Epstein, Leon D. in Political Parties in Western Democracies (New York, Praeger, 1967), pp. 7–8Google Scholar; and King, Anthony, ‘Political Parties in Western Democracies: Some Skeptical Reflections’, Polity, 1 (1969), 111–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 See Dennis, Jack, ‘The Child's Acquisition of Partisanship and Independence’, paper delivered at the Western Political Science Association Annual Meeting, San Diego, 1982Google Scholar; and ‘Preadult Learning of Political Independence: Media and Family Communication Effects’, Communication Research, 13 (1986), 401–33.Google Scholar Also see Minns, Daniel, ‘Changes in Childhood and Adolescent Motivations and Values about Voting’, unpublished paper, Department of Political Science, Case Western Reserve University, 1982Google Scholar; and Jennings, M. Kent and Niemi, Richard G., Generations and Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Lowell, A. Lawrence, ‘Oscillations in Politics’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 12 (1898), 69–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Merriam, Charles E. and Gosnell, Harold F., The American Party System (New York: Macmillan, 1949), p. 196.Google Scholar

11 Campbell, Angus and Miller, Warren E., ‘The Motivational Basis of Straight and Split Ticket Voting’, American Political Science Review, 51 (1957), 293–312CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and DeVries, Walter and Tarrance, V. Lance, The Ticket-Splitter: A New Force in American Politics (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1972).Google Scholar

12 Key, V. O. Jr., The Responsible Electorate (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Daudt, H., Floating Voters and the Floating Vote (Leiden: Stenfert Kroese, 1961)Google Scholar; and Converse, Philip E., ‘Information Flow and the Stability of Partisan Attitudes’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 26 (1962), 578–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Dobson, Douglas and St Angelo, Douglas, ‘Party Identification and the Floating Vote: Some Dynamics’, American Political Science Review, 59 (1975), 481–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Keith, et al. , ‘The Myth of the Independent Voter’Google Scholar; Petrocik, John R., ‘An Analysis of Intransitivities in the Index of Party Identification’, Political Methodology, 1 (1974), 31–47Google Scholar; Valentine, David C. and Van Wingen, John R., ‘Partisanship, Independence, and the Partisan Identification Question’, American Politics Quarterly, 8 (1980), 165–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Shively, W. Phillips, ‘The Nature of Party Identification: A Review of Recent Developments’, in Pierce, John C. and Sullivan, John L., eds, The Electorate Reconsidered (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1980), pp. 219–36Google Scholar; LeBlanc, Hugh and Merrin, Mary Beth, ‘Independents, Issue Partisanship and the Decline of Party’, American Politics Quarterly, 7 (1979), 240–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Weisberg, Herbert, ‘Party Identification: A Multidimensional Conceptualization’, Political Behavior, 2 (1980), 33–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Keith, et al. , ‘The Myth of the Independent Voter’.Google Scholar

16 Petrocik, , ‘An Analysis of Intransitivities’.Google Scholar

17 Knoke, David, Change and Continuity in American Politics: The Social Bases of Political Parties (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1976)Google Scholar; Brody, Richard, ‘Change and Stability in the Components of Partisan Identification’, DEA News (Spring, 1977), 13–18Google Scholar; LeBlanc, and Merrin, , ‘Independents, Issue Partisanship’.Google Scholar

18 A subcommittee of the 1980 NES Study Committee developed new measures in the area of partisanship. The members of the subcommittee were Richard Brody, Herbert Weisberg and the present author.

19 For analyses of the variations on the party supporter theme in Europe and elsewhere, see Budge, Ian, Crewe, Ivor and Farlie, Dennis, eds, Parly Identification and Beyond (New York: Wiley, 1976), Chaps 2–5.Google Scholar

20 See Fiorina, Morris P., ‘An Outline for a Model of Party Choice’, American Journal of Political Science, 21 (1977), 601–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for more extensive treatment of this possible form of partisan self-image.

21 See Wattenberg, Martin P., The Decline of American Political Parties: 1952–1980 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard, 1984)Google Scholar for an analysis of the possible extent of such growing indifference.

22 See Dennis, ‘Support for the Party System’, and ‘Trends in Public Support’.Google Scholar

23 Berelson, Bernard R., Lazarsfeld, Paul F. and McPhee, Willian N., Voting (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1954), p. 27.Google Scholar

24 Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E. and Stokes, Donald E., The American Voter (New York: Wiley, 1960), p. 143.Google Scholar

25 Key, , The Responsible Electorate, especially pp. 7–8, 91–106.Google Scholar

26 Agger, Robert E., ‘Independents and Party Identifiers: Characteristics and Behavior in 1952’, in Burdick, Eugene and Brodbeck, Arthur J., eds, American Voting Behavior (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1959), pp. 308–29.Google Scholar

27 RePass, David, ‘Issue Salience and Party Choice’, American Political Science Review, 65 (1971), 389–400, at p. 398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 Burnham, , Critical Elections, p. 127.Google Scholar

29 Pomper, Gerald, Voters' Choice: Varieties of American Electoral Behavior (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1975), p. 33.Google Scholar

30 Asher, Herbert, Presidential Elections and American Politics (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey, 1980), p. 129.Google Scholar

31 Asher, , Presidential Elections, p. 127.Google Scholar

32 The authors who came closest to finding a parallel path to the present one through these problems of reconceptualization and measurement are John R. Van Wingen and David C. Valentine. See especially their ‘Biases in the Partisan Identification Index as a Measure of Partisanship’, Department of Political Science, University of Southern Mississippi, 1980Google Scholar, which uses the 1976 NES data.

33 See Weisberg, , ‘A Multidimensional Conceptualization’.Google Scholar

34 See Figure 4. The natural scoring on these items was reversed in computing the Index of Political Involvement.

35 For more discussion of how to measure party system support, see Dennis, Jack, ‘Support for the Party System by the Mass Public’, ‘Trends in Public Support for the American Party System’, ‘Changing Public Support for the American Party System’, in Crotty, William J., ed., Paths to Political Reform (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1980) pp. 35–66Google Scholar; and ‘Public Support for the Party System, 1964–1984’, paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, 08 1986.Google Scholar

36 For a useful introduction to this technique, see Klecka, William R., Discriminant Analysis (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 Weisberg, , ‘A Multidimensional Conceptualization’.Google Scholar

38 That Independent Partisan Supporters are relatively positive towards the party system is shown in some of the data from the Pilot Study that preceded the P1 survey. (The Pilot Study was conducted in 1979.) Pilot Study respondents were asked to agree or disagree, along a seven-point scale, with the following: ‘Democracy works best where competition between parties is strong’. Among Independent Partisan Supporters 59 per cent agreed very strongly (point 7 on the 7-point scale). This is in contrast to Ordinary Partisans (23 per cent). Among the Unattached and Ordinary Independents the proportions were 26 and 27 per cent respectively.