Party identification: Unmoved mover or sum of preferences?

Abstract

Are party identifications relatively fixed features on the political landscape in the United States and elsewhere? If they are relatively fixed, do identifications move substantive issue preferences, perceptions of candidates, and perceptions of the link between candidates and issues? Early studies in the United States answered these questions in the affirmative. The track record for other systems is spotty, and each question occasioned repeated controversy in the decades since the 1960s. Much of the apparent lability and cross-national variation in party ties can be laid at the feet of measurement error, but not all. The claim that party identification moves other features on the political landscape is remarkably robust.