Ideology, Partisanship, and
the New Political Continuum
Robert B. Smith
ournalists, pollsters, and pundits use categories of
political analysis that they do not always clearly
define and whose meanings are ambiguous. To make
sense of the political rhetoric even the informed public
must struggle hard. A single news analysis in the New
York Times used the following ambiguous expressions:
"social conservatism," "economic conservatism,"
"pragmatic conservatives," "doctrinaire conservatives,"
"a presentable conservative," "a centrist or moderate
state," and "painted as a liberal." The Economist adds
to the confusion by defining one vague term by two
others: Republican moderates, mostly from the Northeast, are "gypsy moths"; Democratic moderates, mostly
from the South, are "boll weevils." In Values Matter
Most Ben Wattenberg vilifies liberalism and liberals
but never states which interests differentiate liberals
from conservatives or moderates from extreme liberals or extreme conservatives. He contends that President Bill Clinton's victory in 1992 was due to the
Republicans' inept campaign and Clinton's moderation rather than to his liberalism. He urged Clinton and
other candidates to move to the center if they desired
victory in 1996.
J
When commentators fail to define their analytical
categories clearly, their advice and reports lack specificity. Since junbiguity increases the opportunities for
social infiuence, this lack encourages the use of propagandistic campaign techniques. The application of these
techniques may transform an election from one largely
based on rational discussion of clearly defined issues
and consent to one largely based on advertising and
manipulation. Campaign managers use these techniques, which they have borrowed from advertising and
public relations, to attach highly desirable attributes
to their own candidates and political philosophies and
undesirable attributes to the opposition candidates and
their political philosophies, thus obscuring the basic
issues and confusing the electorate. By reinforcing the
belief that ends justify means, such political advertising undermines the electorate's political values, the
quality of political discourse, and thoughtful political
participation.
To shift the current discourse away from tit-for-tat
attacks, name calling, and positive and negative labeling toward more rational discussions of the costs and
benefits of political and policy choices, an explication
is needed of the meanings of the categories of political
analysis. What are the contemporary meanings, defined
by political interests, of political ideology and current
political partisanship? How are ideology and partisanship interrelated? What interests compose the categories of thenew political continuum of progressives,
liberals, moderate conservatives, and minimal-state
conservatives? How do these categories relate to ideology, partisanship and distrust?
The philosophies of liberalism and conservatism, as
Seymour Martin Lipset has noted, may have failed to
adapt to new circumstances, and the public may not
see viable answers coming from either. However, three
broad domestic interests—economic equity, social
14 / SOCIETY • MARCH/APRIL 1997
equality, and the public's health—which are components, respectively, of the prior politics of class and
status and the more recent politics of health, shape the
platforms of the political parties and now, with the end
of the Cold War, do much to define key aspects of contemporary liberalism and conservatism and the new
political continuum.
The first interest, which pertains to the politics of
social class and the distribution of economic resources.
harks back to the 1930s and President Franklin D.
Roosevelt's New Deal and helps to distinguish liberals, centrists, and conservatives:
1. Economic Equity. With Roosevelt's New Deal,
Harry Truman's Fair Deal, and Lyndon Johnson's Great
Society, progressives, liberals, and Democrats have
favored trade unions, price controls, welfare, and other
governmental regulations and interventions in the
economy that promise to facilitate the establishment of
countervailing power against concentrated economic
power and protect the interests of the poor. Conservatives and Republicans have not favored such policies
and instead have advocated tax cuts. Centiists have
desired a reduced deficit.
Women, people with low family income, and ethnic
minorities—those who most experience inequity—support these governmental interventions.
The second interest, which relates to the status of
dis-esteemed social groups, harks back to President
Truman's desegregation of the Army, President
Johnson's civil and voting rights initiatives, and, circa
the 1960s and early 1970s, the reform-minded New
Politics of the Vietnam era. It pertains to civil, social,
and constitutional rights for African Americans,
women, other ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities,
^. Public Health. Since most progressives andmany
liberals and Democrats are receptive to governmental
activism, they are more likely than conservatives and
Republicans to favor governmental interventions aimed
toward universal access to health care, a healthy environment, and the public's health, especially women's
reproductive choice. Centrists take an intermediate
position.
The issues of public health are rooted in the politics
of resources and rights. Because the environmentally
concerned would use tactics involving governmental
economic interventions and regulation of industry, the
issue of a healthy environment is an extension of the
politics of resources. Because they tend to reside in
unhealthy environments, minorities and the poor are
environmentally concerned. Thus, environmental concem here means the protection ofpeople from unhealthy
environments more than it means the protection of the
environment from people.
Because its comprehensive strategies are guided by
the premise that health care is a right and not a privilege and that universal access should be provided health
care reform is an extension of the politics of rights.
Since minorities, the poor, and youths may lack health
insurance, they support these interventions. The demand for women's freedom to choose whether or not
to abort an unwanted pregnancy is an extension of the
politics of rights to reproductive life. But abortion is
now most clearly an issue of women's mental and physical health—note President Clinton's veto of a bill banning a type of late-term abortion that protects the
woman's life but kills the fetus. (Since the survey did
not cover this topic, the analysis lacks measures of this
variable.)
and defendants in criminal dials:
2. Social Equality. Compared to conservatives and
Republicans, centrists, progressives, liberals, and the
Democratic party outside the South have been more
supportive of governmental interventions favoring the
diverse interests of disfranchised minorities.
The third interest, recentiy crystallized in the 1992
election, is a fundamental component of the new political continuum. It harks back to President Truman's
and Adlai Stevenson's discussions of the environmental issue. Presidents Tmman's and Richard Nixon's
desires for universal health insurance, and the decision
of the Supreme Court in 1973 {Roe v. Wade) that legahzed abortion. It pertains to the public's health—
universal access to health care (especially Medicaid
for the poor and Medicare for the elderiy), a healthy
environment, and women's choice conceming childbeanng or abortion:
Offsetting the positive politics of governmental interventions that aim to augment equity, equality and
health, there is now the negative politics of distnlst—
attacks on a candidate's character and the legitimacy
of the federal govemment. In May 1996, about 72 percent of voters and nonvoters said they seldom or never
trust the govemment to do what is right (League of
Women Voters survey). The advocates of govemmental interventions, though diverse, are less concemed
about the character of a candidate than are those who
oppose such interventions; they are also more likely to
trust the federal govemment:
4. Distrust. Since conservatives and Republicans
desire limited govemment and limits on personal behavior, they are more likely to oppose govemmental
interventions designed to augment equity, equality and
health and, compared to centrists and liberals to distrust candidates who favor such interventions.
IDEOLOGY, PARTISANSHIP. AND THE NEW POLITICAL CONTINUUM / 15
Three hypotheses, based on the preceding theory and
research, shaped expectations about the current election and guided the analyses of ideology, partisanship,
and the new political continuum:
Hypothesis 1: Because progressives, liberals, and
Democrats favor an active federal government and
conservatives and Republicans prefer a limited state,
ideology, partisanship, and vote will correlate strongly
with support for governmental interventions for equity,
equality, and health. Centrists and Independent voters
will support some but not all interventions.
Regarding character. Hypothesis 2: Because conservatives and Republicans stress the moralistic sociocultural issues of family values, crime control,
protection of the fetus, and prayer in the schools; ideology, partisanship, and vote will correlate strongly with
concern about a candidate's character. Conservatives
and Republicans will be more concerned; liberals and
Democrats will be less concerned. Since centrists and
independents are less concerned about moralistic issues than the religious Right, apropos character they
will be more similar to the political Left.
By counting political interests—^the number of kinds
of governmental interventions a voter supports—^researchers can gauge the new political continuum. From
the political Left to the political Right this continuum
ranges from progressives, who, believing that the more
appropriate governmental activism is, the more good
government can do, support three interventions (for
equity, equality, and health); to liberals, who support
any two; to moderate conservatives, who support any
one; and to minimal-state conservatives, who, believing in economic freedom and traditional religious and
moral values, oppose all three:
Hypothesis 3: Because interests define the categories of the new political continuum, these categories
will predict ideology, partisanship, vote, distrust, delegitimation of authority, and perceived fiscal constraint.
Concepts and Indicators. Indicators of a single item
are taken as ingredients of an index to gauge ideology,
partisanship, and evaluations of a candidate's character. To interpret the consequences of these variables and,
therefore, their meanings, I created several indices based
on the apparent content of their constituent indicators.
These indices measure, respectively, the politics of economic equity, the politics of social equality, health care
reform, environmental concern, the politics of public
health, the new political continuum, delegitimation of
governmental authority, and perceived fiscal constraint.
Except for the indicators of delegitimation, for each indicator below, the first alternative is the more liberal
response. Three items compose the index of support for
presidential interventions to augment economic equity:
regulation of industry to protect consumers versus deregulation, economic expansion and jobs versus a larger
deficit, and the protection of U.S. companies and jobs
versus free trade. Three indicators compose the ad hoc
index of support for interventions aimed toward enhancing equality (that is, social, civil, and constitutional
rights): stating that universal access to health care is the
most important aim of reform, being an employed
woman, and being a member of an ethnic minority group.
Two items compose an index of support for comprehensive health care reform: whether the respondent trusts
federal management of health care and says that radical
change is necessary. Two items compose an index of
environmental concern: whether the respondent finds the
environmental record of a firm important for forming
an opinion about it and whether the environment is very
important in deciding what candidate the respondent will
vote for. To form an index of public health politics, the
latter item was combined with the index of some support for health care reform. To create the new political
continuum, each voter's scores (plus or minus) for the
dichotomized measures of support for interventions to
augment equity, equality, and health were summed. Two
items compose the index of delegitimation of governmental authority: in deciding what candidate to vote for,
whether gridlock and crime and drugs were very important factors. Both items tap the voters' perceptions of
governmental ineffectiveness. Delegitimation is associated with concern about character, taxes, the deficit, and
the index of perceived fiscal constraint, which sums the
latter two items.
Social Attributes. The following social attributes,
when used as instrumental variables in the statistical
analysis, can reveal the reciprocal effects of ideology
and partisanship. The first category of each attribute
predicts liberalism. Democratic partisanship, or a vote
for Clinton. Five attributes are formulated as dichotomies: region (those who reside on either coast versus
those in the Middle West or the South); gender (females versus males); employment (paid work versus
not paid); political age (being a first-time voter versus
not); and minority ethnicity (African-American, Hispanic, and so on versus white). Two are formulated as
trichotomies: for age the categories are fifty years or
older, thirty through forty-nine, and eighteen through
twenty-nine; for family income the categories of economic status are less than $30,000, $30,000 through
$49,999, and $50,000 or more.
Statistical Effects. Since the variables are ordinal, to
quantify relationships in the cross-tabulations, I applied
Kendall's measure of ordinal correlation, tau-c (x). I then
16 / SOCIETY • MARCH/APRIL 1997
assigned equal-interval scales to the ordered categories
of the variables and, applying least-squares regression
methods (ordinary and two-stage), I used betas (Bs) to
quantify effects. The quantified relationships I report
are statistically significant at the .05 level of confidence
or better.
In this survey, among the 1,138 valid responses to
the question "For whom did you vote for President—
Bill Clinton, George Bush, or Ross Perot?" about 46.6
percent said Clinton, 19.9 percent said Perot, and 33.5
percent said Bush. These percentages approximate the
actual national distribution of votes, which was about
43.3 percent for Clinton, 19 percent for Perot, and 37.7
percent for Bush. The three candidates fell on a continuum that ranges from Clinton on the political left,
through Perot in the center, to Bush on the political
right. Clinton voters (compared to Bush voters) were
more likely to support interventions to gain equity,
equality, and health, the strongest association. The
strong negative association between votes for Clinton
and the voters' concern about a candidate's character
offset some of the impact of the positive associations.
Political Ideology. To assess political ideology, the
survey asked: "When it comes to politics in general,
do you consider yourself very liberal, somewhat liberal, middle-of-the-road, somewhat conservative, or
very conservative?" Because of small percentages in
the extreme categories (6.5 percent and 11 percent,
respectively), to facilitate the subsequent analysis, I
grouped the categories as liberal, centrist, and conservative. (This change from five categories to three categories does not noticeably change the value of the
correlations that quantify the relationships between
ideology and other variables.) In 1992 there were 8
percent fewer liberals than conservatives—about 29
percent of the voters were liberal, 34 percent were centrist, and 37 percent conservative. In August 1995,
perhaps because of a shift of liberals to a more moderate position (and not because of the difference in polling agencies), the Gallup Poll found that there were 18
percent fewer liberals than conservatives: only 17 percent of the electorate were liberal, 44 percent centrist,
and 35 percent conservative. In June 1996,18 percent
were liberal, 47 percent moderate, and 31 percent conservative (according to a NY Times/CBS poll).
During the presidencies of Roosevelt, Truman, John
Kennedy, and Johnson, liberals had interests in governmental interventions that were designed to augment
economic equity by neutralizing concentrated economic
power and (after Roosevelt) to secure by federal regulations social equality and opportunity for disadvantaged minorities and women. Conservatives had the
opposite interests: minimal government, transfer of
power to the states, and infrequent federal economic
and social interventions.
With the addition of the public health issues, contemporary relationships are similar to those of the past.
Liberals are more likely than conservatives to support
governmental interventions that are intended to augment equity, equality, and health. They are also more
likely to trust a candidate's character, be partisan Democrats, and vote for Clinton.
Centrists have ambivalent interests and their policy
choices are located between those of liberals and conservatives. Concerning equity and equality, the centrists are much closer to the conservatives. Concerning
issues of public health, they are equidistant. Concerning a candidate's character, they are much closer to the
liberals.
Current Partisanship. The survey assessed current
partisanship by asking "Do you consider yourself [now]
to be a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent?"
In 1992 about 40 percent said Democrat, 30 percent
said Independent, and another 30 percent said Republican; there were 10 percent more Democrats than Republicans. In 1995 the two parties were about even: 32
percent of the electorate supported each party; 35 percent were Independent. In May 1996, there were more
Democrats (36 percent) than Republicans (31 percent);
28 percent were Independent {NY Times/CBS poll).
Since no recent realignment of ideology witii partisanship has taken place, current partisanship should have
correlates similar to those for ideology, and it does. Partisanship aligns from left to right, with Independents
having the same pattern as centrists. Democratic partisans support interventions for equity, equality, and health.
They are more likely to trust a candidate's character.
In the classic voting studies partisanship very
strongly predicted vote and, with the exception of votes
for congressional candidates, it still does. Current partisanship is highly consistent (x = .63) with senatorial
vote and presidential vote. Also, Democrats who voted
for Perot were more likely to say they would have voted
for Clinton had Perot not run.
Ideology as a Pivotal Variable. If ideology and not
partisanship is the voter's pivotal evaluative standard,
then ideology should have a stronger effect on partisanship than partisanship has on ideology. Moreover,
since political interests are taken to compose ideology,
differences in political interests should interpret some
of the effect of ideology on partisanship. These ideas
are tested next.
Certain social attributes (residence on either coast,
female gender, employment, and being a first-time voter)
IDEOLOGY, PARTISANSHIP, AND THE NEW POLITICAL CONTINUUM / 17
are determinants of liberal ideology; others (minority
ethnicity, low income, and older age) are determinants
of Democratic partisanship. Because of this pattern, the
variables can be used as instrumental variables in a statistical procedure that can quantify the reciprocal effects
of ideology and partisanship. When I apply this method,
the effect of ideology on partisanship is large (B = .51)
and statistically significant and the effect of partisanship on ideology is much smaller (B = .17) and not statistically significant. Thus, for most voters ideology
and not partisanship is the more pivotal evaluative variable; ideology directly determines partisanship and
evaluations of the candidates and issues.
When the political dispositions—ideology and partisanship—are first included with the seven social attributes as determinants of vote and then excluded from
the regression equation, the resulting difference in the
explained variances (.50 - .08 = .42) reveals why electoral politics can now be turbulent. Voting is not
strongly rooted in these attributes of social structure—
the more malleable political dispositions have stronger effects on vote than do the more stable social
attributes. The electorate is thus susceptible to political advertisements—positive or negative—and to social influence, and voting choices can now be turbulent.
In the contemporary electorate the positive politics
of economic equity, social equality, and public health
and the negative politics of distrust have strong qualitative relationships with ideology. To quantify their
relative importance as aspects of ideology one can look
at the extent to which the zero-order relationship (i.e.,
no control variables) between ideology and partisanship is reduced, when the test factors—concern about
character and the measures of support for governmental interventions—are controlled. This test assumes
that, in terms of causal order, the test factors are antecedent to partisanship and thus either explain or interpret the relationship of ideology with partisanship.
Without controls, the effect (B) of liberalism on Democratic partisanship is .35. The controls for the test factors reduce this effect to .22. The B effects suggest that
the recent politics of public health is the most important
aspect of ideology: equity = .14, equality = .11, health
= .19, and concern about character = -.09; R^ = .21.
The effects on vote corroborate the above pattern but
the character issue is now more salient. The four test
factors reduce the zero-order effect of liberalism on vote
from .40 to .24. The more prior politics have weaker
effects on vote than the more recent: equity =. 16, equality = .10, health = .22, and character = -.19; R^ = .31.
In the full model (with current partisanship included),
the interpretive variables strongly predict vote for Clinton
(R^ = .56) and have these significant direct effects (Bs):
E>emocratic partisanship = .55; liberal ideology = .12;
public health=. 12; economic equity = .09; social equality
= .05; and a candidate's character = -.14. When these
variables are conti'olled, the social attributes and specific issues such as crime and drugs, governmental ineffectiveness, and fiscal constraint have minuscule direct
effects on vote. In 1992 Clinton surmounted the negative effect of the character issue and won, promising an
active government.
A Candidate's Character. Since Republican strategists evidently believe that negative advertising is appropriate and effective, and Democratic strategists
evidenUy now believe that each attack must be instantiy
countered, the issue of a candidate's character divided
the electorate in 1996 as it did in 1992. Those more
concerned about character voted for Bush, were Republicans, and were conservatives. They also were more
concerned about gridlock, crime and drugs, governmental ineffectiveness, andfiscalconstraint. Homemakers and housewives were more concerned about
character than were employed women. Those not paid
for their work—homemakers, housewives, students, the
retired, the unemployed—were more concerned than
the employed. Voters less concerned about character
supported governmental interventions for equity, equality, and health.
The New Political Continuum. By closely inspecting the relationships between character, ideology, and
partisanship and the eight categories of the typology
that results from the simultaneous cross-classification
of the voters as supporting interventions to augment
equity (-1- or - ) , equality (-1- or - ) , and health (-1- or - ) , I
determined that the new political continuum is best
operationalized in this survey by simply counting the
number of positive responses. The results are closely
balanced: progressives (+ + +), 15.3 percent; liberals,
33.6 percent; moderate conservatives, 33.5 percent; and
minimal-state conservatives (
), 17.7 percent.
Liberals may be further broken down into communitarians (+ + - ) , economic populists (+ - +), and
neoliberals (- + +); and moderate conservatives may
be broken down into populists (-i- — ) , libertarians
(- + - ) , and mainstream moderates (— -i-).
From left to right the four categories have a small
negative association with concern about character and
large positive associations with liberal political ideology, current Democratic partisanship, and vote for
Clinton. Those on the left prefer a federal health care
system, express some delegitimation of governmental
authority (i.e., governmental ineffectiveness concerning gridlock and crime and drugs), and are aware of
18 / SOCIETY • MARCH/APRIL 1997
fiscal constraint (T = .08). Concem about a candidate's
character intensifies the latter relationship (T = .18)
and lack of concem destroys it (x = -.01). Thus,
progressives and liberals concemed about a candidate's
character, rather than conservatives concemed about
character, rated fiscal constraint—^both taxes and the
deficit—as a very important determinant of their vote.
Four attributes—residence in a coastal region, female gender, employment, and being a first-time
voter—are determinants of liberal political ideology
but not of current Democratic partisanship. Minority
ethnicity, lower income, and older age are determinants
of Democratic partisanship but not of liberal ideology.
Ideology (liberal, centrist, or conservative) and current
partisanship (Democratic, Independent, or Republican)
are parallel concepts; ideology causes partisanship.
These two variables illustrate aspects of what James
Coleman means by the functional components of the
self—one aspect (political ideology) evaluates and another aspect (political partisanship) acts. When a voter's
ideology changes from liberal to centrist or conservative, this tends to lead to a change in partisanship, and
then to a change in vote.
Liberals and Democrats are more likely than conservatives and Republicans to support govemmental
interventions designed to augment (1) economic equity
and countervailing powers against concentrated economic interests, (2) social equality, especially for
minorities and women, and (3) the public's health—
including health care reform, a healthy environment,
and women's choice. Apropos interventions for equity
and equality, centrists are on average much closer to
the political Right than to the Left. Apropos public
health, centrists are on average only slightly closer to
the political Right than to the Left. Apropos character,
the centrists are closer to the Left than to the Right.
The recent politics of public health explains much
of the effect of ideology on partisanship and on vote,
but the negative politics of distmst of character and
the politics of economic equity and social equality also
are very important. When the issues of crime and drugs,
delegitimation, and fiscal constraint are added to the
regressions their effects are minuscule, thereby discounting these variables as causes ofpartisanship and
vote in this survey.
The three political interests readily define the new
political continuum of progressives, liberals, moderate conservatives, and minimal-state conservatives.
These categories predict ideology, partisanship, vote,
distrust, and perceptions of govemmental ineffectiveness (i.e., delegitimation). Those on the left, especially
those concemed about a candidate's character, perceive
.more fiscal constraint than those on the right. The
progressives and liberals desire an active govemment
but one whose interventions are fiscally responsible.
In 1992 the new political continuum classified 48.8
percent of the voters as progressives or liberals and 51.2
percent as moderate or minimal-state conservatives.
Subsequently, because offiscalconstraints, govemmental
ineffectiveness, and the success of Republican attacks
on federal social programs, liberals, and liberalism, polls
and election results indicate a shift to the right. If citizens distrust their govemment and believe its leaders
are cormpt, then they will not support govemmental interventions for economic equity, social equality, and the
public's health—even when these interventions would
be sparing of spending and regulation.
The Democratic coalition is heterogeneous with respect to class, skin color, ethnicity, and gender. The
Republican coalition is heterogeneous with respect to
class, religious fundamentalism, and abortion attitude.
If the potentially divisive issues of abortion, affirmative
action, crime, education, and welfare become salient and
the subject of fear-engendering advertisements, the resulting turbulence could divide both the Democrats and
Republicans and lead to a further breakdown of rational
discussion and the electorate's informed consent.
SUGGESTED FURTHER READINGS
Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar. Going
Negative. New York: Free Press, 1995.
Lilian Handlin and Oscar Handlin. "America and its
Discontents: A Great Society Legacy." The
American Scholar 64 (1995): 15-37.
Gerald D. Jaynes and Robin M. Williams, Jr. A Common
Destiny: Blacks and American Society. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1989.
Seymour Martin Lipset. "The Significance of the 1992
Election." PS; Political Science and Politics 26
(1993): 7-16.
Sidney Verba and Gary R. Orren. Equality in America.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985.
Ben J. Wattenberg. Values Matter Most. New York: Free
Press, 1995.
Jacob Weisberg. In Defense of Govemment. New York:
Scribners.
Robert B. Smith received his doctorate in sociology
from Columbia University. He has published empirical
analyses of voting and public opinion processes and has
edited A Handbook of Social Science Methods. He resides
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and directs Social Structural Research. This paper reports findings from an election-night telephone survey of 1200 voters on questions
of ideology, partisanship and politics.