Personal Values and Partisanship in America
by
Christopher David DeSante
Department of Political Science
Duke University
Date:
Approved:
John H. Aldrich, Supervisor
Stanley Feldman
Marc J. Hetherington
D. Sunshine Hillygus
Christopher Johnston
Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Doctor
of Philosophy in the Department of
Political Science in the Graduate School
of Duke University
2012
ABSTRACT
Personal Values and Partisanship in America
by
Christopher David DeSante
Department of Political Science
Duke University
Date:
Approved:
John H. Aldrich, Supervisor
Stanley Feldman
Marc J. Hetherington
D. Sunshine Hillygus
Christopher Johnston
An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Doctor
of Philosophy in the Department of
Political Science in the Graduate School
of Duke University
2012
c 2012 by Christopher David DeSante
Copyright All rights reserved
Abstract
In this dissertation, I offer a new way of understanding political partisanship as a
function of universal values. In contrast to previous explanations, my theory contends
that the things that Americans value most are what drive them to affiliate with the
major parties. Using the theory of personal values from cross-cultural psychology, I
develop and extend this theory in five substantive chapters. In chapter 1, I present
the general theory of values-based partisanship as derived from work in psychology
and incorporate the “values as goals” approach to partisanship. This chapter also
includes a cognitive test to assuage concerns readers may have about the endogeneity
of the measures used to capture individual values and political attitudes. In chapter
2 I present the results from several laboratory studies in which respondents were
asked to think about typical partisans and then estimate how important certain
values were to each of the groups. The results show that not only are Republicans
and Democrats very different on the two value continua derived from value theory,
but they are known to stand for particular positions in abstract value-space.
Chapter 3 provides solid evidence that values matter more than partisanship when
Americans evaluate candidates for public office. Using a series of survey-embedded
experiments I model candidate evaluations as a function of the values a candidate is
said to hold as well as their party. By experimentally manipulating both the value
and party congruencies, I find that not only does value congruence raise the evaluation of a candidate more than partisan loyalties, but that the additional information
iv
about partisan branding has no effect on candidate favorability. What this means,
in essence, is that (among Democrats) candidates who value “Democratic” values
like “social justice” are evaluated exactly the same as “a Democratic candidate who
emphasizes social justice.” Using data from two different nationally representative
surveys as well as a large sample of undergraduates, the findings confirm that values
matter more than party labels, all else equal.
Whereas the earlier chapters focus on which party an individual is likely to join
based on their personal values, chapter 4 presents evidence that partisan strength
can also be estimated as a function of personal values. This chapter uses a national
survey (funded by an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant) to show how
values influence an individual’s position on a variety of policies. The dependent
variable in most of the equations presented in this chapter is the occurrence of a
“cross-pressured” partisan: an individual who holds a position on a policy that
is incongruent with the national position of their party (for example a pro-choice
Republican). Again, a model of partisanship that puts values first is estimated and
the estimates show that no variables are more likely to push an individual to hold
“out-party” policy positions more than their personal values.
In chapter 5, I present a matching study using non-parametric pre-processing to
estimate the effects of the economic downturn on the value systems of partisans.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, between 2006 and 2010, Americans generally became more
focused on values that would result in material wealth (individual success, making
money, etc.). However, among Democrats, it became much more important to “help
others” and ensure the “equality of opportunity” whereas for Republicans the same
time period had very different effects: equal opportunity and helping others became
less important. What this chapter shows is that while Republicans and Democrats
had great differences in their personal values in 2006, the result election of Barack
Obama and the economic crisis of 2008 led to systematically different shifts in perv
sonal values. The findings from this chapter suggest that political polarization in
recent years may have something to do with the interaction between an economic
recession and prior personal values.
In my conclusion, chapter 6 presents a summary of the work and its contribution
to the study of political psychology and American political parties.
vi
Contents
Abstract
iv
List of Tables
ix
List of Figures
xi
Acknowledgements
xiii
1 A Theory of Value-based Political Behavior
1.1
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2 Perceptions of Values and Partisanship
2.1
1
1
21
Overview: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
21
2.1.1
Understanding Political Values: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
22
2.1.2
Values in Political Research: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
24
2.1.3
Real American Values? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
26
2.1.4
Study 1: Partisanship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
31
2.1.5
Study 2: Ideology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
39
2.1.6
Study 3: Partisan Strength: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
42
2.1.7
Conclusions: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
48
3 Beyond Issues: Can parties own values
or do values own parties?
51
vii
3.1
Chapter Summary: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
51
3.1.1
Overview: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
52
3.1.2
The theory of value-based partisanship: . . . . . . . . . . . . .
53
Issue Ownership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
55
3.2.1
Testable hypotheses: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
58
3.3
Data and Methods: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
64
3.4
Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
67
3.5
Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
77
3.2
4 Values-based partisanship in the electorate
4.1
Overview: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
82
4.1.1
Restating the theory of values-based partisanship: . . . . . . .
83
4.1.2
Values and Mass Partisanship: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
87
4.1.3
The two sides of the communion aisle: . . . . . . . . . . . . .
99
4.1.4
Values-based partisanship and the cross-pressured voter: . . . 101
4.1.5
Conclusion: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
5 The Economic Downturn and Value Stability
5.1
113
Responses to Economic Threat: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
5.1.1
It’s the economy, stupid: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
5.1.2
Data and Methods: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
5.1.3
Results: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
6 Project Summary and Future Research
6.1
82
132
Concluding remarks: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Bibliography
135
Biography
147
viii
List of Tables
1.1
The Schwartz Value Inventory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9
2.1
The Schwartz Value Inventory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
24
2.2
Sample Partisan Value Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
33
2.3
Perceived Partisan Value Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
35
2.4
Perceived Differences among Republicans and Democrats . . . . . . .
38
2.5
Sample Ideological Value Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
40
2.6
Perceived Differences among Liberals and Conservatives . . . . . . . .
42
2.7
Perceived Differences among Liberals and Conservatives . . . . . . . .
45
2.8
Two models predicting partisanship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
50
3.1
Hypothesized rank-order under Value-based Partisanship . . . . . . .
59
3.2
Hypothesized rank-order under traditional Partisanship . . . . . . . .
59
3.3
Results of Random Assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
66
3.4
Expectations of “Value-based Partisanship” . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
70
3.5
Pooled Estimates of Candidate Favorability . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
70
3.6
Models for each of the values candidates could have. . . . . . . . . . .
79
3.7
Predicting Votes for Democrats in 2008 and 2010 – Logistic Regression
Estimates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
81
4.1
Schwartz Short Form, 2010 CCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
88
4.2
Summary Statistics By Partisanship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
89
4.3
Predicting Republican Partisanship Using Logistic Regression . . . .
91
ix
4.4
Oh, Logit: Democrats (0) vs. Independents (1) vs. Republicans (2) .
4.5
Varying Values and Predicting Partisan Categories: Results from the
Ordered Logit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
93
94
4.6
Ordinary Least Squares: Predicting Partisanship without indirect effects 96
4.7
Predicting Partisanship (7pt. Scale) with Indirect Effects of Values .
98
4.8
Religions and Values, 2010 CCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
99
4.9
Catholic Partisanship, 2010 CCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
99
4.10 Cross-pressured partisans by party and issue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
4.11 Cross Pressured Democrats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
4.12 Cross Pressured Republicans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.1
Results from Non-parametric pre-processing via MatchIt (Ho et al.
2007) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
x
List of Figures
1.1
Theoretical relationship between sub-dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . .
10
1.2
Traditional measures of political values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
17
1.3
Cleaner Schwartz measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
18
2.1
Perceptions of partisan ideology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
27
2.2
Value endorsements by type and party . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
34
2.3
Perceived value systems by type and partisanship . . . . . . . . . . .
36
2.4
Factor analysis of IND-COL, by party . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
37
2.5
Perceptions of Schwartz Values as they relate to partisanship . . . . .
38
2.6
Value endorsements by type and ideology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
41
2.7
Perceived value systems by type and ideology . . . . . . . . . . . . .
43
2.8
Factor analysis of IND-COL, by ideology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
44
2.9
Perceptions of Schwartz Values as they relate to ideology . . . . . . .
45
2.10 Four types of value separation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
46
2.11 Values and partisan strength . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
47
3.1
Values and partisan strength . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
61
3.2
Perceptions of Schwartz Values as they relate to partisanship . . . . .
62
3.3
Partisan sorting on predicted “Republican” values. . . . . . . . . . .
68
3.4
Partisan sorting on predicted “Democratic” values. . . . . . . . . . .
69
3.5
Favorability driven by values, not partisanship.
72
3.6
Partisan differences in evaluating candidates with “Democratic” values. 74
xi
. . . . . . . . . . . .
3.7
Partisan differences in evaluating candidates with “Republican” values. 75
3.8
What party advantage? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
80
4.1
Schwartz value circumplex and theoretically oppositional values . . .
85
4.2
Schwartz values and partisanship among Catholics . . . . . . . . . . . 102
4.3
Schwartz values and predicting cross-pressuredness . . . . . . . . . . 112
5.1
Economic downturn, as represented by the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Unemployment in America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
5.2
Results from matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5.3
American Value Importance Over Time: 2006 - 2010 . . . . . . . . . 126
5.4
American Values Over Time: 2006 - 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
5.5
Changes in relative value importance: 2006 - 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . 128
5.6
Changes in value systems among Democrats and Republicans: 2006 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
5.7
Changes in relative value importance among Democrats and Republicans: 2006 - 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
5.8
Changes in relative value importance among Democrats and Republicans (all values): 2006 - 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
xii
Acknowledgements
There are a number of people I would like to thank in helping me grow, intellectually,
to the point where I could produce a project of this magnitude. To any individuals
that I have left out of these acknowledgements, please accept my apologies.
Beginning at Allegheny College I have had a number of wonderful mentors who
always encouraged me to follow my interests. Most notably professors Bruce Smith
and Sharon Wesoky, who decided that they should encourage an eager undergraduate
to write a thesis on social contract theory that was nearly as long as this doctoral
thesis. More importantly, they provided the first glimpse into what I now know I
would like to be, a college professor. Their great teaching made we want to emulate
them and, hopefully, someday I will. While I began my Ph.D. at Vanderbilt working
with the late George Graham and James Booth, it was a set of classes I took in the
spring of 2006 that put me on a crash course with quantitative political sciences:
Marc Hetherington’s course on American political behavior and Suzanne Globetti’s
course on introductory statistical methods. While I had enjoyed math in high school,
these two classes provided me with a new set of tools to analyze political problems in
a whole new way. With Marc and Suzanne’s encouragement and support, my coming
to Duke (let alone finishing) would not have been possible. For both of them, I am
extremely grateful.
At Duke I have had the pleasure of working with a number of faculty members
that have improved both my research and teaching. Paula McClain and the Ralph
xiii
Bunche Summer Institute have not only provided me with summer funding but also
allowed me to become a better teacher. I would also like to thank Sunshine Hillygus
for making this thesis better by constantly pushing every theoretical assumption I
make below. Through her intellectual challenges, I was able to test some of these
key assumptions and for that the thesis is better. I am also grateful for the support
of David Rohde and the Political Institutions and Public Choice (PIPC) Center for
providing me with the intellectual stimulation, office space, colleagues and resources
I needed to complete this research. I also received support from NSF Dissertation
Improvement Grant 1122624. Some of the data in chapter 3 would have been unable
to be collected without funding from the Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) at
Duke University. Through my participation on the 2010 CCES I was able to pilot
most of the survey questions and through the NSF award I was able to improve
on previous research designs. I am also thankful for the two political psychologists
who have agreed to read the thesis, Stanley Feldman and Christopher Johnston.
Stanley’s comments have and will continue to make this project into a good first
book and Christopher’s coming to Duke could not have come at a better time for
someone with my research interests. While they will be readers on the final product,
I am also indebted to Wendy Wood of USC who gave me permission to take her
Social Psychology seminar where I first encountered the measures of values that I
use extensively in this thesis. I also received valuable feedback from commentators
and participants at several professional conferences and seminars. Portions of this
dissertation were presented at the PIPC Seminar Series, the Graduate Student Colloquium, Duke’s Political Behavior Seminar, and the Annual Meetings of the Midwest
Political Science Association, the American Political Science Association, and the
Southern Political Science Association.
I have had the great fortune of finishing this project at Duke University under
the guidance of John Aldrich. John has served as my mentor from day one and will
xiv
continue to be someone I stay in touch with if only to make sure I am not going insane.
For the last four years he has been nothing but supportive, often encouraging me to
go my own way and pursue a number of loosely related interests. Through his role in
PARISS, DUNC, SSRI and DIPE I have received summer funding, conference travel
funding and could attend a summer institute in political psychology at Stanford
where a good portion of this thesis was written. John is the type of professor every
graduate student eventually wants to be, in a variety of ways. He’s smart, funny,
approachable and most of all kind. It is obvious to everyone who works with him
that his students matter to him long after they graduate. I am thankful that he took
the time five years ago to talk with a political theorist at Vanderbilt – who just so
happened to also go to Allegheny College – who wanted to come to work with him
at Duke.
In addition to those already mentioned, many others have offered substantial
comments on parts of this work, most notably Melanie Freeze and Jacob Montgomery.
David Sparks helped me with my figures so often that I eventually became another
resource for younger students. Frank Orlando and Aaron King offered me games
of scopa in the conference room so I could maintain my sanity. Kent and Melanie
Freeze also became, far and away, the best friends Melissa and I could have made
while in Durham. Without them, graduate school could have been a miserable place.
My family has also have always provided me with love, wisdom, and guidance. I
am thankful for my parents who encouraged me to pursue a PhD, and my brothers
and sister who helped me become (and continue to learn) who I am. I am especially
grateful to the first Dr. DeSante. My uncle, Paul, continues to serve as one of my
greatest role models. Throughout the last ten years he has always been there to
proofread a sentence, talk through the trials of graduate school and show me how to
be a better person: ad astra per aspera.
Finally, my greatest depth of gratitude is to my wife, Melissa Leigh Magnolia
xv
Spas, who is my best friend and partner in life. Anyone who has talked with me for
longer than thirty seconds has heard her name, because I cannot go three sentences
without referring either to something she told me or a conversation we have had. Both
Melissa and her family have been a wonderful force for good in my life. Without her,
I don’t know where I’d be. It is my honor to dedicate my dissertation, with love, to
her.
xvi
1
A Theory of Value-based Political Behavior
1.1 Introduction
Overview:
This thesis explains the role universal values play in several aspects of American
political life. In an age when scholars seem to agree that the average citizen does
not know much about politics (Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996) and that Americans
are unlikely to hold consistent views derived logically from their ideology (Converse
1964; Achen 1975; Zaller 1992; Zaller and Feldman 1992), an argument must be made
for why Americans can be seem to be both ignorant of most political facts and have
valid reasons for their political beliefs. As citizens within a democracy, we expect
our fellow countrymen to be able to participate in politics in a somewhat sophisticated manner. While we know that many Americans employ heuristics in order to
compensate for their lack of knowledge (Brady and Sniderman 1985; Luskin 1987;
Lupia 1994; Rosenberg 1988), some still may believe that such a passive approach
to the political life fails to meet our basic expectations regarding virtuous democratic citizenship. One worry many may have is that Americans can be manipulated
1
by elites, blindly following their pre-packaged messages without any independent
thought (Zaller 1992; Druckman 2004; Hetherington 2001; Hill et al. 2007). In terms
of the questions of democratic theory, at best Americans are seemingly unsophisticated and lack preferences and at worst are being manipulated by those who have
stronger preferences and the resources to persuade them.
One of the ways we know Americans are biased in their reasoning stems from
their identification with one of the two major parties (Kuklinski and Quirk 2000;
Popkin 1994; Bartels 2002). Americans are fairly attuned to what a typical Democrat or Republican stands for and therefore can infer a lot about their positions on
particular policy issues. A second, and often separately considered construct Americans can use to organize their political attitudes are values (Feldman 1988; Goren
2005; Zaller 1992; McClosky and Zaller 1984). As Feldman explains, we know that
Americans “may not view the world in ideological terms but they do have political
attitudes, beliefs and preferences that need to be explained” (1988, 416). Taking on
the question of why Americans may be attracted to certain positions often bundled
by elites, Feldman turns to the construct of values. Whether Americans are using
partisanship or their core political values to help make sense of an otherwise jumbled
set of political attitudes is going to be the core focus of this project as I present a
theory of values-based partisanship. Previously, theories of partisan identification
almost exclusively focus on how citizens process political information. Whether it is
the “perceptual screen” of the American voter or Fiorina’s (1981) conception of the
“running tally,” we know both values and partisanship are ways in which Americans
organize their political attitudes. Before presenting how I believe values and partisanship are fundamentally related, I should briefly review three previous conceptions
of partisan identification.
The first theory of partisan identification was put forth by the authors of The
American Voter, who posited that it was an “orientation toward political affairs
2
typically begin[ing] before the individual attains voting age” (Campbell et al. 1964,
86). This deep psychological attachment was formed in the early family years and
was characterized as being extremely stable over the course of one’s life. Aside from
growing stronger with age, the concept of partisan attachment acted as an “extension
of one’s ego to include feeling part of a group” (Miller and Shanks 1996, 120). In
terms of information processing, partisan identification helped simplify political decisions by allowing members of a particular party to trust the messages they received
from fellow members while discounting messages from the other party. Furthermore,
the correlation of partisanship between parents and children is both positive and
large in size, though more recent studies seeking to explain this relationship more
fully (Jennings and Niemi 1968, 1974; Niemi and Jennings 1991; Luskin, McIver and
Carmines 1989).
A second theory of partisan identification stems from Downs’s (1957) conception of partisanship as an informational heuristic. Building on the formal work of
Key (1966), Fiorina (1981) developed a notion of partisanship as a “running tally”
whereby citizens constantly update their perceptions of both parties by taking into
account which party is in power and how well they perform while in office. In this
revisionist theory, partisanship changed from the “unmoved mover” of the American
Voter to “an evolving indicator of an individuals relationship to the parties” (Fiorina
2002, 98). Partisanship in this sense is still formed in adolescence but instead of being
cemented in early adulthood can ebb and flow as the parties in government meet or
exceed their expectations. More specific refinements of Fiorina’s original theory can
be seen in measures of “macro-partisanship” (Erikson, MacKuen and Stimson 1998,
2002) where the health of the American economy informs partisanship at the aggregate level depending on the health of the economy and the party in power. What
unites these theories, and others like them (Achen 2002; Page and Jones 1979), is
that they assume Americans pay attention enough to the world around them to be
3
able to update their preferences about politics in relation to the parties. Given some
of what we know about American’s attention to politics (Zaller 1992), this may not
be a fair assumption.
A third theory of partisanship comes out of social identity theory (Tajfel 1978;
Tajfel and Turner 1986). According to this conception of partisan identification, one
identifies with the Democrats or Republicans because “bipolar partisan attitudes are
a natural psychological outgrowth of self-perceived membership in a political party”
(Greene 1999, 395). This social and group identity approach to partisan attachment
explains why some people may feel their sense of belonging to one of the parties
grow over time, eventually becoming a component of their identity as significant as
their religion and as such the partisan identification one holds can help them “ignore
or reinterpret discordant information” (Green, Palmquist and Schickler 2002, 7).
Still while this conception of partisanship contents that people know where they are
and where thy fit within other social groups, it does not explain why some people
gravitate towards one party or the other (Weisberg 1980).
Thus, while the previous theories of partisanship have been extremely helpful in
understanding American politics, they all are unable to answer that one key question:
why do some people gravitate towards one party over another (or none, in the case of
political independents)? My contention is that Americans currently sort themselves
into the two major parties on the basis of basic human values. Now, while the values
paradigm has an important place in political psychology, its use within political science has lagged behind work in cross-cultural psychology in two key aspects: theory
and measurement. Before discussing the substantive and methodological improvements that political scientists can leverage to answer the question of partisan sorting,
we should review the importance of values and how they have been previously used
within the discipline.
Values matter as they allow for citizens to make evaluations of political phenom4
ena without requiring them to be perfectly logical or ideologically consistent. In this
respect, Americans need not hold perfect factual knowledge concerning the inner
workings of our government but instead can have relatively sophisticated and consistent opinions on a variety of political issues simply by appealing to what, personally,
is most important. We have long known that many types of values form what some
have called a unique American political culture (McClosky and Zaller 1984), permeating elite rhetoric and our understanding of political institutions. More importantly,
the values paradigm does “not require a high degree of political sophistication for
people to absorb the political norms of society” (Feldman 1988, 418). Values, then,
matter most because they provide a stable structure to mass belief systems and may
just be the bedrock such belief systems are built upon.
However, such a perspective is not without its critics. In his famous work on
the origins of public opinion, John Zaller points out two problems with this valuesas-constraints paradigm. The first, he notes, is that the values framework does not
account for the lack of sophistication that many Americans have. While it may be
enough to say that core values can structure political beliefs, he claims unsophisticated individuals would be unable to link values with policies. Secondly, he points
out that current work relating values to public opinion lacks a consistent theory that
allows the “different value continua to [relate] to one another and to political ideology” (1992, 26). Given the work done on values heretofore, I completely understand
Zaller’s criticism. However, in order to answer his criticisms and differentiate valuesbased partisanship, we must first see how others have operationalized values from
within political science and why more recent work in cross-cultural psychology gives
us a better theoretical paradigm from which to work.
5
Values in Political Science:
Again, nearly the entire field of political behavior stems from the study of both values
and attitudes, yet the distinction between the two is not always clear to political
scientists. Values will be defined according to Schwartz as “the criteria people use to
select and justify actions and to evaluate people (including the self) and events” and
arise from basic biological needs (Schwartz 1992, 1). Values differ from attitudes in
that the former are general metrics that may be employed to evaluate a particular
object, while the resulting affective constructs (likes or dislikes) regarding a specific
object are attitudes. First and foremost, a value is a belief an individual has about
what is desirable in their life, but it has three important characteristics:
1. a value is trans-situational
2. values guide an individual’s preferences regarding behaviors and actions
3. values can be rank-ordered into a single values system (Schwartz 1994, 20)
In this definition, values become “desirable transituational goals” that serve an
actor’s interests, motivate behavior and act as anchors for judging options and actions
(Schwartz 1994, 21). While one may have an infinite number of attitudes towards
nearly as many objects, research has shown that there are only a limited number of
values and that they are harder to change over time (Kristiansen and Hotte 1996).
This is similar to the stability of ideological measures, such as the liberal-conservative
scale, which are helpful in predicting how Americans organize their political attitudes
(Jacoby 1991, 2002; Conover and Feldman 1981).
So why are values so important? Similar to Schwartz, Rokeach defined value
systems as the “organization of beliefs concerning preferable modes of conduct or
end-states” which provides the foundation for any problem worth studying in the
social sciences (Rokeach 1973, 5). Even in complex, pluralistic views of political
6
attitudes, individual values “function as the back stops of belief systems” (Tetlock
2000, 247). In the expression of attitudes on any particular issue, an individual must
always employ their underlying value hierarchy. Moreover, a value system itself is
dynamic in the sense that certain values often conflict and “specific attitudes and
behaviors are guided not by the priority given to a single value but by tradeoffs among
competing values that are implicated simultaneously” (Schwartz 1996, 2 emphasis
added). Using a single item to predict a behavior or an attitude is not only unhelpful
but theoretically unsatisfying - for it is “in the presence of conflict that values are
likely to be activated... as guiding principles” (Schwartz 1996). As a result, single
items can be compiled into higher dimensions which in turn can be used to analyze
the value–behavior link. This conceptualization of values is shown below in figure
1, where individual value items cluster in ten groups which then load on four higher
dimensions.
Most importantly, these values are not just important for individuals. Instead,
evidence shows that “[values] are relevant at both the micro or individual level,
and the macro or societal and institutional levels” (Mayton II., Ball-Rokeach and
Loges 1994, 1). Political scientists and psychologists have shown that values at
the national level influence democratization. Inglehart (1971) and others (Inglehart
1977, 1990; Abramson and Inglehart 1995) have shown that as a country shifts from
times of scarcity to times of abundance, they begin to shift from materialist values
(emphasizing physical and economic security) to post-materialist values (focusing on
freedom and self-expression). While other comparative studies have shown that a
value shift is a necessary (though not a sufficient) cause of democratization (Muller
and Seligson 1994), the transition to democracy is normally accompanied with an
extended shift in values systems (from materialist to post-materialist). Finally, state
institutions can be seen to reflect and perpetuate the values of a nation Lipset (1959)
in such a way as to impede change rooted in mass publics.
7
While Inglehart’s work is perhaps most familiar to political scientists, typically
the genealogy of values studies in psychology begins with Allport, Vernon and Lindzey
(1951, 1960). Building off the work of Allport et al. and Rokeach (1973), Hofstede
(1980, 1983) investigated the cross-cultural validity of early values work. In later
studies, the Rokeach Value Survey instruments were found to be biased against
Eastern values (Hofstede and Bond 1984) as well as limited in the number of dimensions they include (Braithwaite and Law 1985). It was not until the early 1990s
that Schwartz developed his theoretical justification regarding a universal structure
of human values by using guiding evolutionary goals to explain the fundamental nature of human values. For Schwartz, values were used to express needs of biological
organisms, a means of coordinating social interactions between organisms, and a
requisite for organisms to survive together as groups. Using these premises as first
principles, Schwartz proceeded to derive the ten motivational value dimensions that
in turn may be separated into four broader categories (Barnea and Schwartz 1998;
Caprara et al. 2006). This categorization is shown below in table 2.1 with definitions
are taken from Bardi and Schwartz (2003, 1208, table 1).
Recall, Schwartz’s value typology defines values as having the following attributes.
Values are (1) a belief about(2) what is desirable in an individual’s life. The value
(3) transcends specific situations and thereby (4) guides an individual’s selection of
preferences over people and events. Finally, values can be (5) ordered into a single
system. Given this definitional framework, it is easy to see how Schwartz values
can be differentiated from other understandings of attitudes. Not only are values
abstract, but they can be ordered in terms of their relative importance. From the
theoretical foundations, the ten dimensions shown above in table 2.1 represent the
desires and needs that are universal to our human condition. As Schwartz explained
in one of his earliest papers on the universal structure of these values, they arise from
three unique types of needs that humans have as organisms. Values help us express
8
our needs not only as “biological organisms” but also are the basic “requisites of
coordinated social interaction” and help us meet our “survival and welfare needs”
as members of groups (Schwartz 1992, 4). Taking these three types of needs: for
individual survival, for cooperation between an individual and others to form groups,
and the needs for groups to interact, Schwartz and Bilsky (1987) derived the ten value
types that would promote these ends.
Table 1.1: The Schwartz Value Inventory
Value Type
Openness to Change
Hedonism
Items: “How important is (item) to you..?”
Self-direction
creativity, curious, freedom, choosing own goals, independent private life
Stimulation
Self-transcendence
Benevolence
daring, a varied life, an exciting life
Universalism
protecting the environment, a world of beauty, unity with nature, broad-minded,
social justice, wisdom, equality, a world at peace, inner harmony
pleasure, enjoying life, self-indulgent
helpful, honest, forgiving, loyal, responsible, true friendship, a spiritual life,
mature love, meaning in life
Conservation
Tradition
devout, accepting my portion in life, humble, moderate, respect for tradition
Conformity
politeness, honoring parents and elders, obedient, self-discipline
Security
clean, national security, social order, family security, reciprocation of favors,
healthy, sense of belonging
Self-enhancement
Achievement
successful, capable, ambitious, influential, intelligent, self-respect
Power
social power, authority, wealth, preserving my public image, social recognition
Looking at table 2.1, human beings value self-direction type values based on our
needs to control and master our environment. Given our needs to be healthy and reproduce as a species, we value items from the “security” domain.1 What distinguishes
Schwartz’s value framework from other theories of values that political scientists may
be familiar with is that Schwartz begins from the assumption that all of these values
are universally important. While each of the items on the entire battery of questions
can be rank-ordered, there is not any single value domain that is unimportant to
anyone. Moreover, there are certain value domains that are theoretically opposed to
one another. This can be shown in the circumplex, taken from Schwartz (1992):
1
For a full review of each of the dimensions and their purpose within the evolutionary framework,
see Schwartz (1992, 7-12).
9
Figure 1.1: Theoretical relationship between sub-dimensions
In this figure, values that are adjacent one another are thought to be positively
correlated. However, those value types that are opposite one another (for example
universalism and power; benevolence and achievement) are theoretically opposed.
What this means it that the pursuit of (for example) achievement type values –
success and wealth – might necessarily mean values that orient the individual towards
helping others (benevolence) become systematically less important. This is not to
say that the pursuit of one type of value makes the other unimportant, but that
the theory of universal values dictates that these value types are constantly held
in tension: each of the ten dimensions is important to everyone, but some people
have clear value systems with a theoretically consistent order of values. So, it is
not to say that it is impossible for someone to both highly value achievement and
benevolence values, but instead Schwartz predicted that such a value system would
be highly improbable. Subsequent analysis, using smallest spaces analysis, have
found the relationship presented in figure 4.1 in over 99% of the samples tested
using respondents from all across the globe. If we take this theoretical and empirical
10
consistency at face value, and compare these measures to those often used within
political science, we can see several distinct conceptual advantages.
Most remarkable about these particular survey instruments is the amount of
cross-cultural validation they have successfully undergone by researchers other than
Schwartz. While Schwartz’s original study (1992) had validated the theory of universal value types using a sample of over 9,000 individuals across 20 countries, 13
languages and 8 major religions, others sought to verify his original findings. For
example, Spini (2003) found that all of the original dimensions with the exception of
Hedonism met his requirements for metric equivalence across cultures using a sample
of 3,859 individuals from 21 countries surveying university students in different disciplines (Spini 2003, 9). Others, such as Bilsky and Koch (unpublished) used a smaller
sample (n=144) of Canadian students to replicate most all of Schwartz’s original dimensions. It is clear that the original value dimensions as put forth in 1992 have
stood the test of both time and independent verification. Given the careful nature
of subject selection - across multiple countries, languages, cultures and religions - it
is difficult to believe that there is any better explanation for the universal content
and structure of human values. For these reasons, I rely mainly on the Schwartz
measures.
Barnea and Schwartz (1998) as well as Caprara et al. (2006) have used basic
assumptions about political parties and values to develop hypotheses surrounding
the four value archetypes: self-enhancement (which captures achievement and power
values), self-transcendence (benevolence and universalism), conservation (conformity,
security and traditionalist values) and openness to change (self-direction and stimulation values). For instance, these authors see most contemporary debates in Israeli
and Italian politics as being framed over issues of classical liberalism and egalitarianism. Classical liberalism, as they understand it, is the school of political thought
that seeks to maximize individual freedoms and autonomy and to tolerate differences
11
in society. Non-liberal parties, in this sense, are those groups tied to values in the
“conservation” category. Therefore, from the traditional understanding of left and
right, we would expect that parties on the political left to be comprised of liberals
(in the Schwartz sense) and parties on the political right to be comprised of conservatives (again in the Schwartz sense). To be clear, these four value archetypes
can be collapsed to two continua: self-enhancement (opposed to self-transcendence)
and conservation (opposed to openness to change). In all of the analyses I will be
conducting, I will present these two dimensions as the underlying indicators of any
individual’s value system.
While the purpose of the project is to show how partisans are sorting, we can derive clear expectations about the relationship between the two Schwartz dimensions
and the political parties. In fact, it would be naı̈eve not to take into account the
debates that have been taking place recently in America. Regarding egalitarianism,
we would expect that individuals who favor an equal division of wealth (economic
egalitarianism) characterized by “self-transcendence” (universalism and benevolence)
would identify with the political left. However, individuals may favor an equality of
opportunity (and not strict division of material wealth) and therefore place themselves higher on “self-enhancement” (power and achievement), favoring a hierarchical
ordering of society based upon some telling of merit. These citizens would most likely
be on the ideological right. While this may sound like social dominance orientation
(Pratto et al. 1994) values themselves are separate from SDO’s structure as a personality. While previous scholars have assessed American attitudes towards concepts
of individualism and egalitarianism, most notably McClosky and Zaller (1984), these
interpretations have always been limited in their generalizability because they lacked
as widely validated a system as the Schwartz measures. McClosky and Zaller set out
to “focus primarily on beliefs and values” in order to understand the story of American ideologies, but nearly every measure used to explain political attitudes was itself
12
a construction of agreeing (or disagreeing) with a politically charged statement (1984,
17). This is perhaps the most important distinction between previous research and
this project: the Schwartz value inventory could possibly be used as a way to build
up to core political values that have been used to predict political behavior (Goren
2005). In this sense, the thesis seeks to show that these values can be used as independent variables to accurately predict party identification, ideology, core values
and a variety of political behaviors. This problem of endogeneity has traditionally
plagued the values literature, but as I will show below, this is not a problem that
the Schwartz measures cannot overcome.
Evidence of exogeneity:
As one can see, the questions shown in the Schwartz value inventory (presented
in table 2.1) are radically different compared to value measures used in American
politics. In Feldman’s work on values (1988), he identifies three types of values
that seem to be “central to the way in which people in the United States think
about politics” (419): economic individualism, equality of opportunity and a belief
in the free enterprise system. Theoretically, this tripartite typology is motivated in
part from America’s unique history: the value of economic individualism arises from
Protestant asceticism, the value of equal opportunity for all comes from the rejection
of monarchy in favor of democracy and the support of a free enterprise system stems
both from a distrust of large and powerful governments as well as the value of hard
work dating back to before the American founding. While Feldman’s results show
that all but the value of a free-market system matter in a variety of ways, from policy
preferences to candidate evaluations, he also acknowledges that “further work” needs
to be done in the study of values and political belief systems (437).
If previous work has already shown how and when values matter, why should
political scientists care about the Schwartz value typology? As I had alluded to
13
earlier, the advantages to adopting the Schwartz paradigm are threefold: substantive, theoretical and methodological. We already know that substantively the values
construct can be used to explain constraints within mass belief systems. Theoretically, the Schwartz measures are rooted in theories of evolutionary psychology and
capture domains that are of universal importance. Not only do these value measures not rely on understandings of the American founding or particular events in
that country’s history, they are found to have the same structure in samples from all
around the world. Moreover, unlike the “core values” measures used by Feldman and
others (McClosky and Zaller 1984; Goren 2005), Schwartz’s construct of universal
human values is set up in such a way as to be theoretically exogenous to politics.
This premise, which I will call the exogeneity assumption, allows us to get particular leverage on the structure of political attitudes and partisanship based on the
fact that each of the value domains can be thought of as a priori partisanship and
political preferences. It cannot be the case that one’s preference for national defense
spending causes someone to value being healthy or clean. In accordance with the
Schwartz value theory, the relationship must be that abstract values shape specific
preferences, not the other way around.
I understand that this is a rather large assumption to make. Those who study
American politics know that the relationship between political values and partisanship is a difficult one to disentangle. Some have even found that partisanship causes
core values (Goren 2005). While I will answer those claims in future chapters, now I
will present some evidence that the exogeneity assumption is fair. Recall, the basic
argument for assuming these values are exogenous to politics is that individuals are
not thinking about political figures or policies when they are answering questions
like “how important is it to you to be devout?” If we compare these questions with
some political values questions that have been used repeatedly in American politics
- egalitarianism, principle of limited government, etc. - we can see that each of
14
the items used to measure “political values” contains explicit references to specific
governmental programs or the nation as a whole:
• If people were treated more equally in this country, we would have many fewer
problems (egalitarianism).
• This country would have many fewer problems if there were more emphasis on
traditional family ties (traditional family ties).
• The less government gets involved with business and the economy, the better
off this country will be (free enterprise).
As we can see, each of the items used to measure its construct presents questions that are specific to America. More to the point, they ask the respondent to
make complex linkages between some abstract quality (for example, equality) to both
the status quo (if people were treated more equally) and to the ramifications of a
change (we would have many fewer problems). If we compare that with items on
the Schwartz value inventory, we would expect that the Schwartz items are cleaner
in the sense that when individuals are answering these items they are not thinking
about government and are instead thinking about their personal values. If the theory of values contents values matter because they act as “guiding principles” in the
lives of individuals and thereby help citizens structure their belief systems, then we
would expect individuals to be self-reflective when answering questions about basic
values. However, we would also expect (given the items above) that individuals are
thinking about the government and the current state of affairs in America when they
are answering the questions shown from the egalitarianism, traditional family ties
and free enterprise batteries.
In order to get at the evidence for the exogeneity assumption, I designed a simple
survey-embedded experiment that was built into a survey that went out to Duke
15
undergraduates in September of 2011. Working with the editors of the student
newspaper (the Chronicle), we contacted a random sample of 600 students in each of
the four classes at Duke.2 Of the 2400 students contacted, over 1200 completed the
survey. The survey was designed to measure both political values and attitudes as
well as opinions on various campus policies. Through simple random assignment, the
students who responded to the survey were assigned into one of two conditions: in the
first condition the first questions the students saw were a random sample of 28 of the
56 Schwartz items. In the second condition, the first questions the students answered
were a collection of political values items that have been used in previous work in
American politics.3 After completing the first block of questions, the students were
instructed: “When answering the previous questions on values, describe what you
were thinking about.” The respondents’ responses to these questions can be seen as
word clouds in figures 1.2 and 1.3.
Each cloud represents the 50 most common words used to describe the thoughts
the students had when answering each set of questions, excluding some common English words. The size of each of the words represents its relative frequency. As we
can see form the graphics, figures 1.2 and 1.3 show that traditional measures of political values are just that - political. Respondents are cognizant of the government,
parties, spending and the economy and thinking about these concepts when they are
answering questions about governmental policy. This is exactly what we would expect. However, when we look at the Schwartz items, we see cleaner measures of basic
values. In a sample of nearly 600 undergraduates, not a single student mentioned
either party, the words “liberal” or “conservative”, “government” or “the economy”
or any other indications that they were thinking about anything besides what was
2
The lists of email addresses was obtained through the office of institutional research and was a
random draw of 600 students in each of the classes of 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.
3
Scales included moral traditionalism, egalitarianism, limited government, free enterprise and a
measure of the protestant work ethic.
16
Figure 1.2: Traditional measures of political values.
most important to them. This is strong evidence that the exogeneity assumption is
a fair one to make. While political values are tainted by politics, personal values
are devoid of references to other aspects of an individuals political identity: party or
ideology. Given the cognitive aspects in how some of these questions are answered,
it is perhaps not surprising to see that some have found that partisanship causes
political values: people seem to be thinking about the two parties when they are
answering questions about “core political values.”
The takeaway from this introduction to the Schwartz values measures is to illustrate both the theoretical and methodological contributions these measures can
make to the study of American politics. Not only are these measures devoid of political meaning, as they are theoretically prior to other political values, but as we
can see from the survey of undergraduates they are both more personal measure of
basic values and are not being tainted by other political constructs (partisanship
and ideology, for example). Thus far, we can see how these values measures are
17
Figure 1.3: Cleaner Schwartz measures
theoretically and empirically distinct from other measures used in political science.
Thinking back to the previous theories of political partisanship, we can see that the
role of values in structuring political belief systems is relatively robust, but where
to personal values fit into partisanship? The aim of this thesis is to show that individuals are sorting into parties based on these most basic of values. Whereas other
theories of partisanship have been able to explain partisan stability and short-term
fluctuations, the theory of values-based partisanship can help evidence the origins of
the gravitational pull that direct some people towards the political left and others
to the political right.
In the following chapters, I will test my theory of values-based partisanship using
several different methods and data sources. The general theory behind the valuesbased approach is that our personal values shape what we want in life and what we
think should happen in the world around us. This is taken, ipso facto, on the theory
of universal values from Shalom Schwartz. If these values are the guiding principles of
18
what someone sees as the “good” in life, then these values should manifest themselves
in the political arena whenever an individual has to decide between different political
options. We know from the literature on American institutions (Aldrich 1995) that
America developed parties in order to work as institutions to solve problems of
collective action. In fact, this is nearly the same theoretical foundation that is given
to basic human values, to overcome an environmental problem. In the Schwartz value
sense, the problems we faced led to the value domains that allow us to overcome these
difficulties. In the political arena, parties developed in America in order to translate
individual values into outcomes that would benefit their members. Thus, if parties
as institutions are known to stand for particular policies or political values and party
labels can signal to others what a particular person stands for, then it may be the
case that individuals are choosing which parties to affiliate with based upon their
basic values.
Under the general expectation that self-enhancement values and conservation
values will be associated with parties and ideologies on the political right (Republicans and Conservatives) and self-transcendence values and openness to change values will be associated with the parties and ideologies of the American political left
(Democrats and Liberals), I will test the theory of values-based partisanship in the
following three chapters. Chapter 2 answers this question: are parties known to
stand for particular personal values? Through a series of experimental studies of undergraduate students I show that partisans and ideologues differ, and are known to
differ, on dimensions of the Schwartz value inventory. Chapter 3 presents an analysis
of whether values can override partisan cues in an experimental setting. By asking
respondents on a national survey to evaluate candidates with randomly assigned
characteristics, I show that when evaluating candidates congruence with one’s own
values matters more than the congruence one has with the party. In essence, this
chapter demonstrates that most Americans prefer a candidate that shares their val19
ues than shares their party. Chapter 4 presents a theory of cross-pressured partisans,
predicting that the general pattern holds that as self-enhancement or conservation
values become more important, Democrats will tend to behave like Republicans while
when self-transcendence or openness to change values become more important, those
who identify with the Republican party should start to hold policy positions similar
to the Democratic base. Finally, chapter 5 presents a conclusion and an outline of
my future research plans as well as the overall implications for the study of American
political partisanship.
20
2
Perceptions of Values and Partisanship
2.1 Overview:
Warren Miller once wrote that the very existence of a political party depended upon
leaders able to accurately “articulate the group’s values and interpret the group’s
interest in the stream of public affairs” (Miller 1976, 22). Party leaders, in order to
be effective in seeking and maintaining power must fairly represent the principles and
values their constituents hold. Beginning with the Michigan scholars’ contention that
partisan identification is an individual’s “affective orientation to an important groupobject” in their environment, this paper develops an argument for the examination
of partisan identification through the lens of values and their perceived importance.
I aim to advance research on value systems, political parties and vote choice to
argue for a strict value-based approach to American political behavior: especially
partisan identification and perceptions of polarization. This paper will proceed in
four parts. First, I will frame my argument in the literature of political parties
and the psychology of values. Next, I will develop new hypotheses in the realm
of political values and then test these hypotheses using an approach of “perceived
21
cultural importance.” Third, I will show that partisans and ideologues correctly
perceive differences between target groups on established cross-cultural psychological
value dimensions. Finally, I will show that partisan strength can be predicted through
one’s universal values.
2.1.1
Understanding Political Values:
Nearly the entire field of political behavior stems from the study of both values and
attitudes, yet the distinction between the two is not always perfectly clear to political
scientists. Values will be defined by following Schwartz’s concepts as “the criteria
people use to select and justify actions and to evaluate people (including the self)
and events” (1992, 2). Values differ from attitudes in that values are general metrics
that may be employed to evaluate a particular object: but the resulting concerns
regarding a specific object are attitudes. While one may have an infinite number of
attitudes towards nearly as many objects, research has shown that there are only a
limited number of values and that they are harder to change over time (Kristiansen
and Hotte 1996). We also know that issue dimensions (such as the often used liberalconservative dimension) are inadequate in explaining and predicting how Americans
organize their political attitudes (Jacoby 1991, 2002; Conover and Feldman 1981).
Furthermore, there is plenty of evidence that voting behavior and issue positions
might well be functions of many other traits and variables such as authoritarianism
(Stenner 2005), political sophistication and information processing (Zaller 1992),
issue evolution (Carmines and Stimson 1989), differences at the state level (Gelman
et al. 2008) and campaign effects (Popkin 1991). So why are values so important?
According to Rokeach (1973, 5), value systems - an individual’s “organization of
beliefs concerning preferable modes of conduct or end-states” - provide the foundation
for any problem worth studying in the social sciences. Even in complex, pluralistic
views of political attitudes, individual values “function as the back stops of belief
22
systems” (Tetlock 2000). In the expression of attitudes on any particular issue, an
individual must always employ their underlying value hierarchy. Moreover, a value
system itself is dynamic in the sense that certain values often conflict and “specific
attitudes and behaviors are guided not by the priority given to a single value but
by tradeoffs among competing values that are implicated simultaneously” in some
behavior or attitude (Schwartz 1996). Thus, any behavior may be seen as a result
of an individual’s values, given their opportunities for action and their available
alternatives.
Building off the work of Allport, Vernon and Lindzey (1960) and Rokeach (1973),
Hofstede (1980, 1983, 1985) investigated the cross-cultural validity of early values
work. In later studies, the Rokeach Value Survey instruments were found to be biased
against Eastern values (Hofstede and Bond 1984) as well as limited in the number of
dimensions they include (Braithwaite and Law 1985). It was not until the early 1990s
that Schwartz developed his theoretical justification regarding a universal structure of
human values. Schwartz (1992, 1994) used the following guiding evolutionary goals
to explain the fundamental nature of human values: values were used to express
needs of humans, values were a means of coordinating social interactions between
humans, and values were requisite for humans to survive together as groups. Using
these premises as first principles, Schwartz proceeded to derive ten motivational value
types that in turn may be separated into four categories (Barnea and Schwartz 1998).
This categorization is shown below in table 2.1:
Most remarkably about these particular survey instruments is the amount of
cross-cultural validation they have successfully undergone by researchers other than
Schwartz. While Schwartz’s original study (1992) had validated the theory of universal value types using a sample of over 9,000 individuals across 20 countries, 13
languages and 8 major religions, others sought to verify his original findings. For
example, Spini (2003) found that all of the original dimensions with the exception of
23
Table 2.1: The Schwartz Value Inventory
Value Type
Openness to Change
Hedonism
Items: “How important is (item) to you..?”
Self-direction
creativity, curious, freedom, choosing own goals, independent private life
Stimulation
Self-transcendence
Benevolence
daring, a varied life, an exciting life
Universalism
protecting the environment, a world of beauty, unity with nature, broad-minded,
social justice, wisdom, equality, a world at peace, inner harmony
pleasure, enjoying life, self-indulgent
helpful, honest, forgiving, loyal, responsible, true friendship, a spiritual life,
mature love, meaning in life
Conservation
Tradition
devout, accepting my portion in life, humble, moderate, respect for tradition
Conformity
politeness, honoring parents and elders, obedient, self-discipline
Security
clean, national security, social order, family security, reciprocation of favors,
healthy, sense of belonging
Self-enhancement
Achievement
successful, capable, ambitious, influential, intelligent, self-respect
Power
social power, authority, wealth, preserving my public image, social recognition
Hedonism met his requirements for metric equivalence across cultures using a sample
of 3,859 individuals from 21 countries surveying university students in different disciplines. Others, such as Bilsky and Koch (2000) used a smaller sample (n=144) of
Canadian students to replicate most all of Schwartz’s original dimensions. It is clear
that the original value dimensions as put forth in 1992 have stood the test of both
time and independent verification. Given the careful nature of subject selection across multiple countries, languages and religions - it is difficult to believe that there
is any better explanation for the content and structure of human values than the
Schwartz Value Inventory (SVI).
2.1.2
Values in Political Research:
Relevant for discussions of political parties is the later work of Barnea and Schwartz
(1998) and Caprara et al. (2006). They have used basic assumptions about political
parties and values to develop hypotheses surrounding the four value archetypes:
self-enhancement (which captures achievement and power values), self-transcendence
(benevolence and universalism), conservation (conformity, security and traditionalist
values) and openness to change (self-direction and stimulation values). For instance,
these authors see most contemporary debates in Israeli and Italian politics as being
24
framed over issues of classical liberalism and egalitarianism. Liberalism, as they
articulate it, is the school of political thought that seeks to maximize individual
freedoms and the tolerance of differences. Non-liberal parties, in this sense, are those
groups tied to values in the “conservation” category. Therefore, from the traditional
understanding of left and right, we might expect that parties on the political left to
be comprised of liberals (in the Schwartz sense) and parties on the political right to
be comprised of conservatives (again in the Schwartz sense).
Regarding egalitarianism, individuals might favor an equal division of wealth
(economic egalitarianism) characterized by “self-transcendence” (universalism and
benevolence) and identifying with the political left. However, individuals may favor
an equality of opportunity (and not strict division of material wealth) and therefore
place themselves higher on “self-enhancement” (power and achievement), favoring
a hierarchical ordering of society based upon some telling of merit and belong on
the ideological right. While previous scholars have assessed American attitudes towards concepts of individualism and egalitarianism, most notably McClosky and
Zaller (1984), these interpretations have always been limited in their generalizability because they lacked as widely validated a system as Schwartz has developed.
McClosky and Zaller set out to “focus primarily on beliefs and values” in order to
understand the story of American ideologies, but nearly every measure used to explain political attitudes was itself a construction of agreeing (or disagreeing) with a
politically charged statement focusing on a particular public policy (McClosky and
Zaller 1984, 17). More recently, Schwartz and other have been able to extend the
work of Duverger (1959), Lipset (1960), and McClosky (1958) to correctly classify
approximately two-thirds of voters (in countries with more than two parties) given
their responses to the values battery. When taken as a single measure, this is most
impressive.
25
2.1.3
Real American Values?
Classic political flash points like redistribution of wealth, national defense, individual
freedoms, immigration and taxes might all be explained parsimoniously in a more
fundamental theory of political orientation: individuals have values that dictate political goals and, therefore, choose to affiliate with political parties precisely because
they are institutions used to solve collective action problems (Aldrich 1995). These
parties also help individuals make heuristic decisions about the bundles of goods
parties represent (Hinich and Munger 1993). While the first part of the theory rests
on definition and previous research, the second part (regarding actual party choice)
might need some clarification. Even the earliest authors on parties saw them as “brokerage organizations hoping to attract majority support from almost every segment
of the electorate” (McClosky 1958, 27). In American politics, the way the status
quo is changed is through partisan efforts: parties exist as an institutionalized solution to problems of coordination, by aggregating interests into social policy. At first
glance, and as they are portrayed in the media, Republicans and Democrats might
seem as different as night and day. In fact, a good portion of recent scholarship has
been devoted to just how different these parties have become (McCarty, Poole and
Rosenthal 2005; Theriault 2008; Hetherington 2009). However, when one considers
all possible arrangements of two parties on a large number of issues, it is surprising
that the parties are as close to one another as they are. For one thing, the parties
seem to agree on far more things than they disagree on, as Aldrich explains:
Although both parties value democratic principles, the free market, equal
opportunity, and the like, and though both adhere to the principles of a
strong economy, peace maintained by a defense adequate for that purpose, and so on, they differ in the relative emphasis they place on such
values, and they differ even more in the means or policies they consider
26
appropriate for achieving those ends (1995, 8).
Deciding which particular problem ought to be addressed, or how it ought to be
solved are two important questions facing any citizenry. How each of those questions
is answered is primarily determined by the values that each citizen holds, and the
values that determine what a community believes its citizens need (Walzer 1983).
The important aspect of developing party differentiation is the assumption that parties as institutions seek to gain and maintain electoral power. In doing so, parties
ought to develop a reputation among the electorate as representing certain key ideas,
positions and therefore, at the most basic level, values. This ordering of parties on
issue dimensions is certainly not new, and Republicans and Democrats already have
reputations for endorsing particular ideological positions by championing changes to
the status quo. We see this empirically in most survey research, but one empirical example shown in figure 2.1 derived from the 2006 Cooperative Congressional
Election Study (CCES) illustrates this nicely.
Figure 2.1: Perceptions of partisan ideology
27
This figure shows how partisans are perceived on a single ideological dimension.
The respondents were asked their partisan identification, and also to place three
things on the liberal-conservative scale: themselves, the Democratic party and the
Republican party. Because the questions did not ask about “Independents” those
who identified as such were dropped from the analysis. This example provides us
with a key insight: evaluation of the parties on a single dimension is possible and,
at least in the aggregate, Americans are reasonably good at it. Now that we know
that there are cases in which survey respondents can accurately place parties on a
single common dimension, we can generate several hypotheses regarding a perceived
value systems of partisans and ideologues. To begin, we assume as we did above
that parties as institutions seek to gain and maintain power and therefore attempt to
clearly signal to the public where they stand on particular issues, as for any particular
office-seeker a “candidate’s party affiliation therefore provides a very inexpensive way
to infer a great deal: what a typical Democrat or Republican is like” (Aldrich 1995,
49). Therefore, if parties seek to differentiate themselves, they will inevitably do
so on basic values. If parties differ on values, then we should be able to witness
two phenomena: first, when given the chance to do so, partisans will differentiate
themselves based on established value dimensions. Second, when asked to rate the
importance of particular values to “a typical Democrat or Republican,” the average
person should be able to characterize correctly the value differences that separate the
major parties in American politics. While similar work has previously been done on
Scandinavian countries (Knutsen 1995), Israel (Schwartz 1996) and Italy (Caprara
et al. 2006), such successful results have yet to apply to American political parties.
Thus, the first hypothesis we can test is:
Hypothesis 1: When asked to estimate the value systems of partisans and ideologues, participants will differentiate Republicans and Democrats and Liberals
28
and Conservatives along multiple established value dimensions.
Before definitively stating the directional hypotheses, we must borrow from the
framework of Schwartz and others. Prior research and partisan theory have indicated that political parties can be either classically liberal (or non-liberal) as defined
above resulting in higher levels of self-direction, universalism and stimulation (security, conformity, tradition) values. We also have previous research saying that the
egalitarian dimension will likely see economic egalitarian (non-egalitarian) parties
being high in self-transcendence (self-enhancement) values. Furthermore, such differences may be explained by different levels of belief in individualism or collectivism
- latent qualities that can be placed on a single dimension (Hofstede and Bond 1984;
Triandis et al. 1988; Oyserman, Coon and Kemmelmeier 2002). Knowing what we
do about Republicans and Democrats, we would expect to see the key differences in
both values and the individualism-collectivism (IND-COL) dimension.
First, if the rhetoric of the “Tea party,” “nanny states,” or “big government” are
any indication, we can hypothesize a clear difference on IND-COL: Democrats are
more likely to be collectivistic while Republicans would rate higher on individualism.
This helps us develop the second hypothesis, regarding the division of egalitarian
values along Schwartz’s categorizations: in pushing for tax cuts and individualized
responsibility, Republicans would most likely score higher on self-enhancement values
while Democrats would score higher on self-transcendence values (those associated
with the redistribution of wealth, equality and cooperation). To derive a hypothesis
of party divergence on liberalism, it is helpful to examine current public opinion on a
single issue: gay marriage. One would expect that the party more likely to be for the
equal treatment of homosexuals (Democrats) would have a higher measure of values
in the “Openness to change” category, while Republicans would score higher on nonliberal (“Conservation”) values. These hypotheses are the same along the lines of
ideology, though the differences are anticipated to be smaller given how appealing the
29
label “conservative” is to most respondents.1 Thus we have the following directional
hypotheses:
Hypothesis 2: Partisans (and ideologues) will clearly break down along the INDCOL dimension with Republicans (conservatives) being more individualistic
while Democrats (liberals) are more collectivistic.
Hypothesis 3: Compared to Republicans (conservatives), Democrats (liberals) will
have significantly higher levels of self-transcendence values (egalitarian component) as well as openness to change values (liberalism component).
Hypothesis 4: Compared to Democrats (liberals), Republicans (conservatives) will
have significantly higher levels of self-enhancement values (egalitarian component) as well as conservation values (liberalism component).
Hypothesis 5: If underlying values are predictive of partisanship, then stronger
value convictions should be associated with stronger partisan attachments. For
example, those who hold values that are strongest on the self-enhancement and
conservation ends of the dimensions should be the most likely to identify as
strong Republicans.
The method and paradigm employed in this study were inspired by Wan et al.
(2007). In their study participants were asked to rate themselves and target groups
on individualistic and collectivistic values, as well as items from the Schwartz value
inventory. By comparing summary statistics across value types and reference groups,
the authors were able to show the relative differences between actual and perceived
cultural importance. Whereas their initial study investigated differences between
Chinese and American university students, I have altered the design to capture the
same differences between partisans and ideologues.
1
For a great discussion of this phenomenon, see Ellis and Stimson (2007) illustrating the phenomenon of “conflicted conservatives” – those who prefer liberal policies but who still identify with
the conservative label whereas those who call themselves liberals are in fact liberals.
30
2.1.4
Study 1: Partisanship
Method:
Participants – Participants were 374 undergraduate students (171 men, 203 women)
at a medium-sized research university in the southern United States. The mean age
of the sample was 20.5 years (SD = 1.84 years). Participants either received $6
for participation or were awarded class participation credit. After completing the
IND-COL study, each of the participants was randomly assigned into either the partisan or ideology survey condition – aside from the targets of the evaluations, the
treatments were identical.
Measures – A survey of 18 individualistic and collectivistic values was given
to each participant three separate times. This list is based on the work of Ho and
Chiu (1994), who identified nine items that consistently capture both individualistic
(self-reliance, individuality, autonomy, competition, individual interests, individual
responsibility, financial independence, rights to privacy and individual effort) and
collectivistic values (collective effort, group spirit, majority rule, striving for common
good, self-sacrifice, mutual support from peers, collective responsibility, conformity
and cooperation). In order to minimize question-order or projection effects (Krosnick
and Alwin 1987; Barnes, Banahan and Fish 1995) both question order and the order
of the following phases was the result of random assignment resulting in each subject
being assigned to one of six survey forms. In the first phase, they were presented with
the entire list of values and asked to select the 10 values that were most important to
them. In the second (third) phase, participants were again presented with the same
list of values and were instructed “For each value please indicate the percentage
of REPUBLICANS (DEMOCRATS) you believe would place that value in THEIR
TOP TEN.”
31
In the second part of the study, participants were asked to evaluate the importance of each of the 56 values (Schwartz 1992) that appeared in figure 1. The
participants were instructed:
Below is a list of 56 values, please rate how important each is in YOUR
life from 0 (not important) to 7 (very important). When you answer these
questions, think about how important each of these values is in YOUR
self-concept, how much the value influences YOUR goals, aspirations,
beliefs and actions.2
The sample’s mean endorsement of each value can be used as an indication of actual
self-importance for a given set of partisans. To tap perceived cultural importance
on each of the ten value dimensions, the participants were presented with the lists a
second (and third) time being instructed: “Below is a list of 56 values. Please rate,
from 0 (not important) to 7 (very important), how important each is in the life of
A TYPICAL DEMOCRAT (REPUBLICAN).” Compared to the sample mean on
personal importance, these measures provided sample estimates of how Democrats
and Republicans are perceived. In addition to these questions, participants were
asked for their partisan identification (1-7; strong democrat-strong republican), and
ideology (1-3; liberal-conservative).
Results and discussion:
Table 2.2 presents the value system hierarchies as aggregated from participants actual
self-importance on each of the 18 IND-COL items, measured as the percentage of
Republicans or Democrats who actually selected each value as one of their ten most
important values.
Within the sample, all but one individualistic item (“rights to privacy”) and
two collectivistic items (“conformity” and “self-sacrifice”) were statistically signif2
Again, these questions appeared in a random order to minimize concerns for survey design effects.
32
Table 2.2: Sample Partisan Value Hierarchies
Democrats
Cooperation
Individual Responsibility
Collective effort
Rights to Privacy
Financial Independence
Self-reliance
Common good
Mutual Support from Peers
Majority Rule
Individual Interests
Collective responsibility
Individual Effort
Individuality
Self-sacrifice
Autonomy
Group Spirit
Competition
Conformity
%
73.2d
72.3r
66.8d
62.8r
62.2r
61.4r
59.1d
57.6d
55.6d
54.6r
54.1d
52.3r
51.7r
51.7d
48.8r
43.6d
40.1r
28.4d
Republicans
Financial Independence
Individual Responsibility
Individual Interests
Self-reliance
Rights to Privacy
Autonomy
Competition
Individuality
Individual Effort
Cooperation
Self-sacrifice
Majority Rule
Collective effort
Common good
Collective responsibility
Mutual Support from Peers
Group Spirit
Conformity
%
84.3r
83.2r
74.7r
73.5r
69.9r
68.6r
67.5r
66.2r
63.8r
51.8d
43.3d
42.1d
39.7d
38.8d
36.1d
34.9d
24.1d
20.4d
N= 276, (163 Democrats; 113 Republicans)
indicates “Collectivistic value”
d
indicates significantly higher (p < .05) Democratic evaluation.
indicates significantly higher (p < .05) Republican evaluation.
All tests are paired, two-tailed t-tests.
r
icant from zero. Most importantly, as predicted, all significant differences are in
the expected direction: Republicans significantly higher on the individualistic items,
Democrats on the collectivistic items. These results are illustrated in figure 2.2:
This figure illustrates the stark contrast that is lost in table 1, showing the percentage of individuals in each party who selected each of the values along with 95%
confidence bands for the estimates. Following convention, Republicans are represented in red and democrats in blue. In this figure, we can see that on every single
item, the difference is in the expected direction. Clearly, Republicans and Democrats
33
1.0
True Party Estimates
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
Autonomy
Competition
Financial Independence Individual Effort
Individual Interests Individual Responsibility
Individuality
Privacy
Self−Reliance
Majority Rule
Self−Sacrifice
Support from Peers
Individualistic Values
1.0
True Party Estimates
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
Collective Effort Collective Responsibility Common Good
Conformity
Cooperation
Group Spirit
Collective Values
Figure 2.2: Value endorsements by type and party
are clearly sorting themselves based on these IND-COL items. Next we can look at
perceived value hierarchies, that is, how individuals believe the archetypical Democrat or Republican would order their values. In this sub-sample of the original study
there are 182 subjects (85 Democrats, 55 Republicans and 42 moderates).
As we can see from the table, all items (with the exception of “majority rule”
and “conformity”) are significantly different from one another, and in the predicted
direction. Figure 2.3 repeats the illustration, below:
Finally, a factor analysis was conducted on the subsets of the 18 item scale,
capturing participants’ latent level of individualism and collectivism. A two factor
solution was retained, and these factors were then tested for levels of difference
between parties. The mean measures of each latent variable, along with a 95%
confidence interval are plotted in figure 2.4. As expected, tests reveal significant
differences in accord with previous results: Democrats are significantly more likely
to be collectivistic, while Republicans are more likely to be individualistic.
The results are even more robust using perceived differences, as we might infer
from table 2.3 and figure 2.3. But what about the broader, universal values suggested
34
Table 2.3: Perceived Partisan Value Hierarchies
Democratic Value System
Common good
Collective effort
Collective responsibility
Cooperation
Group Spirit
Mutual Support from Peers
Majority Rule
Self-sacrifice
Autonomy
Financial Independence
Individuality
Competition
Individual Effort
Rights to Privacy
Individual Interests
Individual Responsibility
Self-reliance
Conformity
%
79.4d
76.3d
75.9d
74.8d
73.4d
72.5d
63.9
60.2d
57.5r
57.1r
53.3r
52.2r
47.5r
47.3r
46.5r
45.6r
44.9r
43.2r
Republican Value System
Financial Independence
Competition
Individual Effort
Self-reliance
Individual Responsibility
Individual Interests
Autonomy
Majority Rule
Individuality
Rights to Privacy
Cooperation
Common good
Group Spirit
Mutual Support from Peers
Conformity
Self-sacrifice
Collective effort
Collective responsibility
%
79.8r
76.9r
76.7r
74.8r
74.5r
73.4r
72.1r
64.9
64.7r
62.5r
57.2d
55.3d
54.9d
52.9d
52.9r
50.5d
48.1d
47.8d
N= 182 (85 Democrats, 55 Republicans, 42 Moderates)
indicates “Collectivistic value”
d
indicates significantly higher (p < .05) Democratic evaluation.
indicates significantly higher (p < .05) Republican evaluation.
All tests are paired, two-tailed t-tests.
r
by Schwartz? I turn now to analyze the results of the perceived importance of each
of the higher dimensions in Schwartz’s value inventory. In order to test perceived
differences between the parties on self-enhancement, self-transcendence, conservation
and openness to change, I asked the participants to rate the importance of each of the
56 values to a “typical Democrat” or a “typical Republican.” Next, I created a single
additive measure that was a linear combination of all component variables (those
value items listed under each category in table 1) and rescaled them to run from
0-1 in order to make useful comparisons. All four of the perceived differences were
35
Perceived Party Estimates
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
e
nc
ia
iva
R
el
Pr
Se
lf−
lR
In
es
di
po
vi
ns
du
al
cy
ity
y
ib
ilit
s
nt
lI
du
a
du
a
vi
di
In
Fi
di
na
vi
In
nc
i
al
In
In
di
vi
de
p
er
Ef
en
du
al
tit
pe
C
om
es
t
fo
r
e
de
nc
n
io
m
y
Au
to
no
t
0.0
Perceived Party Estimates
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
rs
Pe
e
ifi
c
cr
R
Su
pp
or
Se
tf
lf−
ro
m
Sa
ity
or
M
aj
up
ro
G
e
ul
e
iri
t
Sp
ra
t
pe
C
oo
C
on
fo
r
m
io
n
ity
d
C
om
po
es
R
C
ol
le
ct
ive
m
on
ib
ns
Ef
tiv
e
le
c
ol
C
G
oo
ilit
fo
r
t
y
0.0
Figure 2.3: Perceived value systems by type and partisanship
significantly different from zero and all in their predicted directions; these results are
shown in table 2.4.
Graphically, these differences appear in figure 2.5 with the means and 95% confidence intervals for each dimension plotted across partisans Again, Republicans are
shown in red and Democrats in blue.3
What we can see from this figure is that when perceptions of both parties are
mapped onto Schwartz’s value dimensions, the results are clear: Republicans are
3
As a previous reviewer had suggested, these have been collapsed from the four scales to map onto
two axes, making the interpretation easier. Schwartz’s theory suggests this is a realistic mapping
of values in two-dimensions; while the dimensions are technically orthogonal, here they are plotted
to make meaningful side-by-side comparisons.
36
Collectivism
Individualism
0.4
●
●
0.2
0.0
●
−0.2
●
−0.4
Democrats
Republicans
Democrats
Republicans
Figure 2.4: Factor analysis of IND-COL, by party
perceived to be less likely to be “open to change” and more likely to be focused on
“self-enhancement” than Democrats who score higher on the “openness to change”
dimension and higher on the self-transcendence measures. This is important because
it provides political scientists with clear evidence that partisan labels can serve as
heuristics for the types of value an individual might hold when one thinks of a
Republican or a Democrat. In the analysis presented above, there is clear separation
on all predicted dimensions between Republicans and Democrats, providing evidence
that there is a “culture of partisanship.” While this study does not allow us to
conclude that there are actual differences in these cultural terms, it does afford us
the ability to say that there are significantly different perceptions of partisans on
these well established value dimensions.
37
Table 2.4: Perceived Differences among Republicans and Democrats
Schwartz Category
Self-Transcendence
Self-Enhancement
Conservation
Openness to Change
Democrats
.792d
(.018)
0.678
(.02)
0.628
(.019)
.761d
(.019)
Republicans
0.606
(.02)
.827r
(.018)
.737r
(.018)
0.671
(.019)
N= 182 (85 Democrats, 55 Republicans, 42 Moderates)
d
indicates significantly higher (p < .05) perceived Democratic evaluation.
indicates significantly higher (p < .05) perceived Republican evaluation.
All tests are paired, two-tailed t-tests.
r
Conservation
Openness to Change
0.85
0.80
●
0.75
●
0.70
●
0.65
●
0.60
Self−Enhancement
Self−Transcendence
0.85
●
0.80
●
0.75
0.70
●
0.65
●
0.60
Democrats
Republicans
Democrats
Republicans
Figure 2.5: Perceptions of Schwartz Values as they relate to partisanship
38
2.1.5
Study 2: Ideology
Method:
The methods and measures for study 2 are identical to the method in study 1
except the question targets are changed from “a typical Democrat (Republican)” to
“someone who is politically liberal (conservative).” The analysis carried out below is
compiled in the same fashion as the previous study, only differing in the sub-sample
that was asked questions about perceptions of liberals and conservatives (n=192;
71 liberals, 67 moderates and 54 conservatives). Subjects in the sub-sample were
randomly assigned to one of eight survey forms asking them about their own values,
and then the values of liberals and conservatives to minimize question-order bias.
Results and discussion:
Table 2.5 presents the value system hierarchies as aggregated from participants actual
self-importance on each of the 18 IND-COL items, measured as the percentage of
liberals or conservatives (138 liberals, 111 conservatives) who actually selected each
value as one of their top ten. Because of the ambiguity of the term, those participants
identifying as “moderates” were excluded from the study, though their inclusion does
not change the results.
Again, with the exception of only a handful of items all values are significantly
different in their predicted directions. Perhaps what is most interesting from this
table is the clear separation for those identifying as conservatives: notice that not
a single collectivistic value is endorsed by a majority of the sample and all individualistic values are valued more often than collectivistic ones. This, perhaps, is
more clearly shown below in figure 2.6, where liberals are represented in blue and
conservatives in red.
While this may come as no surprise to those who follow American politics, but it
is interesting to see that the single most identifying characteristic of a political group
39
Table 2.5: Sample Ideological Value Hierarchies
Liberals’ Value System
Cooperation
Individual Responsibility
Collective effort
Rights to Privacy
Financial Independence
Self-reliance
Mutual Support from Peers
Common good
Individual Effort
Collective responsibility
Individuality
Majority Rule
Self-sacrifice
Autonomy
Individual Interests
Competition
Group Spirit
Conformity
%
74.7l
72.9
69.4l
66.7
61.3c
56.8l
56.8l
56.8l
55.9
55.9l
54.9c
51.4
51.4
50.5c
46.8c
44.1c
43.2c
22.5
Conservatives’ Value System
Financial Independence
Individual Responsibility
Competition
Individual Interests
Rights to Privacy
Autonomy
Individuality
Self-reliance
Individual Effort
Cooperation
Majority Rule
Self-sacrifice
Common good
Collective effort
Mutual Support from Peers
Collective responsibility
Group Spirit
Conformity
%
88.5c
84.6
78.8c
78.8c
78.8
76.9c
75c
73.1c
65.4
50l
42.3
38.5
34.6l
30.8l
30.8l
25l
23.1l
17.3
N= 249, (138 liberals; 111 conservatives, 125 moderates were excluded)
indicates “Collectivistic value”
l
indicates significantly higher (p < .05) perceived liberal evaluation.
indicates significantly higher (p < .05) perceived conservative evaluation.
All tests are paired, two-tailed t-tests.
c
is their fervor for individualism. This type of polarization becomes even clearer
among both groups when we turn to perceptions of value systems, in table 2.6:
In table 2.6, we again see clear separation between liberals and conservatives
based on individualistic and collectivistic values. With the exception of only a few
values (individuality, rights to privacy, majority rule and conformity) all values are
significantly different in their predicted directions. While in this sample, one collectivistic value was endorsed by a majority of conservatives (majority rule), still
conservatives are perceived to rate all individualistic values as more important than
40
1.0
Ideological Estimates
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
nc
e
Se
lf−
re
Pr
di
v
du
al
R
In
es
lia
iva
id
ua
lit
cy
y
y
ib
po
ns
te
In
ua
l
id
di
v
In
Fi
In
di
na
vi
In
nc
i
al
ilit
s
re
lE
ffo
id
ua
di
v
In
de
om
C
st
e
pe
nd
en
c
io
n
pe
tit
no
m
y
Au
to
rt
0.0
1.0
Ideological Estimates
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
rs
ifi
Pe
e
ce
e
cr
R
Su
pp
or
Se
tf
lf−
ro
m
sa
ity
or
aj
M
G
ro
up
pe
oo
C
ul
iri
Sp
io
ra
t
m
fo
r
on
C
t
n
ity
d
G
on
m
om
C
C
ol
le
ct
ive
C
ol
R
le
es
ct
po
ive
ns
Ef
ib
oo
ilit
fo
r
t
y
0.0
Figure 2.6: Value endorsements by type and ideology
any collectivistic value. For liberals, a similar story can be told: in terms of
perceptions, most of the collectivistic values are clustered at the top of the value
system perceived to be held by approximately three in four liberals. Graphically,
this is shown in figure 2.7:
Next, a factor analysis was carried out, similar to that done in study 1, and
the results of the IND-COL factors were plotting against one another in figure 2.8.
As we can see from the two-dimensional confidence intervals surrounding the estimates, there is no doubt that conservatives are far more individualistic (and less
collectivistic) than liberals are.
Next, we can return to the Schwartz value inventory to assess the data from the
sub-sample of participants that was asked to estimate the personal importance of
each item to a “typical liberal (conservative).” As was done above, all four scales
(self-transcendence, self-enhancement, conservation and openness to change) were
41
Table 2.6: Perceived Differences among Liberals and Conservatives
Liberals’ Value System
Common good
Collective responsibility
Collective effort
Cooperation
Group Spirit
Mutual Support from Peers
Rights to Privacy
Majority Rule
Individuality
Self-sacrifice
Individual Responsibility
Individual Effort
Individual Interests
Autonomy
Self-reliance
Financial Independence
Conformity
Competition
%
82.5l
79.1l
78.6l
77.8l
75.5l
73.5l
69.4
64.2
59.5
58.9l
52.6c
51.4c
48.8c
48.4c
47.4c
43.4c
41.9
37.9c
Conservatives’ Value System
Financial Independence
Individual Responsibility
Individual Effort
Individual Interests
Self-reliance
Competition
Autonomy
Individuality
Rights to Privacy
Majority Rule
Cooperation
Group Spirit
Common good
Self-sacrifice
Mutual Support from Peers
Collective effort
Collective responsibility
Conformity
%
81.2c
79.42c
79.1c
74.6c
74c
72.4c
69.9c
65.6
64.7
57.3
48.9l
46.5l
45.5l
43.2l
42.5l
38.6l
38.3l
34.7
N= 192, (71 liberals; 54 conservatives; 67 moderates)
indicates “Collectivistic value”
l
indicates significantly higher (p < .05) perceived liberal evaluation.
indicates significantly higher (p < .05) perceived conservative evaluation.
All tests are paired, two-tailed t-tests.
c
created using a linear combination of items, creating a simple additive scale. We
would expect that liberals would score higher on the first and last dimensions, and
conservatives would score higher on the middle two. As shown in table 2.7 and
figure 2.9 this is precisely what we find.
2.1.6
Study 3: Partisan Strength:
The final hypothesis to test is whether value homogeneity is indicative of partisan
strength, using the Schwartz Value Inventory (SVI). If the SVI maps onto parti42
Perceived Ideological Estimates
1.0
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0.0
Figure 2.7: Perceived value systems by type and ideology
sanship and partisan strength, then the different ways two groups could differ on
two dimensions should be illustrated. Figure 2.10 does this: showing two groups,
represented by red and blue dots, having varying levels of in-group homogeneity and
difference on two theoretical dimensions. In the upper left panel, we can see no difference between the two groups - knowing an individual’s placement on both dimensions
would not help in classifying them as belonging to one group or the other. Moving
to the upper right panel, we see a small difference in magnitude but more value homogeneity, representing something like basic sorting on the two dimensions. While
this is not large in magnitude, it may help to classify a respondent based upon their
43
Collectivism
Individualism
0.4
Factor Means and Confidence Intervals for IND−COL
●
0.2
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0.0
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−0.2
●
Conservatives
Liberals
Conservatives
Liberals
Figure 2.8: Factor analysis of IND-COL, by ideology.
position in the two-dimensional space. The lower left and lower right figures show
larger differences, where it might be easy to perfectly classify individuals into their
respective groups given their location in this space. While these data are simulated
and for illustration only, they can guide the testing of hypothesis 5. If it is the case
that partisanship and ideology are unrelated to underlying universal values, then
if the study participants are plotted on two dimensions – Self-transcendence/Selfenhancement and Openness to change/Conservation – we should see something that
looks like the panel in the upper left of figure 2.10.
After conducting a factor analysis for the two underlying SVI dimensions, we
can plot partisanship in this space using red dots for Republicans and blue dots for
44
Table 2.7: Perceived Differences among Liberals and Conservatives
Schwartz Category
Self-Transcendence
Self-Enhancement
Conservation
Openness to Change
Liberals
.779l
(.017)
0.645
(.021)
0.529
(.051)
.750l
(.018)
Conservatives
0.538
(.021)
.806c
(.016)
.739c
(.026)
0.635
(.020)
N= 192, (71 liberals; 54 conservatives; 67 moderates)
l
indicates significantly higher (p < .05) perceived Liberal evaluation.
indicates significantly higher (p < .05) perceived Conservative evaluation.
All tests are paired, two-tailed t-tests.
c
Conservation
Openness to Change
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Self−Enhancement
0.8
Self−Transcendence
●
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Liberals
Conservatives
Liberals
Figure 2.9: Perceptions of Schwartz Values as they relate to ideology
45
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Figure 2.10: Four types of value separation
Democrats. In this illustration, partisan strength is also represented by the size of the
point in the scatter plot. Strong republicans (those who responded 6) are the largest
red dots, with those who responded as strong Democrats being represented as larger
blue dots. Moderates and weak partisans are also included and are represented
by smaller purple dots. If the hypothesis is correct theory is correct those who
are “moderates” should lie somewhere between Republicans and Democrats in this
abstract value space. The results are shown in figure 2.11, which has lines indicating
where the means of each dimension.
As hypothesized, nearly every Republicans in the sample is above average on both
dimensions, and most Democrats are below average on at least one (if not both) of the
46
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Figure 2.11: Values and partisan strength
dimensions. More importantly, the moderates seem to cluster close to the intersection
of the two dimensions – showing that as the difference between an individual on the
mean of either factor increases so does partisanship. Thinking about it in Euclidian
terms, as the distance from the origin – here represented by the intersection of the
two means – increases, so should the strength of one’s partisanship. While this
exploratory analysis seems to confirm hypothesis 5, we can also test whether or
not the factor scores predict partisanship. Below in table 2.8 are the results from
two OLS regressions predicting partisanship as a function of the ten Schwartz Value
dimensions (model 1) as well as the two factor solution (model 2).
As we can see from the coefficients, underlying values as measured by the SVI are
strongly associated with partisanship, explaining roughly one fifth of the variance in
partisanship. Those value categories that are significant are all in the expected direction with a strong belief in “universalism” associated with being a stronger Democrat
47
and “conformity” and “traditionalism” strongly predictive of being a strong Republican. When the factor solution is used, both coefficients are significant in their
expected direction, though the amount of variation explained decreases by a factor
of three.
2.1.7
Conclusions:
Through the use of the perceived cultural importance paradigm, these studies have
shown that the political labels of partisanship and ideology are understood to represent clear value systems and can be used as heuristics. In evaluating Republicans
(conservatives) and Democrats (liberals) participants were able to cleanly delineate
these groups according to value systems that have been independently verified in
the field of cross-cultural psychology. In this sense this paper has shown that these
labels – Democrat, Republican, liberal and conservative – are able to be evaluated
in policy-neutral ways. In contrast with Conover and Feldman (1981), the first two
studies have shown that such labels can serve as heuristics for value systems without
referring to evaluations of political phenomena (e.g. capitalism, busing, etc.). In this
regard, partisanship and ideology have been shown to serve as basic lightning rods
for two more basic values (individualism and collectivism) as well as on the higher
value dimensions articulated by Schwartz, thus illustrating how people understand
some of the most common labels in American politics. Study three showed that partisan strength is strongly related to one’s own values and that the more consistent
one’s values are within the Schwartz framework the more strongly they are likely
to be attached to their party. In sum, this work shows that there are distinct cultures within the American political context that are based upon partisanship and
ideology. More importantly, when asked to think about members of political groups,
laboratory participants are able to consistently place them on abstract value spaces
without being asked about social or fiscal policy positions. While the entire 56 item
48
SVI may be cumbersome to include on a national survey, responses to these questions
map consistently to both partisanship and ideology.
49
Table 2.8: Two models predicting partisanship.
Intercept
Universalism
Benevolence
Traditionalism
Conformity
Security
Power
Achievement
Hedonism
Stimulation
Self-direction
Self-enhancement
Conservation
N
R2
adj. R2
Resid. sd
Model 1 Model 2
3.14∗
1.36∗
(0.79)
(0.27)
−7.28∗
(1.38)
1.12
(1.38)
5.20∗
(0.90)
2.51∗
(1.20)
2.19
(1.43)
0.12
(0.92)
−0.67
(1.51)
0.80
(1.11)
1.57
(1.08)
−0.85
(1.30)
1.42∗
(0.32)
0.74∗
(0.32)
374
374
0.24
0.07
0.20
0.07
1.63
1.77
Standard errors in parentheses
∗
indicates significance at p < 0.05
50
3
Beyond Issues: Can parties own values
or do values own parties?
3.1 Chapter Summary:
This chapter shows that universal values and American political partisanship are
nearly synonymous. First, I show that Republicans and Democrats differ in predictable ways on measures of universal human values. Second, I derive several hypotheses regarding the interplay between universal values and partisanship to develop
a theory of candidate evaluations. While traditional experiments of candidate evaluation have always found significant partisan advantages, my theory of value-based
partisanship predicts that as long as a candidate’s position in value-space is clearly
signalled, the addition of a party label will not help (or hurt) a candidate’s favorability. Through an experimental design embedded within a nationally representative
survey I find that in almost every case the addition of partisan information does
not change candidate evaluations. Finally, I show that one’s universal human values
reliably predicts vote choice in national elections.
51
3.1.1
Overview:
As my previous work has shown, party labels are freely associated with abstract
value systems as operationalized by the Schwartz value inventory(SVI). Within the
framework of the SVI, we see Republicans and conservatives possess higher levels
of self-enhancement and conservation values while Democrats and liberals are more
prone to self-transcendence and openness to change values. In trying to build the
case for what I call value-based partisanship, this chapter sets out to test whether
parties can “own” values. In the spirit of the theory of issue ownership (Petrocik
1996), this chapter lays out a theory as to how values and partisanship shape candidate evaluations. The core question is whether values are the same as partisan
identification, and if the former can override the latter. The model is tested through
a survey-embedded experiment in which respondents were asked to rate the favorability of hypothetical candidates who were assigned some value-position and had
their partisanship experimentally manipulated. The results show strong evidence for
value-based partisanship. The theory of value-based partisanship is then extended
and applied to national elections.
Warren Miller once wrote that the very existence of a political party depended
upon leaders able to accurately “articulate the group’s values and interpret the
group’s interest in the stream of public affairs” (Miller 1976, 22). Party leaders,
in order to be effective in seeking and maintaining power must fairly represent the
principles and values their constituents hold. This chapter extends my central argument that partisan identification is a manifestation of universal human values. I aim
to advance research on value systems, political parties and vote choice to argue for
a value-based approach to American partisan identification and political behavior.
Building upon the previous chapter, I will proceed as follows. First, I will quickly
review universal human values and the major findings from chapter two. Next, I
52
will review competing theories of partisan identification and stereotyping in candidate evaluations. Third, I will develop several hypotheses in the realm of candidate
evaluation. Fourth, I test these hypotheses using national survey data and a surveyembedded experiment. Finally, I conclude by showing that party labels add little,
and often nothing, to the evaluation of candidates in the presence of a candidate’s
core values.
3.1.2
The theory of value-based partisanship:
Within cross-cultural psychology, values are the most basic aspects of all attitudes
and are, according to Schwartz (1992, 2), “the criteria people use to select and
justify actions and to evaluate people (including the self) and events.” Values differ
from attitudes in that values are general metrics that may be employed to evaluate a
particular object: but the resulting concerns regarding a specific object are attitudes.
While one may have an infinite number of attitudes towards nearly as many objects,
research has shown that there are only a limited number of values and that they
are harder to change over time (Kristiansen and Hotte 1996). So why are values
so important? According to Rokeach (1973, 5), value systems act as an individual’s
“organization of beliefs concerning preferable modes of conduct or end-states.” Values
act as the building blocks of both attitudes and preferences, concepts which have been
used to explain countless political phenomena.
The general theory of value-based partisanship is closest to the affective orientation and deep psychological attachment that is at the center of The American Voter
and most likely has its “origins in the early family years” (Campbell et al. 1964, 87).
The ultimate argument of this thesis is that the values one holds determines the party
they affiliate with which in turn influences their political behavior in various ways.
Though, how could universal values determine partisan identification? Schwartz’s
theory of universal values has been replicated across continents, religions and lan53
guages to find that the same value types cluster together consistently, and there is no
reason to believe America should be the exception. We also have reason to believe
that the country’s institutions have led to development of a two-party system. For a
discussion of the precise causes of this (called Duverger’s law), see Riker (1982a). To
summarize, we know that individual value systems exist in predictable ways around
the world; that these systems shape attitudes and behaviors and that they can be
thought of existing on two major dimensions. We also know that American political
parties have postured on issues and have had to realign and resort themselves to
assuage internal discord over the years (Brady and Stewart 1982; Miller 1991; Levendusky 2009). If values are the most basic components of attitudes and behaviors,
and if certain types of attitudes are likely to covary in predictable ways, then it might
very well be the case that values could cause partisan identification.
There is also a great deal of evidence that squares with such a theory. Studies
have shown that how children are socialized is one of the best predictors of how
they identify politically (Jennings and Niemi 1968; Levin 1961; Connell 1972; Niemi
and Jennings 1991) as well as the gender roles they take on (Eccles, Jacobs and
Harold 1990), and we know that the political values within married couples are
strongly positively correlated (Watson et al. 2004). Studies have even gone as far as
to explain, using value homophily (McPherson, Smith-Lovin and Cook 2001; Mutz
2002, 2006), how we use our beliefs about the world to select with whom we interact.
None of this literature is at odds with a theory of value-based partisanship, but other
theories of partisanship (e.g. Fiorina 1977) do not allow themselves to be generalized
into a larger socio-political world. The theory of value-based partisanship is, itself,
not without its critics (Goren 2005; Settle et al. 2010) who argue that other forces
may be causing values and partisanship. This paper directly speaks to the questions
Goren raises (2005) about the direction of causality between values and partisan
identification. To do so, I extend the theory to include questions surrounding issue
54
ownership and candidate evaluation.
3.2 Issue Ownership
The concept of issue ownership (Petrocik 1996) stems from the logic of parties as
institutions that seek to maintain power or extend their influence within the political
sphere. Parties are not “short term fixes” (Aldrich 1995, 25) but are institutions
that shape the future with great force. Yet candidates for office are not required
to toe the party line on every single issue. Candidates for office often attempt to
appeal to as many voters as possible by taking stances on policies that make them
more likely to get votes: this is known as issue positioning. Ideally, the candidate
seeks to position themselves in such a way as to appeal to the largest number of
voters. While some formal or spatial representations (Black 1958; Downs 1957; Riker
1982b) may be helpful to understand how candidates stake out a position that would
maximize the likelihood of them winning an election, the most basic of formal models
lacks the ability to account for certain credibility issues that arise when a candidate
“trespasses” into another candidate’s issue position.
Issue ownership arises from both the records of the parties on particular issues
as well as the constituencies those parties serve. If a single party has a consistent
record on a single issue in a single direction (Rabinowitz and Macdonald 1989) it may
cultivate the issue until it is said that the issue is owned by that party. There are
several issues that are said to be “owned” by the parties. For example, education is
better handled by the Democrats and defense is handled by the Republicans. Parties
have an incentive to cultivate such issue ownership as the parties stand as the sole
“politically organized face of the religious, economic, ethnic, linguistic and regional
conflicts” within a society (Petrocik 1996, 827). Thus, candidates have developed
strategies to stake out positions that their party can own, but also have incentives to
campaign on issues that may be particularly salient at any given time. Oftentimes
55
parties seek to reinterpret the issue in order to reframe it in terms more favorable to
their particular party, a process known as issue trespassing (Walgrave, Lefevere and
Nuytemans 2009).
For example, when a Republican talks about policies that aim to reduce crime (a
traditionally Republican issue), they may suggest increased policing or more stringent sentencing laws. On the other hand, a Democrat, acknowledging the issue’s
importance may “talk about investments in education and training programs” that
may help to reduce crime in the long term (829). Thus, in deciding to talk about the
issue of crime the Democrat is challenging the Republican’s ownership of this issue
and changing the debate from whether crime is a priority to the relative merits of
social order policies compared to the provision of social services. This is couching the
issue in terms that the Democrat is perhaps more well known for and can help the
candidate reclaim the issue. Ownership only comes when one party is seen as having
a decisive advantage in perceived issue competence, and historically there are issues
that have been owned by each of the parties. National defense is again one such
issue, as most Americans believe the Republican party is the party best equipped
to handle the issue. Therefore, it is strategic for partisan elites to make every election about issues that their party owns (Bélanger and Meguid 2008) and campaigns
become about issue saliency rather than just issue positioning. If ownership on a
particularly salient issue is difficult for a political candidate, they can attempt to
steal the issue through the process of issue trespassing.
According to Damore (2004), Democrats commit the act of issue trespassing at
a rate of three to one compared to Republicans, but these trespasses are not always
effective. Their lack of efficacy comes from the fact that voters often rely on partisan
stereotyping when they head to the polls. In the 1988 presidential election, both
Bush and Dukakis were engaged in what Norpoth and Buchanan understand as
issue trespassing. Bush had proposed creating jobs and had given stump speeches
56
focused on how we wanted to become the “education president” while Dukakis fought
to own the issue of strengthening the nation’s defense. By doing so, it was as if
“both candidates temporarily donned the colors of the opposite party” (Norpoth
and Buchanan 1992, 88). In the end, these ploys did little to help each candidate as
even the most informed voters still attributed issue positions based more on partisan
heuristics - similar to those shown in an early chapter - instead of on positions
explicitly taken during the course of the campaign.
All of this literature surrounding issue ownership and issue trespassing gives credence to the “party as a heuristic” model which results in candidates being stereotyped as holding the positions of the party even in circumstances when they have
made repeated attempts to distance themselves from the partisan trope. As a result,
issue trespassing is not likely to be effective but is more likely to occur if an issue is
particularly salient or when the position of the other candidate is opposite of some
of that party’s constituents. In the latter case, parties may microtarget voters who
are “cross-pressured” by party forces or those who are politically independent by
“highlight[ing] issues on which these voters disagree with the position taken by the
opposing party candidate” (Hillygus and Shields 2008, 183). These efforts are met
with varying levels of success, as the “party as heuristic” seems to affect everything
from the traits parties are believed to hold (Hayes 2005) to issues of projection.
Projection occurs when individuals believe that, because they have positive affect
towards a candidate, that candidate must hold positions similar to their own (Koch
2001; Krosnick 1988b,a) and use party labels or their affective orientation to infer
candidate qualities. Thus, if an individual favors a candidate on some dimension
(e.g. values that candidate holds) then he or she may be more likely to infer that
the candidate shares the same position with them on a second dimension (e.g. partisanship).
From this review of the relevant literature, we can glean several things relative to
57
testing value-based partisanship. First, parties are known to take specific positions
on policies and are sometimes said to own these issues. Second, issue trespassing
is very difficult to do effectively as the partisan label does so much to counter the
effects of this posturing. Third, most Americans (especially those who lack political
knowledge) are likely to fill gaps in their own information of the candidates being
considered by “projecting” other qualities onto them. Thus, we know that the partisan label is the strongest method individuals use to evaluate candidates regardless of
issue positions and that this is sometimes extremely difficult for candidates to fight
against. Moreover, as previous research has indicated (Goren 2005), partisanship
may actually be causing the values one holds. If these previous findings are correct,
then a rigorous test of value-based partisanship must show that values can become
the primary method of evaluating political objects. The hypotheses for these tests
are derived below.
3.2.1
Testable hypotheses:
Recall that the theory of value-based partisanship implies that universal values act
as the most fundamental component of how partisanship is structured. The theory
implies that when values are invoked they should be the primary means by which a
political object is evaluated. Specifically, value congruence will be the first priority
for any object being evaluated. That is, when asked to evaluate a candidate for
office an individual ought to prioritize values in such a way that their preferences
resemble those in table 3.1. Comparing this with the traditional model of partisan
attachment, shown in table 3.2, we can see that the most important thing for voters
in this model is a candidate’s partisanship: for a Democrat, any Democrat is preferable to any Republican, though value congruence is preferred to value incongruence
once the candidate is of the preferred party. Under the theory of value-based partisanship, the opposite ordering of dimensions is expected, what matters most is a
58
candidate’s values. Under this model, a candidate is most preferred if they exhibit
value congruence and candidate’s of the out-party that display value congruence are
more preferable than candidate’s of one’s own party that exhibit value incongruence.
Put more simply this model puts values first, party second.
Table 3.1: Hypothesized rank-order under Value-based Partisanship
Condition Congruent Values Incongruent Values
In Party
1
4
No Party
2
5
Out Party
3
6
Table 3.2: Hypothesized rank-order under traditional Partisanship
Condition Congruent Values Incongruent Values
In Party
1
2
No Party
3
4
Out Party
5
6
In the extant literature, there are essentially two competing psychological theories
of candidate evaluation. The first is the memory-based model (Hastie and Park 1986)
that assumes individuals keep running tallies of affective evidence in their memory
and then retrieve that information when they are asked to evaluate a candidate.
This is similar to Fiorina’s conception of partisanship as a “running tally” that has
each person weigh their likes and dislikes of a candidate equally and then vote “for
the candidate toward whom he has the greatest number of net favorable attitudes”
(Kelley and Mirer 1974, 574). This memory-based model, however, assumes that
individuals recall information they were exposed to in an unbiased manner, or at
the very least that individuals can reasonably recall qualities about the candidates
(Conover and Feldman 1986). Moreover, the model assumes that every positive and
negative piece of information is kept in memory and then at the moment of evaluation
the running tally is computed and an affective orientation towards a candidate is
59
surmised. Alternatives to this model have been presented and have shown that the
memory-based model falls short: individuals are not able to retrieve every piece of
information they were exposed to regarding an individual candidate, instead an online process is used wherein individuals vote “correctly” even if they do not remember
all of the pros and cons regarding any one candidate. Instead, people effectively
update attitudes towards a candidate in the presence of new information (Lodge,
Steenbergen and Brau 1995). This “on-line model” of candidate evaluation (Lodge,
McGraw and Stroh 1989) is the alternative to the strictly memory based evaluations
where, as Eagly and Chaiken (1993) show, individuals update attitudinal preferences
by adding new information to prior judgments.
Alas, as human beings are not perfect processors of information we must compensate by developing heuristics to help us make decisions and function in the world
(Simon 1979, e.g.). As the fields of social cognition and decision theory have taught
us, there are many strategies we employ to deal with uncertainty (Cantor and Mischel
1979; Higgins and Bargh 1987; Payne, Bettman and Johnson 1993) and perhaps the
most frequently used is stereotyping and categorization. Not unique to the political
context, stereotyping is done on the basis of group membership: knowing whether an
individual is a Democrat or Republican should provide a great deal of information
about them. Study after study has shown that political labels can be used as sources
of reliable information when Americans are asked to evaluate candidates (Aldrich
and McKelvey 1977; Conover and Feldman 1989; Trilling 1976; Page 1978; Shively
1979; Wright and Niemi 1983; Riggle et al. 1992; Conover and Feldman 1986; Hamill,
Lodge and Blake 1985; Rahn 1993; Rahn, Aldrich and Borgida 1994; Lau and Redlawsk 2001). While a proper review of this literature would take more space than
useful for a paper of this length, suffice it to say that, ceteris paribus, when the partisanship of a candidate is given it is the piece of information used most frequently
when evaluating a candidate for public office.
60
Figures 3.1 and 3.2, reprinted from the previous chapter, show two things that
can lead us to question the traditional partisanship centered model. First, Republicans and Democrats hold different values in predictable ways. Second, party labels
are able to be used as heuristics within the Schwartz Value Inventory – that is, respondents are able to classify Republicans and Democrats in abstract value space.
The next questions to examine, then, are whether values or party labels matter more
in evaluating candidates for public office and whether or not values are linked to the
choices Americans make in the voting booth.
Values and Partisan Strength
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Figure 3.1: Values and partisan strength
61
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Republicans
Democrats
Republicans
Figure 3.2: Perceptions of Schwartz Values as they relate to partisanship
Again, what this chapter sets out to test is whether values so clearly signal partisanship that abstract values can actually own the party brand - just as Democrats
are said to “own” education. The previously cited research shows that when all else
fails, the presence of partisan labels can effectively “manipulate stereotype accessibility” so that partisan identification can be relied upon to make an affective judgement
of a particular candidate (Rahn 1993, 481). However, if the theory of value-based
partisanship holds, a candidate who is said to value X should communicate their
partisanship with their values. That is, when asked to evaluate a candidate who
prioritizes “social justice,” the value label should trigger the same affect as if the
person was evaluating a “Democrat who values social justice.” All else equal, value
positions should clearly signal partisanship and thus we can derive several testable
hypotheses.
We know from above that Republicans and Democrats are perceived to be different on the Schwartz Value Inventory, so we begin with a simple hypothesis, that
62
partisans will differ on universal values. Secondly, if values can clearly signal partisanship (with values on the lower left panel of figure 3.1 representing Democratic
values and the opposite quadrant representing Republican values), then asking people to evaluate a candidate with a “Democratic value” should have the same results
as asking an individual to evaluate a “Democratic candidate” with the same value.
Third, if values replace partisanship as the primary tool used to evaluate a candidate, then there should be no advantage of the partisan label among partisans.
Specifically, even when Democrats are asked to differentiate between a Democratic
candidate who values social justice and a candidate without a party label (partyless)
who values social justice, the two candidates should be evaluated equally. The same
holds true for Republican candidates with Republican values being evaluated by a
respondent of either party.
What follows, assuming that values can clearly signal partisanship, is that when
asked to rate candidates with “out-party” values (for example, a Republican rating
a candidate advocating social justice) there should be no difference between evaluations of that candidate based on the party label. This means when evaluating
a candidate with values orthogonal to one’s own, the fact that they are a member
of the other party should not matter. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the
partisan advantage should also disappear among candidates with “out-party values.”
That is to say, if values are the primary way in which candidates are evaluated, being
a member of the same party should not matter in the face of value incongruence.
Finally, individual level values should help in predicting the candidate choices in
American elections. Therefore, I have three hypotheses, explicitly stated below. The
first is an extension of the previous chapter’s findings using a national sample of
American adults, the second is the core argument of this particular chapter and the
third extends this theory of candidate evaluation from hypothetical candidates to
real elections.
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H1: Democrats and Republicans will hold different universal value structures - extending chapter two’s hypothesis to a national sample;
H2: When asked to evaluate candidates, Democrats and Republicans will rate these
candidates base primarily on the universal values they are told the candidates
hold. I specifically predict that there will be no partisan advantage or disadvantage as values will outweigh partisanship in affective evaluations of hypothetical
candidates.
H3: Universal values will strongly predict vote choices in national elections.
3.3 Data and Methods:
There are two main sources for participants in this study - the 2006 ANES pilot
study and the 2010 CCES. The CCES was a survey conducted by YouGov/Polimetrix
during the Fall of 2010. Held just after the midterm elections, the survey module
used in this paper contained responses from 1,000 American adults. The sample
was almost evenly split by gender (50.6% female) and had an average age of 53
years (s.d.=14.85). Within the sample there were 751 people who identified as being
white, 96 who identified as being black and 84 who identified as being Hispanic.
Along partisan lines, about 42% identified to varying degrees with the Democratic
party while 46% identified more strongly as Republicans. Participants were asked
ten questions from the adapted Schwartz Value Inventory about how important a
variety of values were to them. These questions map to the dimensions on the SVI
discussed earlier. As the questions asked a series of values and their importance to
a particular individual, the questions must then be weighted by the average level of
importance each respondent gave each value. For instance, if a respondent answered
“very important” to every question, every value essentially becomes an “average”
value even though each is rated very highly. The ten individual level values questions
– with the stem “how important is it to that...” – are as follows:
64
1. every person in the world have the same opportunities in life?
2. you feel safe from harm?
3. you have an exciting life?
4. you follow traditions?
5. you have fun whenever you can?
6. people always follow rules?
7. you are very successful?
8. you help other people?
9. you choose what you do in your life?
10. you be financially successful?
Next, the respondents were randomly assigned into one of three treatment conditions, which asked them their opinions of various kinds of candidates for public office. The random assignment afforded the opportunity of manipulating partisanship
while keeping the set of “candidate values” constant. While one third of respondents evaluated a “Democratic candidate” – the other respondents were evenly split
between a “candidate” and a “Republican candidate” who emphasized each of the
following values: social justice, equality, unity with nature, being forgiving, respect
for traditions, self-discipline, security and individual success. If the theory of valuebased partisanship holds, we should see that when partisans evaluate candidates with
value-based messages they additional information of a candidate’s party-membership
should not change affective orientations towards a candidate. Statistically, this involves a number of difference of means tests. The random assignment, broken down
by partisanship, is shown below in table 3.3, because the theory does not speak to
those who identify as political independents, they were excluded from all analyses.
65
Table 3.3: Results of Random Assignment
Democratic Treatment Baseline Republican Treatment
Democrats
108
124
99
Republicans
99
92
109
Total
207
216
208
Total
331
300
631
Each of the respondents in the survey was then asked, “In thinking about the
qualities and characteristics of political candidates, how favorable or unfavorable
would you be toward a (treatment) who emphasizes (value).”1 The favorability
was measured as a Likert scale which, when rescaled, ran from 0 (extremely unfavorable) to 6 (extremely favorable). In order to account for differences among
individuals with regard to favorability, each item was rescaled to fit around the average of each respondent as was done above for the individual values measures. Next
the dependent variable was rescaled to run from 0-100, a linear transformation that
aids in the interpretation of regression coefficients. These favorability measures were
then analyzed to test the six hypotheses derived above.
I defined value congruence and value incongruence as follows. If the candidate
was said to be emphasizing social justice, equality, unity with nature or forgiveness
and the respondent identified as a Democrat, then they were said to have congruent
values and we would expect the candidate to be seen more favorably. The same
was done with Republicans who were evaluating candidates that emphasized respect
for traditions, self-discipline, security and individual success. The same process was
repeated to code for value-incongruence on the basis of party and presumed party
values derived in chapter two. Partisan congruence was simply coded as a zero
unless the respondent was evaluating candidates from within their own party, and
out-party (partisan incongruence) was coded in a similar fashion. The reason for
using partisanship as a indicator of core values is that, if anything, it should bias
1
again, the possible values were social justice, equality, unity with nature, being forgiving, respect
for traditions, self-discipline, security and individual success.
66
the effects of “value congruence” down if the theory of value-based partisanship is
incorrect. If it is not the case that Democrats hold different values than Republicans,
this measure should bias in-party effects upwards and the estimated effect of value
congruence downwards. This makes it a particularly robust test for my core theory.
3.4 Results
To test the first hypothesis, whether individuals of the two different parties rank
core values differently, I conducted a series of difference of means tests and plot the
relative value system placement for each value for each of the two groups of partisans.
These are shown in figures 3.3 and 3.4. The way to interpret these graphics is as
the relative placement of a value within a party’s value system, with positive bars
representing above average value placement and negative bars representing below
average placement. For example, first panel in figure 3.3 shows that Republicans
place the value of “being successful” square in the middle of their value system
whereas Democrats place it below average. The fourth panel in this same figure shows
that “respect for tradition” is below average for both parties but that for Democrats
it is their least liked value. Recall, the theory of value-based partisanship does not
suggest that there are certain values that only Republicans or Democrats hold, but
instead that the relative importance of each of the values is predictable. Looking at
figure 3.4 we see that both Republicans and Democrats desire to “help other people,”
but Democrats place this higher in their value system than Republicans. While these
graphics do not display the error associated with the measures, all differences met
conventional levels of statistical significance (p < .05).
To test the central hypothesis in this chapter, I estimated the following equation:
F = β0 + β1 ∗ Vc + β2 ∗ Pc + β3 ∗ Pi + β4 ∗ (Vc ∗ Pc ) + β5 ∗ (Vc ∗ Pi )
Here, F represents the favorability of the candidate, Vc and Vi represent value
67
Be successful*
Choose what I do*
Financially Successful*
Follow traditions*
People follow rules*
Safe from harm*
1.0
0.5
0.0
Value Importance
−0.5
−1.0
1.0
0.5
0.0
−0.5
−1.0
Democrats
Republicans
Democrats
Republicans
Democrats
Republicans
Party
Figure 3.3: Partisan sorting on predicted “Republican” values.
congruence and incongruence and Pc and Pi represent party congruence and incongruence respectively. The specific hypotheses for each of the coefficients is presented in
table 3.4, which compares the traditional party-based model with my model of valuebased partisanship. Key for testing my theory is the anticipated non-significance of
β2 and β3 - once values are presented there should be no effect of having additional
information about a candidate’s party affiliation - the values they hold already signal
that information. The equations were estimated in two different ways. In the first
general analysis I pooled across responses so that each survey respondent provided
eight measures on the dependent variable. This tests the general theory of value-
68
Have an exciting life*
Have fun whenever I can*
Help other people*
Same opportunities*
1.0
0.5
0.0
Value Importance
−0.5
−1.0
1.0
0.5
0.0
−0.5
−1.0
Democrats
Republicans
Democrats
Republicans
Party
Figure 3.4: Partisan sorting on predicted “Democratic” values.
based candidate evaluation, and is shown in table 3.5. As we can see from this table,
all of the signs are in their expected direction and significant at conventional levels.
On average candidates without a party and with value incongruence are rated at approximately 54.3 points on the 0-100 scale, with an additional 8.41 points being given
69
if the candidate displays value congruence. Notice most importantly the sign and
significance for the party congruence coefficients: both are negative and significantly
different from zero. This provides strong evidence for value-based candidate evaluations: the party of a candidate does not matter if the values are already incongruent
with the respondent evaluator.
Table 3.4: Expectations of “Value-based Partisanship”
Estimate \ Model
Intercept
Value In-group
Party In-group
Party Out-group
Value In x Party In
Value In x Party Out
Candidate Represented
Value Incongruence, No Party
Value Congruence, No Party
Party Congruence and Value Incongruence
Value and Party Incongruence
Value and Party Congruence
Value Congruence and Party Incongruence
Party-based
Value-based
β0
β1 +
β2 +
N.S.
N.S.
N.S.
β0
β1 +
β2 ≤ 0 N.S.
β3 ≤ 0 N.S.
β4 +
N.S.
Table 3.5: Pooled Estimates of Candidate Favorability
Variable
Coefficient
(Clustered Standard Error)
8.41∗∗
Value Congruence
(0.70)
-3.51∗∗
In-Party
(0.55)
-3.33∗∗
Out-Party
(0.60)
Value Congruence x In-Party
2.45∗
(1.25)
Value Congruence x Out-Party
1.94
(1.32)
54.33∗∗
Intercept
(0.20)
∗ p < .05 , ∗∗ p < .01, N = 6,760
Next, to show the relative importance of values and partisanship I estimated
the effects by using the estimates from table 3.5 to produce a figure showing the
average rating based on each of the six categories outlined in table 3.1. This was
done by taking 2,500 draws from a multivariate normal distribution defined by the
70
coefficients within the pooled model as well as the estimated variance-covariance
matrix. The draws were then post-multiplied by the treatment condition indicator
variables and the 95% confidence interval for each treatment group was retained.
The results are shown below in figure 3.5. As we can see clearly from this figure,
the main force driving candidate evaluations in this experiment is value congruence:
there is no evidence of a positive partisan bias in any significant manner. The figure
also shows two important phenomena predicted by values-based partisanship. For
those in the “value congruent” treatment, party does not matter at all. There is no
added benefit for a Democrat who evaluates a candidate emphasizing social justice
who is then told the candidate is, in fact, a Democrat. However, in the condition
where value incongruence is presented, partisanship has a different effect: both party
treatment variables are negative and significant from the baseline value congruence
effect. This too fits with the theory that values signal partisanship in strong and in
predictable ways. Thus, the party treatments within the value incongruent treatment
are both negatively signed and significant (though no different from each other).
What this illustrates is that even when evaluating someone of the same party, value
incongruence is a deal-breaker. For example, Republicans who evaluate a candidate
who emphasizes equality, a Democratic value, are as off-put when they are told that
the candidate represents the Republican party as when they are told they are in fact
a Democrat. This makes sense since a candidate might as well be a Democrat if they
are going to value such things.
The pooled results show that the general theory of value-based candidate evaluation holds; but is it being driven by specific values? To answer this question
I estimated the same model for each of the different value treatments. These are
presented in table 3.6. What this shows is that, again, values are driving affective
evaluations of candidates. The sign of the party congruence coefficients are exactly
those predicted under value-based partisanship, and there are again no partisan ad71
64
Mean Favorability Rating, rescaled (0−100)
62
60
58
56
54
52
50
Out Party and Value Incongruence
Value Incongruence
In Party and Value Incongruence
Out Party and Value Congruence
Value Congruence
Values and Party Congruence
Figure 3.5: Favorability driven by values, not partisanship.
vantages (nor disadvantages). Values are driving the evaluations in every case. What
this table shows is that, for example, Democrats like a candidate who emphasizes
social justice at the same level as a “Democrat who emphasizes social justice.” There
simply is no partisan advantage, though there are some instances of out-party disadvantages, they do not outweigh the effects of value congruence.
72
Graphically, the magnitude of these effects can be shown by looking only at how
those in the party-less (generic) candidate treatment evaluated based upon the values
that a candidate was said to hold. As the theory predicts, there are large differences
between how candidates are evaluated among partisans when they signal certain
values. Again, these figures show full support for the theory: when asked to rate
candidates with partisan type values, partisans rate them in the expected way.
What though of candidates who hold certain values and are marked with the
party’s label? Do they get a bump in the ratings among partisans. Put very explicitly
- does a candidate who values social justice fair worse than a “Democratic candidate”
who values social justice when being rated by Democrats? Heretofore, the literature
on candidate evaluation would expect it to be the case that the party-label should
override any other heuristic being used to answer these questions. As figure 3.8 shows,
however, this is not the case. These figures show the average evaluations for each
candidate position broken down by each of the six conditions. Traditional theory
would lead us to expect that among Republicans, a candidate who values security
and is identified as a Republican would be rated slightly better among partisans that
simply a candidate that values security. Again, in every instance, there is no partisan
advantage when rating candidates with “in-party” values.
73
Equality
Forgiveness
Social Justice
Unity with Nature
1.0
0.5
0.0
Affect towards candidate
−0.5
−1.0
1.0
0.5
0.0
−0.5
−1.0
Democrats
Republicans
Democrats
Republicans
Party Membership
Figure 3.6: Partisan differences in evaluating candidates with “Democratic” values.
The figure also shows that the opposite is also true: those who are members of
one party do not rate a member of the out-party with out-party values any differently
than a generic candidate with those same values. For example, when asked to eval74
Individual Success
Respect for Tradition
Security
Self−discipline
1.0
0.5
0.0
Affect towards candidate
−0.5
−1.0
1.0
0.5
0.0
−0.5
−1.0
Democrats
Republicans
Democrats
Republicans
Party Membership
Figure 3.7: Partisan differences in evaluating candidates with “Republican” values.
uate a candidate who emphasizes “unity with nature,” a Republican does not care
if it is a candidate or explicitly a “Democratic candidate” – they do not like them
in any case, and actually seem to like the Democrat more. The same is true among
75
Democrats rating Republicans and candidates with only Republican values: it makes
no difference if the candidate who emphasizes “respect for tradition” is also a Republican - Democrats are equally negative towards both targets. Perhaps the hardest
test now is the test of whether party labels override evaluations of candidates who
hold “out-party” values? That is, when asked to evaluate a candidate who emphasizes “respect for tradition” - will a Democrat rate a “Democratic candidate” better
than a generic candidate? Again, in almost every case, the answer is no: there is no
partisan advantage when evaluating a candidate who displays value incongruence.
With the exception of how Republicans evaluate candidates who emphasize “social
justice” and “unity with nature”, shown above in figure 3.8, every single difference is
not statistically different from zero: parties and values might as well be synonymous.
In summation, when given a piece of information about a particular candidate, it
seems as if party membership can be inferred in such a way that the additional piece
of information makes no difference in how candidates are evaluated.
So far this presents a surprising amount of evidence for values-based partisanship; but, does this generalize to actual political behavior outside of hypothetical
candidate evaluations? That is, while this may be helpful for testing evaluations of
random candidates crossed with in or out-party values, what happens when we measure individual level values and then try to predict how a person votes in an actual
election? The last hypothesis states that these values should be able to strongly
predict vote choice in national elections: those with the types of values that signal “Democrat” should vote for Democrats, while those with stronger “Republican”
values should vote more often for Republicans. As these individual value questions
appeared on both the 2006 ANES pilot study as well as the 2010 CCES, we can test
this hypothesis. Taking the questions listed above and performing a confirmatory
factor analysis, exactly two dimensions were retained in each sample. These dimensions mapped clearly onto the self-enhancement and self-transcendence dimension as
76
well as the openness to change and conservation dimensions illustrated in figure 3.1.
In the 2006 ANES the dependent variable is a vote for a Democratic candidate in
a congressional election, in the 2010 CCES it is a self-reported vote for president
where a vote for Barack Obama was coded as one, a vote for McCain was coded as
zero. Table 3.7, below, shows the estimated models from each of the two surveys. In
each survey, three models were estimated. The first is a bivariate model predicting a
vote for a Democrat based upon the seven point party identification scale (0-6 where
6 is Strong Republican). The second model is a values only model, showing one’s
position on the two value dimensions and how it relates to voting for a Democratic
candidate. The final model presents the fully specified model of values and partisanship. As the theory predicts, “self-enhancement” and “conservation” type values are
associated with a decreased estimated probability of voting for a Democrat, though
partisan identification is the single strongest force in predicting vote choice. What
is interesting to see, however, is how many cases can be correctly predicted by the
“values only” model. In the 2006 ANES, 60% of the votes were correctly predicted
using only individual level values. In the 2010 CCES, the values predicted a respondent’s vote for president over 80% of the time. Even more interesting is how closely
the values only model comes to the party-only model - which we would expect if
individual level values were highly predictive of partisanship.
3.5 Discussion
This chapter has shown evidence that values are paramount to partisanship in how
Americans evaluate candidates. In stark opposition to Goren’s findings, this paper
raises some doubts as to whether partisanship truly causes the values individuals
hold. First, I showed that Republicans and Democrats differ in predictable ways
on measures of universal human values, extending the previous chapter’s findings
using a national sample. Next, I derived several hypotheses regarding the interplay
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of values and partisanship in forming candidate evaluations. While traditional experiments of candidate evaluation have always found significant partisan advantages,
the theory of value-based partisanship predicts that as long as a candidate’s position
in value-space is clearly signalled, the addition of a party label will not help (nor
hurt) a candidate’s favorability. Through an experimental design implemented on
a nationally representative survey I find that in almost every case the addition of
partisan information does not change candidate evaluations: a candidate who advocates “individual success” is treated as if they are a Republican - no matter who is
evaluating them, or to whom they are being compared. Finally, I showed that one’s
universal human values very reliably predicts who they actually vote for in national
elections. These results, however, only lead to more questions about campaigns,
elections and the fundamental nature of partisanship.
Thinking back to the concept of “issue trespassing,” the question is not whether
it is possible for a candidate to successfully own values if they come from an outside
party. Instead, the question is whether having a particular value-position allows
“partisan trespassing.” That is, can a candidate who takes a particular stand on a
value-position convince members of their party that they are actually true to the
party label? The evidence from this research indicates that this is perhaps more
difficult than simply issue trespassing, which is exactly what the theory of valuebased partisanship would predict. When one controls for the values a candidate
holds the presence of in-party labels does little to help and oftentimes works against
the candidate. While there are certainly limitations of this particular study, these
results fit within the larger frame of my thesis and gives further credence to the
overall scope of this project: values matter, and in some cases they can matter more
than partisanship.
78
79
Intercept
Social Justice Equality Unity w/ Nature Forgiveness Tradition Self-discipline Security Individual Success
51.95∗
55.65∗
54.28∗
55.38∗
52.76∗
52.13∗
57.61∗
54.86∗
(0.81)
(0.72)
(0.84)
(0.61)
(0.70)
(0.73)
(0.67)
(0.68)
In-values (VC)
13.51∗
8.73∗
8.93∗
2.63∗
10.41∗
8.70∗
8.96∗
5.41∗
(1.61)
(1.42)
(1.67)
(1.20)
(1.56)
(1.63)
(1.50)
(1.52)
In-Party (IP)
−2.63
−2.67
−4.76∗
−1.14
−5.00∗
−2.92
−4.05∗
−4.92∗
(1.66)
(1.46)
(1.72)
(1.23)
(1.47)
(1.53)
(1.41)
(1.43)
Out-Party (OP)
0.04
−4.53∗
0.46
−0.32
−3.23∗
−7.42∗
−5.52∗
−5.74∗
(1.76)
(1.55)
(1.82)
(1.31)
(1.52)
(1.59)
(1.47)
(1.49)
VC x IP
0.97
1.76
5.24
0.87
2.49
0.11
3.83
4.44
(2.61)
(2.30)
(2.70)
(1.94)
(2.39)
(2.50)
(2.30)
(2.34)
VC x OP
−2.54
1.56
4.22
3.17
0.10
1.87
1.63
4.83∗
(2.71)
(2.39)
(2.81)
(2.02)
(2.49)
(2.60)
(2.39)
(2.43)
N
845
845
845
845
845
845
845
845
R2
0.15
0.11
0.13
0.03
0.13
0.10
0.13
0.08
adj. R2
0.15
0.10
0.12
0.03
0.12
0.09
0.13
0.08
Resid. sd
14.87
13.10
15.40
11.07
13.21
13.79
12.71
12.93
Standard errors in parentheses
∗
indicates significance at p < 0.05
Table 3.6: Models for each of the values candidates could have.
80
In−party No partyOut−party
In−party No partyOut−party
In−party No party Out−party
(c) Equality
Candidate Treatment
In−party No party Out−party
In−party No partyOut−party
Candidate Treatment
In−party No partyOut−party
(g) Self-discipline
Negative Affect
Average
Positive Affect
A candidate who emphasizes self−discipline
Democrats
Republicans
Negative Affect
Average
Positive Affect
A candidate who emphasizes equality
Democrats
Republicans
Figure 3.8: Evidence of values-based partisanship, no party advantage for any condition.
(f) Individual success
Negative Affect
(e) Respect for tradition
In−party No party Out−party
Candidate Treatment
In−party No party Out−party
Average
Positive Affect
A candidate who emphasizes financial success
Democrats
Republicans
Candidate Treatment
Negative Affect
Average
Positive Affect
A candidate who emphasizes respect for tradition
Democrats
Republicans
(b) Unity with Nature
(a) Social Justice
In−party No party Out−party
Candidate Treatment
In−party No party Out−party
Candidate Treatment
Negative Affect
Negative Affect
In−party No party Out−party
Average
Average
In−party No party Out−party
Positive Affect
A candidate who emphasizes unity with nature
Democrats
Republicans
Positive Affect
A candidate who emphasizes social justice
Democrats
Republicans
In−party No party Out−party
Candidate Treatment
In−party No party Out−party
Negative Affect
Average
Positive Affect
In−party No partyOut−party
(h) Security
Candidate Treatment
In−party No partyOut−party
A candidate who emphasizes security
Democrats
Republicans
(d) Being forgiving
Negative Affect
Average
Positive Affect
A candidate who emphasizes forgiveness
Democrats
Republicans
Table 3.7: Predicting Votes for Democrats in 2008 and 2010 – Logistic Regression
Estimates
2006 ANES
-0.47∗
(0.18)
-0.55∗
(0.18)
2010 CCES
-0.41∗
(0.05)
1.42∗
(0.20)
0.22
(0.14)
-0.41∗
(0.20)
-0.44∗
(0.20)
-0.38∗
(0.07)
1.26∗
(0.28)
N
322
215
165
850
793
786
Cases Correctly Predicted
Percent Correctly Predicted
237
73
130
60
123
75
783
92
660
83
761
97
Self-Enhancement
Conservation
Party ID
Constant
-0.19∗
(0.03)
-0.27∗
(0.03)
-1.40∗
(0.09)
3.82∗
(0.28)
-0.17∗
(0.08)
-0.10∗
(0.05)
-0.18∗
(0.05)
-1.33∗
(0.09)
3.55∗
(0.29)
Standard errors in parantheses
∗
indicates significant at p < .05
Dependent variable in 2006 is a vote for a Democratic candidate for a house race; in 2010 it is a
vote for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election.
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4
Values-based partisanship in the electorate
4.1 Overview:
As this thesis sets to lay out a comprehensive theory of partisan identification in
the American electorate, this chapter estimates several models of partisanship and
shows how values can shape one’s partisan ties both directly and indirectly. After
summarizing the role of values in partisanship, I present a model that allows Selfenhancement (SE) and Conservation (CON) values to shape party ID. Second, I
examine divisions within and between religious denominations to test whether religion is driving value-differences. Third, I will look at cross-pressured voters (Hillygus
and Shields 2008) to test if value differences are pushing people to take policy positions outside of their party’s platform. Consistent with the theory of values-based
partisanship, I find that as SE and CON values become more personally important,
an individual is far more likely to associate with the Republican party (in both direction and strength of their affiliation). Moreover, as these values increase, Democrats
are more likely to be cross-pressured toward Republican policy positions and as the
values decrease in importance Republicans are more likely to hold policy positions
82
consistent with the Democratic party.
4.1.1
Restating the theory of values-based partisanship:
As the previous chapters have shown, values-based partisanship provides a strong
alternative to traditional social psychological approaches to partisanship (Campbell
et al. 1960). In placing universal values as central to partisan identification, two main
issues arise. The first is how political scientists conceptualize and understand values;
the second is how we can properly measure the importance of values to individuals. Where values-based partisanship sets itself apart from traditional approaches to
partisanship is its foundation in universal value theory (Rokeach 1973; Schwartz and
Bilsky 1987; Schwartz 1992). I will use the terms personal and universal values synonymously to indicate that they are both relevant to each individual and the same
structure has appeared in every sample across the globe. As compared to political
values (Goren 2005), personal values arise from our basic needs as a species. More
important, as I show below, these values were theorized to follow a particular typology rooted in evolutionary psychology and later validated in a cross-cultural manner.
Personal values then, can be defined as (to paraphrase Schwartz), trans-situational
normative beliefs that concern preferable behaviors or end states, that guide our
evaluation of behavior and can be ordered according to their relative importance. In
this sense, universal values are very different from the preferences that economists
speak of, and even more basic than any political values political scientists seek to
leverage in order to explain political preferences. In contrast to both preferences and
political values, universal values represent our basic goals as individuals from which
our preferences or political values may stem.
Perhaps the most important distinction is that these values are biologically hardwired into us to ensure our survival as a species: each of the ten value domains
represents something that we must value in order to ensure and optimize our safety
83
and continuation. In that sense, they are cognitive representations of our most basic needs for safety, security, reproduction, cooperation and group survival.1 As
Schwartz and Bilsky write, “through socialization and cognitive development, individuals learn to represent the requirements as conscious goals... and to attribute
varying degrees of importance to them” (1987, 878). Thus, in different cultures and
sub-cultures, different values may appear as more important than others. However,
the rank-ordering of values is what separates values-based partisanship from previous
conceptions of partisan identification.
So, why should we turn to universal values as the bedrock of partisanship? Traditional theories of partisanship may use socialization and issue importance to explain
the apparent heritability of partisanship (Luskin, McIver and Carmines 1989), but
there are two major reasons why the values as goals framework provides more theoretical leverage for public opinion than previous theories. First, and perhaps what
is most fundamentally different, is the ten value domains are universally important
to everyone, everywhere: there is not a single item in the Schwartz value inventory
that is universally unimportant. Secondly, some of these values inherently contradict one another in that the pursuit of one type of value means jeopardizing other
values (Schwartz and Bilsky 1987; Schwartz 1992). For example, self-direction and
conformity values are oppositional: we cannot have people following their own conception of the good as it might threaten our group. The pursuit of achievement
values, through creation and innovation, directly threaten the security of society:
1
Thus, we value the pleasure in good food or sex (hedonism domain) as a means to ensure our
survival and reproduction. Humans everywhere value safety and the avoidance of threat (security);
we value having control over scarce resources (power); the praise others give us when we work hard
(achievement); we desire to explore and understand our surroundings (self-direction); we enjoy
being challenged (stimulation). While these domains ensure our safety as individuals, there are also
values that represent the importance of the group, as groups can provide more safety than any one
individual can for herself. To lubricate group cohesion and cooperation, humans value wisdom of
the aged and helping all people (universalism); we concern ourselves with the welfare of others and
value forgiveness (benevolence); we frown on those who do not accept our customs (tradition) and
we are antagonistic towards those whose behavior may endanger our group (conformity).
84
failed inventions can hurt others and new political philosophies might destabilize the
group. Achievement and hedonism values also run in direct contrast to pro-social
(benevolence and universalism) values as sometimes pursuing my own self-interest
inherently hurts others like the negative externalities associated with the consumption of a scarce good (Katz and Shapiro 1985). Thus, the best way to think of how
the values are related is to view them as Schwartz theorized: in the constant dynamic tension represented in a circumplex (shown below in figure 4.1, taken from
Schwartz):
Figure 4.1: Schwartz value circumplex and theoretically oppositional values
From this we can see the the self-enhancement values (SE: achievement and
power) are opposed to self-transcendence values (ST: benevolence and universalism). Secondly, conservation values (CON: tradition, conformity and security) are
theoretically opposite openness to change values (OTC: hedonism, self-direction and
stimulation). Thus, as was done earlier in chapters two and three, we can reduce the
circumplex to two major dimensions: self-enhancement vs. self-transcendence and
85
conservation opposed to openness to change. Again, the reason universal value theory
is a natural link to the study of partisanship and political behavior is because values
are cognitive representations of the solutions to the most fundamental problems of
human existence. The tensions between these two dimensions (SE-ST and CONOTC) are what drives each individual’s conception of “the good,” a problem that
Democratic theorists have been wrestling with for thousands of years. Specifically, in
American politics, values matter most because we have established institutions that
act as a means to aggregate individual’s conceptions of the good life into politics –
parties.
What is important about this theory of values-based partisanship, is that it places
personal values as theoretically prior to partisanship. As Aldrich (1995, 58) notes,
“parties are ‘solutions’ of a particular kind.” As universal values theory dictates, the
relative importance of each of the ten value domains is going to be instrumental in
determining opinions on all of the issues others have used to divide partisans. It
cannot be the case that one thinks of their party when answering questions about
how important “being safe” is, or one listens to the most recent stump speeches
in order to form a decision about how important it is to “help other people.” This
claim, which I called the “exogeneity assumption” in chapter 1, was shown through
the cognitive testing of undergraduate survey respondents. Placing values as prior
to partisanship, however, raises a number of important questions. While some of
these have been addressed in previous chapters, namely how partisans are perceived
to be and how party labels clearly signal value preferences, questions relating to
partisanship still must be addressed:
1. How to values add to our understanding of partisanship?
2. If Democrats and Republicans split on these values, where are Independents?
3. What are the marginal effects of values on partisan identification and strength?
86
4. Can value differences explain variance across and within religious sects?
5. How do value differences account for a “cross-pressured” electorate?
Building from the previous chapters, I will leverage original survey data to answer
each of the above questions.2 My main hypotheses are that variance in the relative
importance of a variety of values will shape the strength to which holds partisan
identification, the party with which they identify and can also explain a number of
additional phenomena we see in American politics.
4.1.2
Values and Mass Partisanship:
The data I will be using in this chapter come from the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Studies (CCES). This was a national survey of 1,000 adults fielded by
YouGov/Pollimetrix between November and December 2010, just after the midterm
elections. Included on this survey were a number of questions that allow us to estimate the linkages between values and partisanship. In addition to standard questions about politics and partisanship, a set of eight questions were used to measure
Schwartz’s universal values. In order to tap all four of the higher-order Schwartz
dimensions, a reduced form of the Schwartz value inventory was asked on the CCES,
these same questions had been developed by Schwartz for inclusion on the 2006 American National Election Studies Pilot Study. The items, along with their dimension
categorization, appear below in table 4.1:
If we are to believe that universal values predict partisanship, then perhaps that
is the first thing we should do. The values that appear above in table 4.1 analyzed
using exploratory factor analysis and each had a single factor retained.3 Using only
2
Note to John: Since the theoretical work is done in earlier chapters and paraphrased above, I’m
not going to spend more time talking about why we would expect all of the differences we see...
though I will reference the earlier work as motivation for these questions, but they should seem
pretty simple (though interesting!).
3
Each principal factor score had a single eigenvalue greater than one.
87
Table 4.1: Schwartz Short Form, 2010 CCES
Dimension
Self-enhancement:
Self-transcendence:
Conservation:
Openness to change:
How important is it that...
you
you
you
you
are very successful?
be in charge of other people who do what you tell them to do?
be financially successful?
be successful at getting other people’s respect for your achievements?
you help other people?
every person in the world have the same opportunities in life?
you feel safe from harm?
you follow traditions?
people always follow rules?
you have an exciting life?
you have fun whatever you can?
you choose what you do in your life?
Source: 2010 CCES; YouGov Survey, N = 1,000. Options: not important - extremely important (5 point Likert).
the self-enhancement and conservation factors, we can first look to see if Democrats
and Republicans are, in fact, different on each of the two continua. For the purposes
of these simple tests, I look only at the strongest identifiers in each of the two partisan
categories, though the results do not change in any meaningful way upon the inclusion
of weaker partisans. Table 4.2, below, shows that Democrats value self-enhancement
less than independents who prioritize those values less than Republicans. The same
is true for the conservation dimension, with all of the differences between means
significant at conventional levels with the exception of the difference between strong
Republicans and Independents on the Self-enhancement dimension (t = .79, p < .2).
Again, these summary statistics do little more than illustrate that partisans can be
ordered, from left to right on two separate dimensions, in meaningful ways. The
purpose of further analysis presented in this chapter is to show the magnitude of the
effects these values have on partisanship while controlling for traditional explanations
of partisan identification.
Recall, previous theories of partisan identification have posited that it stems
88
Table 4.2: Summary Statistics By Partisanship
Self-enhancement Conservation
N
Strong Democrats
.498
.451 199
Independents
.551
.485 104
Strong Republicans
.565
.533 183
Full Sample
.542
.487 925
from a deep psychological attachment (Campbell et al. 1960), that partisanship is
retrospective and can be tied to economic evaluations (Fiorina 1981) or that it is
something akin to a social identity (Greene 1999; Green, Palmquist and Schickler
2002). In order to check the robustness of values-based partisanship I estimate
several linear models predicting a respondent’s partisanship as a function of their
values and a number of control variables from three broad categories: demographics,
issue positions and alternative explanations.
Demographics: dummy variables indicating if a respondent is female, black, Hispanic,
Catholic, a “born again” Christian as well as continuous variables for their age
(and age2 to allow for non-linearity), income, church attendance and how important
religion is in their lives.
Issue positions: dummy variables indicating if a respondent is pro-life, pro-choice, opposes gay marriage and if they believe the best way to solve our budget deficit is to
“raise taxes” instead of cutting either domestic or defense spending.
Previous theories: I also include controls for Republican and Democratic social identity
which were measured using questions about social embeddedness within the two
major parties. These questions asked about discussing politics and if either of the
groups is one with which the “majority of your friends” identify. I also included a
measure that asks the respondent to say how much better or worse the economy is
doing and is a five category response from “gotten much better” to “gotten much
worse.” This was recoded to run from 0-1 where 1 represents a response that the
economy has gotten much worse. In 2010, over 50% of the sample agreed that the
economy had gotten worse.
89
The controls remain the same across the three models, with one exception. For
each of the various models I estimate I estimate the effects of values both with and
without controlling for liberal-conservative ideology. This is done for two reasons.
First, ideology is significantly correlated with both of the values dimensions at significant levels (ρ > .17, p < .01). Second, there is an abundance of work on the
concept of political ideology (cf. Conover and Feldman 1981, 1984; Jost, Nosek and
Gosling 2008; Abramowitz and Saunders 1998) that suggests that more fundamental
concepts like personality or values may be at the root of ideology itself. For many
of the same reasons I presented in chapter one, I assume that values are causally
prior to ideology and expect that ideology would be a mediator between values and
partisanship. I test for this below.
90
Table 4.3: Predicting Republican Partisanship Using Logistic Regression
Intercept
Self-enhancement
Conservation
Knowledge
Pro-life
Pro-choice
Ban Gay Marriage
Raise taxes
Education
Importance of Religion
Church Attendance
Economic Evaluation
Non-white (other race)
Income
Catholic
Republican Social ID
Democratic Social ID
Black
Hispanic
Female
Age
Age2
Model 1
−2.41∗
(1.44)
2.84∗
(0.94)
4.06∗
(0.96)
−0.06
(0.33)
0.87∗
(0.52)
−1.34∗
(0.28)
1.15∗
(0.29)
−0.53
(0.33)
−0.63
(0.49)
−0.34
(0.50)
1.24∗
(0.54)
3.89∗
(0.55)
−0.05
(0.52)
1.34∗
(0.54)
−0.33
(0.28)
0.95∗
(0.31)
−2.16∗
(0.34)
−1.94∗
(0.71)
−1.55∗
(0.65)
−0.03
(0.13)
−0.09∗
(0.05)
0.00
(0.00)
Ideology
N
AIC
BIC
log L
718
490.24
874.67
−161.12
Model 2
−1.91
(1.63)
1.40
(1.16)
2.57∗
(1.05)
−0.09
(0.37)
0.97
(0.60)
−0.78∗
(0.32)
0.56∗
(0.33)
−0.25
(0.38)
−0.10
(0.58)
−0.58
(0.60)
0.71
(0.63)
3.12∗
(0.62)
0.49
(0.63)
1.18∗
(0.62)
−0.33
(0.32)
0.89∗
(0.36)
−2.23∗
(0.40)
−2.41∗
(0.80)
−2.11∗
(0.74)
0.11
(0.12)
−0.16∗
(0.06)
0.01∗
(0.00)
6.64∗
(0.81)
710
393.44
795.18
−108.72
Standard errors in parentheses
∗
indicates significance at p < 0.05
The first model I estimate is one in which the dependent variables has two categories: Republican or Democrat. Table 4.3 presents maximum likelihood estimates
for the coefficients of the linear model (King 1989). As we can see from model 1 in
91
table 4.3, above, both value dimensions are in the proper direction and are statistically significant from zero at conventional levels. In model 2, once we control for
ideology, the results of both variables is attenuated and the effect of self-enhancement
on identifying as a Republican (as opposed to a Democrat) is statistically indistinguishable from zero. As all the variables in the model are scaled to run from zero
to one, and given that most are indicator variables, we can see that evaluations of
the economy, partisan social identity and issues all seem to influence partisanship in
ways consistent with the extant literature. Still, values clearly matter. Aside from
ideology in model 2 and evaluations of the economy, no other coefficient has a magnitude close to that of either conservation or self-enhancement. Even questions which
specifically ask about an individual’s social embeddedness with “Republicans” and
“Democrats” so not have as large an effect on partisanship as questions that have
to do with helping others or following traditions. However, while politics in America
is certainly centered around the two major parties, not identifying with one of the
major parties is certainly an option. Below, in table 4.4, I estimate the effect of
the variables in models 1 and 2 on an ordered categorical variable with three levels
for partisanship: zero for Democrat, one for Independent and two for Republicans.
These results are presented below:
92
Table 4.4: Oh, Logit: Democrats (0) vs. Independents (1) vs. Republicans (2)
Model 3
Self-enhancement
Conservation
Knowledge
Pro-life
Pro-choice
Ban gay marriage
Raise Taxes
Education
Importance of Religion
Church Attendance
Economic Evaluation
Non-white (other race)
Income
Catholic
Republican Social ID
Democratic Social ID
Black
Hispanic
Female
Age
Age2
2.44∗
(0.66)
2.11∗
(0.67)
−0.07
(0.25)
0.85∗
(0.37)
−1.02∗
(0.21)
0.86∗
(0.21)
−0.36
(0.27)
−0.39
(0.37)
−0.23
(0.36)
0.76
(0.39)
3.22∗
(0.40)
−0.10
(0.38)
0.89
(0.39)
−0.25
(0.22)
0.89∗
(0.24)
−1.86∗
(0.24)
−1.37∗
(0.52)
−1.02
(0.48)
−0.02
(0.12)
−0.05
(0.03)
0.00
(0.00)
Ideology
Cut 1
1.57
Cut 2
N
log L
2.47
808
−492.78
Model 4
1.67∗
(0.72)
1.51∗
(0.70)
0.02
(0.26)
0.68∗
(0.39)
−0.82∗
(0.22)
0.54∗
(0.22)
−0.17
(0.28)
0.22
(0.40)
−0.21
(0.40)
0.28
(0.43)
2.26∗
(0.43)
0.15
(0.42)
0.57
(0.41)
−0.18
(0.22)
0.89∗
(0.25)
−1.58∗
(0.27)
−1.61∗
(0.55)
−1.48∗
(0.51)
0.10
(0.12)
−0.08
(0.04)
0.00
(0.00
4.65∗
(0.49)
2.04
3.12
799
−435.25
Standard errors in parentheses
∗
indicates significance at p < 0.05
As we can see from table 4.4, each of the variables has a large and significant effect
with regards to both the party one is predicted to affiliate as well as the strength of
that attachment. In fact, in model 4 we can see that values hold up to a number
93
of statistical controls including ideology. As there are ordered logistic regression
estimates, their interpretation is far from straightforward. In order to aid in the
interpretation, I present predicted probabilities for an individual to fall into each of
the three categories in five different instances. These are shown below in table 4.5.
By setting the continuous variables at their means and the rest of the variables at
their modes, I estimated the change in probability that an individual would be in each
of the three partisan categories given changes in their values. The first column acts
as our baseline estimate and we can see that the modal category is Republican (with
48% of the sample). This is largely due to the coefficient on economic evaluations, as
the mean of this variable which is scaled from 0-1 is 0.68. Meaning that the marginal
effects of values are only depressed by the covariance between partisan identification
and the economy under Obama in 2010. Still, we can see as we increase each of
the value dimensions by 1.5 standard deviations, the likelihood of identifying as a
Republican jumps from 48% to 54% (CON) and 58% (SE). Conversely, when those
variables negatively deviate from the mean, the probability of being a Democrat
shifts from 27% to 33% (CON) and 36% (SE). These marginal effects are as large as
most other “non-political” variables used to explain partisan identification (Gerber
et al. 2011).4
Table 4.5: Varying Values and Predicting Partisan Categories: Results from the
Ordered Logit
Category Baseline SE + 1.5σ SE - 1.5σ CON + 1.5σ CON - 1.5σ
Democrat
27.4
20.3
36.0
22.6
32.7
Independent
24.5
21.9
25.7
22.9
25.5
Republican
48.0
57.8
38.3
54.4
41.7
Still, these results have yet to show anything more than identification, and the
4
Gerber and colleagues use personality to predict partisan strength and identification, and the
largest change in predicted probabilities they find without controlling for other confounding variables is 5%.
94
theory of values-based partisanship suggests that the stronger one’s values are towards self-enhancement or conservation, the stronger a Republican they should be.
Table 4.6 presents ordinary least-squares estimates using the same variables as previous models. Model 5 again shows the same pattern we have already seen: the least
squares coefficients for both value dimensions are appropriately (positively) signed
and statistically different from zero. The effects estimated in model 5 are second in
magnitude only to economic evaluations and are larger in absolute terms than both
indicators of “social identity.” However, both estimates are attenuated when ideology is controlled for (model 6) and drop below conventional thresholds of statistical
significance. As I had alluded to earlier, however, ideology is hypothesized to be
a mediating variable in the values-partisanship link and therefore it is no surprise
that when we control for ideology, the effects of values are suppressed. Again, as
it has been shown in earlier chapters, we would expect that higher levels of both
self-enhancement and conservation values would be associated with a right-wing or
conservative ideology. In order to correct for this I estimate the mediating effects of
both self-enhancement and conservation on the following variables: ideology, partisan
social identity and the issue of “banning gay marriage.”5
For the ease of interpretation, all of the variables estimated inn this model run
from zero to one with the exception of partisan identification which runs from zero to
six. As we can see below in table 4.7, the effects of each of the value dimensions are
in the expected direction and the indirect effects are all statistically significant from
zero. More importantly, the indirect effects between each of the value dimensions
and ideology are large and significant indicating that an increase in the relative importance of self-enhancement and conservation values is met with a large increase in
5
Due to the nature of this particular issue, and its threats to traditional views of marriage, I
estimate the path between the conservation dimension and the issue but do not report the path between self-enhancement and gay marriage. For a discussion of why gay rights issues are particularly
pertinent to those who value tradition, see Hetherington and Weiler (2009).
95
Table 4.6: Ordinary Least Squares: Predicting Partisanship without indirect effects
Intercept
Self-enhancement
Conservation
Knowledge
Pro-life
Pro-choice
Ban Gay Marriage
Raise Taxes
Education
Importance of Religion
Church Attendance
Economic Evaluation
Non-white (other race)
Income
Catholic
Republican Social ID
Democratic Social ID
Black
Hispanic
Female
Age
Age2
Model 5
1.58∗
(0.68)
1.22∗
(0.39)
0.82∗
(0.39)
−0.02
(0.16)
0.51∗
(0.20)
−0.82∗
(0.13)
0.63∗
(0.13)
−0.35∗
(0.16)
−0.21
(0.22)
−0.05
(0.22)
0.35
(0.24)
2.09∗
(0.24)
−0.08
(0.23)
0.77∗
(0.24)
−0.17
(0.13)
0.71∗
(0.14)
−1.14∗
(0.14)
−1.14∗
(0.30)
−0.80∗
(0.29)
−0.02
(0.12)
−0.03
(0.02)
0.00
(0.00)
Ideology
N
R2
adj. R2
Resid. sd
791
0.55
0.54
1.52
Model 6
1.21
(0.63)
0.63
(0.36)
0.34
(0.36)
0.06
(0.15)
0.38∗
(0.18)
−0.57∗
(0.13)
0.33∗
(0.13)
−0.21
(0.15)
0.09
(0.21)
−0.06
(0.21)
0.06
(0.22)
1.22∗
(0.23)
−0.03
(0.21)
0.51∗
(0.22)
−0.17
(0.12)
0.59∗
(0.13)
−0.71∗
(0.13)
−1.21∗
(0.27)
−0.88∗
(0.27)
0.10
(0.12)
−0.03
(0.02)
0.00
(0.00)
3.14∗
(0.26)
782
0.62
0.61
1.40
Standard errors in parentheses
∗
indicates significance at p < 0.05
conservative ideology. Working through the indirect path coefficients from the values
measures to issues and social identity we see a similar story: stronger commitments
to these values lead to one having a stronger Republican (or weaker Democratic)
96
identity, and believing that gay marriage ought to be banned. When we sum up the
total effects of values on partisanship, we can see that they are greater in magnitude
than any other variable with the exception of ideology. Even retrospective evaluations of the terrible economy in 2010 does not have as large an effect on partisanship
as the total effect of either self-enhancement or conservation values. As these models
have shown, clearly personal values have a role in forming partisan identification.
Still, two questions remain. First, how do we know that these values are not just
religious in nature? Second, how does the relative intensity of these values shape
political attitudes within partisans? In order to answer these questions, I turn again
to the 2010 CCES which asked several questions about denominational status. For
several of the major religions represented in the sample, I calculated the mean on
each of the two continua (scaled from 0-1) and report them along with sub-sample
sizes in table 4.8. As we can see from the table, each of the dimensions is estimated to
three decimal places. Also included in the table are estimates for the mean and range
of each of the values dimensions for each level of “religious importance.” From this
there is no clear indication that any one of these religions would have a monopoly on
these values, in every religious tradition where we see more than 25 respondents we
see examples of people holding a wide range of values within that tradition. Insofar
as we have small differences between religions, we have one relatively large difference: between those who say the believe in “nothing in particular” when asked the
standard religion question. These individuals are far less likely to hold strong values
relating to tradition and conformity than any of their religious counterparts.6
6
The t-statistic for the difference between those who believe in nothing in particular and the rest
of the sample is t923 = 4.98, p < .0001.
97
Table 4.7: Predicting Partisanship (7pt. Scale) with Indirect Effects of Values
Direct Effects:
Self-enhancement
Conservation
Ideology
Rep. Social Id.
Dem. Social Id.
Catholic
Born Again
Religious Importance
Church Attendance
Political Knowledge
Female
Black
Hispanic
Education
Income
Pro-life
Pro-choice
Raise Taxes
Ban Gay Marriage
Economy Worse
Estimate
0.66
0.21
3.15
0.67
-0.72
-0.13
-0.14
0.05
-0.09
-0.01
0.06
-1.11
-0.75
0.10
0.40
0.40
-0.51
-0.26
0.37
1.21
S.E.
0.32
0.35
0.30
0.13
0.13
0.12
0.14
0.21
0.21
0.17
0.11
0.17
0.21
0.20
0.22
0.18
0.13
0.15
0.13
0.26
SE → Ideology
CON → Ideology
0.40
0.44
0.06
0.06
SE → RSI
CON → RSI
0.42
0.42
0.09
0.10
SE → DSI
CON → DSI
-0.29
-0.44
0.10
0.10
CON → Gay Marriage
0.47
0.11
Total Effects:
SE → Partisanship
CON → Partisanship
1.75
2.17
0.27
0.30
SRMSR
N
0.11
872
Indirect Effects:
98
Table 4.8: Religions and Values, 2010 CCES
Religion Variable
Roman Catholic
Jewish
Born Again
Protestant
LDS
Nothing in particular
Full Sample
Very Important
Somewhat Important
Not too important
Not at all important
4.1.3
Self-enhancement Conservation
N
0.565
0.499 221
0.569
0.495 23
0.532
0.505 282
0.533
0.506 403
0.489
0.563 18
0.533
0.429 142
0.542
0.487 925
0.524
0.513 416
0.562
0.494 251
0.549
0.444 140
0.553
0.431 118
Min.
0
0.216
0
0
0.109
0.039
0
0
0.321
0.048
0.039
Max.
0.979
0.809
1
1
0.886
0.975
1
1
1
0.907
0.987
The two sides of the communion aisle:
One alternative explanation for the link between values and partisanship would have
to do with religious affiliation. Political scientists have long considered the role of
religion in forming attitudes regarding the political realm. However, one of the most
peculiar cases within religions in the case of Catholics in America. If we look at the
breakdown of partisanship based on identifying as a member of the Roman Catholic
church, presented in table 4.9, we can see that the distribution is anything but onesided:
Table 4.9: Catholic Partisanship, 2010 CCES
Partisanship
Strong Democrat
Democrat
Lean Democrat
Independent
Lean Republican
Republican
Strong Republican
Total
Count
49
36
21
21
31
27
50
235
Percent
21
15
9
9
13
12
21
100
In fact, when one performs various statistical tests regarding Catholic identity
and partisanship, it seems that there is almost no difference between Catholics and
99
the rest of the sample in the CCES. So what could it be that divides Catholics
into nearly a 50-50 split between the two major parties whereas those who identify
as “born again” are nearly twice as likely to identify as Republicans as opposed to
Democrats?7 In the framework of Schwartz value theory, the Catholic faith often
pulls people in competing directions: teaching both the importance of social justice
(self-transcendence) as well as the importance of adhering to tradition (conservation
values). Thus, if values play a role in shaping an individual’s partisan attachments,
then perhaps it is not surprising that two of the dominant features of the Catholic
church are also those which split members of their congregation into two different
parties. In order to test this hypothesis, we can just simply look at the differences in
the means on both value dimensions among those Catholics who identify as either a
Republican or Democrat. As the plots in figure 4.2 show, while the distribution of
partisanship is essentially bimodal without many pure independents, the difference
among Catholic partisans on both of Schwartz’s value dimensions are large and statistically significant. It may seem like a difference of 0.06 on “Conservation” may
be negligible and a statistical artifact that is only significant due to a large sample
(200 Catholics). However, recall from chapter 1 that all of these values are important to everyone. Again, it is not that those who emphasize self-enhancement do
not value self-transcendence at all. Instead, it is that their priorities are focused
on power and achievement values as opposed to the pro-social values of benevolence
and universalism. The measure then shows relative differences in priorities amongst
any population. In this example, among Catholics, Republicans and Democrats differ substantially on basic values even when controlling for their religious affiliation.
What this is an example of is personal values dividing individuals when religion is
7
Within the CCES sample, 9 of the 11 members of the Mormon Church (LDS) identified as Strong
Republicans (81%) compared to Strong Democrats, 4 out of the 12 Jews in the sample (33%), 112
out of 199 protestants (56%) and exactly 50 out of the 100 catholics did the same.
100
held constant.8 What this analysis shows is that among Catholics, there is hardly
any homogeneity on values. However, among those who affiliate with either the
Democratic or Republican parties, not only are there differences among the groups,
but these differences are consistent with what has been shown in earlier chapters.
Within one religious group that is quite evenly divided on partisanship, values can
explain which party an individual belongs to quite well. So far this chapter has
presented several models for partisan identification that utilized both direct and indirect effects, each of which has shown that personal values play an important role in
partisan identification. Still, the original question remains: how do values constrain
public opinion above and beyond ideology and partisanship? As Feldman (1988) argued, values can be used in the place of ideological consistency for Americans to take
what may appear to be random policy positions. In order to test whether personal
values can play the same role as core “political values” (Goren 2005), I utilize the
notion of cross-pressured voters taken from Hillygus and Shields (2008).
4.1.4
Values-based partisanship and the cross-pressured voter:
Recent work on parties and partisanship (Carmines and Stimson 1982; Layman and
Carsey 2002; Hillygus and Shields 2008) has shown that there is a very strong relationship between issue positions and partisanship. Most recently, Hillygus and
Shields (2008) show that if an individual disagrees with their party on a given issue and that issue is important to them, campaigns can effectively utilize strategies
to mobilize an individual to vote against their party. But one question in this literature remains unanswered: what makes an individual more or less likely to be
cross-pressured? As we have seen from this and previous chapters, partisan strength
8
The same analysis holds for both protestants and those who identify as “born again”, with differences among Republicans and Democrats statistically significant from one another at conventional
levels with one exception: those partisans who identify as “born again” are no different on the
Self-enhancement dimension (t = 1.18, p < .12).
101
50
40
Count
30
20
10
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Partisanship among Catholics, 2010 CCES
Two Sides of the Catholic Communion Aisle
30
25
20
Response
Density
15
Democrats
Republicans
10
5
0
0.50
0.55
0.60
Self−transcendence − Self−enhancement
Two Sides of the Catholic Communion Aisle
25
20
Response
15
Democrats
Density
Republicans
10
5
0
0.45
0.50
0.55
Openness − Conservation
Figure 4.2: Schwartz values and partisanship among Catholics
102
and reception to party cues can be predicted by one’s personal values. Utilizing a
national sample survey which asked the full Schwartz value inventory, we can now
estimate the likelihood of an individual being cross-pressured (holding an issue position outside the majority of their party) based upon values, ideology and measures
of sophistication (education, news consumption, etc.). What we want to estimate,
then, is the probability that for a given issue, a partisan takes the position outside
their party.
If values are at the core of individuals’ belief systems and their conception of
partisanship, then we would expect as values change from “self-transcendent” to prioritizing self-enhancement that Democrats would begin to hold preferences similar
to those of Republicans and that Republicans would become less likely to be crosspressured. The same is true for conservation values. As an individual moves from
prioritizing openness to change to thinking of tradition and conformity, Democrats
again would begin to espouse policies that are traditionally associated with conservative Republicans. Table 4.10, below, shows the percentage of partisans who held
views inconsistent with the majority of their party on six issues. These issues were
chosen on the basis of their salience during the 2008 presidential campaign when both
John McCain and Barack Obama took opposite positions on gay rights, the use of
torture, the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” which became synonymous
with “waterboarding,” the role of the federal government in providing health care
and the classic debate over taxes and spending. The two policy questions that were
used to operationalize support for gay rights were questions that asked for a simple
yes or no answer to the following questions: Should same-sex couples be allowed to
marry? Do you think gay or lesbian couples, in other words, homosexual couples,
should be legally permitted to adopt children? The questions used to tap attitudes
on torture and enhanced interrogation techniques asked the respondents to make
unequivocal statements about their agreement with the following statements: “tor103
turing a criminal is never justified” and “the United States government should be
allowed to use waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques to try to
get information from suspected terrorists.” The questions about government’s role
in health care as well as the taxes/spending measure were seven point scales that
asked the government’s proper role in health care (completely private or completely
publicly provided) as well as the best method of balancing the budget (raising taxes
opposed to cutting spending).
Table 4.10: Cross-pressured partisans by party and issue.
Issue
Gay Marriage
Gay Adoption
Torture
Waterboarding
Health Care
Taxes/Spending
CP Reps
23%
32
43
25
7
12
CP Dems
28%
26
24
28
18
20
Source: 2011 YouGov/Pollimetrix survey, entries are percentages.
What the two continua of the value framework allow us to do is hypothesize the
direction of the effects of certain values on particular partisans on certain issues.
For example, if we believe that the self-enhancement measure is actually tapping
a concern for one’s self before others, then we would expect that it should matter
more on issues that are associated with self-interest. Moreover, if the conservation
dimension is a good measure of one’s belief that the status quo is to be preferred
to anything new, then issues at odds with traditions in America should be strongly
shaped by that dimension. Thus, the general hypothesis is that as each of the
two value types becomes more important to an individual, Democrats should hold
issue positions similar to Republicans and Republicans should be far less likely to
hold views similar to Democrats (I will call this the cross-pressured hypothesis).
Secondly, for issues that represent certain domains (e.g. gay rights has a theoretical
linkage to tradition and conformity more than individual wealth or achievement)
104
we can expect the magnitude of the effects to be larger for one value dimension
than the other. For example, issue positions on gay rights should be most strongly
associated with conservation values; taxes, torture and waterboarding as issues that
are associated with self-enhancement values and health care should be associated
with both dimensions (as the health care reform was not only a large systemic change
towards a government mandate, but also extended care to the poor).
Data and Method:
Data for the following analysis were collected in October of 2011 and the data collection was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. The polling house,
YouGov, “interviewed 1255 respondents who were then matched down to a sample
of 1125 to produce the final dataset. The respondents were matched on gender, age,
race, education, party identification, ideology, and political interest. YouGov then
weighted the matched set of survey respondents to known marginals for the general
population of the United States from the 2006 American Community Survey.”9 Respondents were asked the entire 56 item Schwartz Value survey, as well as a number
of other standard controls of issue constraint: ideology, income, levels of education,
how interested they are in politics, how often they attend religious worship, and a
general policy question about taxes and spending (one of the dependent variables
analyzed below). An exploratory factor analysis was carried out on the 28 items used
to measure the self-enhancement dimension. In the end, only 16 items loaded on a
single factor strongly enough to suggest a single dimension (all items had loadings of
an absolute value greater than 0.37, α for the scale was .73). Of the 28 items used
to measure the conservation dimension, a similar procedure was used and a single
dimension retained using 26 of the items (α = .70).
In order to control for other sources of issue constraint, I control for income,
9
Matching and Weighting Note, Survey Codebook.
105
gender, age, region, race, education (high school or college graduate), the number of
days one watches the news on television, a self-reported measure of political interest,
an indicator for whether they attend church at least once a month and their preference
for cutting spending as opposed to raising taxes. All variables are scaled to run from
zero to one in order to make coefficients comparable. In order to operationalize crosspressuredness, I use the breakdown of issue positions shown in table 4.10. Crosspressured Democrats would be those who are opposed to gay rights, opposed to
the government having a larger role in the provision of health care, support torture
and waterboarding, and who believe the government should cut spending instead
of raising taxes. Republicans are categorized as cross-pressured on each of those
issues if they hold the opposite opinion. Again, given the rhetoric used in the 2008
campaign, and in Obama’s first years in office, it seems that this is a relatively fair
categorization of the “party platform” for Democrats and Republicans on these six
issues. In order to test the effect of personal values on the probability of being crosspressured, I estimate a total of twelve logistic regression equations shown below in
tables 4.11 and 4.12. Each of the tables reports the estimates for members of each
party on the aforementioned six issues. Again, since we are estimating the likelihood
of holding an out-party position, we would expect that among Democrats the signs
for both of the value dimensions would be positive: as one values self-enhancement
or conservation more, the more likely they are to hold different issue positions. For
Republicans, we would expect this to be the opposite, as a Republican values power
and tradition more, they are going to be less likely to hold a cross-pressured issue
position. Mathematically then, we would expect among Democrats the coefficients
for each of the value dimensions to be positive while they would be negative for
Republicans.
106
Consistent with expectations, the results show that Democrats who value selfenhancement are more likely to be cross-pressured on health care, taxes, gay marriage, gay adoption, and the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Conservation values among Democrats also lead to cross-pressure on health care, gay marriage,
and torture. For Republicans, self-enhancement values decreases the probability that
they are cross-pressured on taxes, torture and enhanced interrogation while conservation decreases the probability of being cross-pressured on health care, gay rights
and torture. Two things should be mentioned about the coefficients in tables 4.11
and 4.12. First, some of the effect sizes for each of the dimensions are very large
(absolute values greater than six). Secondly, these are estimated alongside ideology,
a variable we know to be positively correlated with each of the dimensions. Thus, not
only are the effects of personal values on issue constraint large, but if anything they
are being attenuated by statistically controlling for ideology. In order to show the
magnitude of the effects for each of the coefficients, I plot the predicted probability
of being cross-pressured broken down by party, issue and value dimension. These
results are shown below in figure 4.3. In order to calculate the probabilities, I set
each of the other variables at their mean or mode and varied the variable of interest
along its observed range (from zero to one). In order to account for the sampling distribution of the coefficients in the logistic regressions, I took several thousand draws
from a multivariate normal distribution characterized by the means and covariance
of the coefficients in order to account for model uncertainty.
107
As we can see from each of the panels, the change in the predicted probabilities
of being cross-pressured on a variety of issues are very large. Moving from left to
right in each of the panels, we can see that Democrats (represented by the blue lines)
are much more likely to hold policy positions inconsistent with their party as they
begin to value self-enhancement and conservation. Conversely, for each of the policy
domains, Republicans become much more ideologically consistent as the importance
of those values increases. What these plots also illustrates is that for the parties,
different issues may symbolize different things. For example, Republican opposition
to the health care reform may not be rooted in self-interest. As we can see, there
is almost no effect of self-enhancement among Republicans on health care. We do
however, see Democrats growing much more likely to be opposed to government run
health care as they grow more self-interested. What is surprising about Republican
opposition to government run health care is that it is rooted mostly in values of
tradition and conformity: Republicans are more opposed to government running
health care if they privilege the status quo. From these equations and graphics, the
results are clear: values serve as a means to constrain beliefs when partisanship falls
short. For example, the effect self-enhancement has on preferences for taxes and
spending shows that at the lowest end of the scale, Republicans would be predicted
to support raising taxes with probability 0.70. As we pass the mean of the scale
(approximately .50), we see that the probability Republicans would hold that same
belief is less than 0.10, while the probability that Democrats would want to Raise
taxes approaches 0.80. As we can see, similar patters emerge on a number of issues.
4.1.5
Conclusion:
This chapter presents several models of partisan identification with values at their
core. From the model accounting for the indirect effects of values on policy positions
and ideology shows, personal values matter both in regards to which party an indi108
vidual affiliates with as well as the strength to which they identify as a Republican
or Democrat above and beyond traditional explanations of partisanship (economic
evaluations and social identity approaches). These results are consistent with the
theory of values-based partisanship, as those who identify as political independents
fall square in the middle of Democrats and Republicans on both value dimensions.
Moreover, as the analysis of Catholic partisanship shows, religious commitments are
insufficient in explaining values or partisanship. When looking just among the major
religious groups in America, we see nearly the full range of value positions exist in every group. Among Catholics in particular, the sort into the two parties squares with
values-based partisanship. Finally, I tested the effect of personal values on crosspressured partisans: those partisans who hold a policy position which contradicts
their party’s platform. From the results, we can see that personal values play an
important role in constraining political opinion and have large effects on ideological
consistency.
109
110
Health Care
−7.42∗
(1.95)
7.10∗
(2.20)
4.48∗
(1.98)
−0.02
(0.82)
0.08∗
(0.05)
0.06
(0.38)
−0.01
(0.01)
−0.03
(0.41)
−0.58
(0.52)
−0.89
(0.67)
−0.58
(1.02)
−1.24
(1.13)
0.06
(0.08)
−0.39
(0.25)
0.49
(0.43)
3.30∗
(0.80)
283
242.95
476.26
−57.47
Standard errors in parentheses
∗
indicates significance at p < 0.1
N
AIC
BIC
log L
Cut Spending
Monthly Church Att.
Interest in Politics
News Days/Week
College Graduate
H.S. Graduate
Hispanic
Black
South
Age
Female
Income
Ideology
Conservation
Self-enhancement
Intercept
236
248.18
456.01
−64.09
Taxes v. Spending
−4.22∗
(1.96)
6.54∗
(1.86)
1.66
(1.79)
2.08∗
(0.86)
0.02
(0.05)
0.77∗
(0.36)
−0.00
(0.01)
0.75∗
(0.38)
−1.38∗
(0.53)
−0.27
(0.67)
0.73
(1.24)
−0.59
(1.30)
0.04
(0.07)
−0.69∗
(0.23)
1.04∗
(0.47)
Table 4.11: Cross Pressured Democrats
Gay Marriage
−8.88∗
(2.00)
6.06∗
(1.82)
3.78∗
(1.93)
2.32∗
(0.75)
−0.06
(0.04)
−0.52
(0.33)
0.04∗
(0.01)
0.05
(0.35)
1.08∗
(0.41)
−0.44
(0.56)
1.97∗
(1.19)
1.81
(1.26)
−0.05
(0.06)
−0.43∗
(0.21)
1.63∗
(0.36)
−0.79
(0.70)
361
303.43
552.32
−87.71
Gay Adoption
−4.50∗
(1.71)
2.88∗
(1.70)
2.07
(1.87)
2.91∗
(0.77)
−0.08∗
(0.04)
−0.77∗
(0.34)
0.04∗
(0.01)
−0.03
(0.35)
1.12∗
(0.40)
0.35
(0.53)
0.19
(0.92)
−0.26
(1.01)
−0.04
(0.06)
−0.63∗
(0.22)
1.37∗
(0.36)
−0.88
(0.69)
363
301.05
550.29
−86.52
Torture
−2.90∗
(1.44)
1.54
(1.41)
2.86∗
(1.43)
0.46
(0.62)
−0.03
(0.04)
−0.42
(0.28)
0.01
(0.01)
0.08
(0.30)
0.02
(0.38)
0.13
(0.46)
0.27
(0.90)
0.32
(0.96)
−0.07
(0.05)
−0.43∗
(0.18)
0.05
(0.32)
0.54
(0.60)
362
381.12
630.19
−126.56
Waterboarding
−1.47
(1.32)
3.48∗
(1.41)
−1.89
(1.38)
−0.00
(0.62)
−0.02
(0.04)
−0.36
(0.28)
0.01
(0.01)
0.23
(0.30)
−0.30
(0.37)
0.04
(0.44)
−0.28
(0.82)
−1.54∗
(0.89)
0.06
(0.06)
−0.41∗
(0.18)
0.28
(0.33)
2.15∗
(0.60)
360
384.68
633.39
−128.34
111
Health Care
8.20∗
(3.13)
2.24
(3.19)
−6.85∗
(3.44)
−4.50∗
(1.95)
−0.08
(0.09)
0.24
(0.65)
0.03
(0.03)
1.44∗
(0.67)
0.63
(1.18)
−2.11∗
(1.10)
−3.51∗
(1.30)
−0.14
(0.12)
0.24
(0.39)
0.32
(0.64)
−6.28∗
(1.60)
282
117.34
335.86
1.33
Standard errors in parentheses
∗
indicates significance at p < 0.1
N
AIC
BIC
log L
Cut Spending
Monthly Church Att.
Interest in Politics
News Days/Week
College Graduate
H.S. Graduate
Hispanic
South
Age
Female
Income
Ideology
Conservation
Self-enhancement
Intercept
284
92.73
297.08
9.63
Taxes v. Spending
9.05∗
(3.54)
−8.97∗
(3.67)
−6.71
(4.46)
−4.54∗
(2.14)
0.01
(0.11)
0.80
(0.84)
−0.06∗
(0.03)
−0.40
(0.81)
−0.04
(1.38)
−0.73
(1.48)
−1.01
(1.66)
0.35∗
(0.19)
−0.23
(0.56)
1.00
(0.81)
Table 4.12: Cross Pressured Republicans
Gay Marriage
6.71∗
(1.84)
−1.52
(1.64)
−5.58∗
(1.86)
−3.51∗
(1.10)
0.00
(0.04)
0.59∗
(0.36)
−0.01
(0.01)
−0.21
(0.34)
0.51
(0.63)
−1.23
(0.80)
−0.73
(0.83)
0.03
(0.07)
−0.15
(0.24)
−1.32∗
(0.38)
0.12
(0.83)
317
279.23
504.77
−79.62
Gay Adoption
3.50∗
(1.51)
−0.57
(1.35)
−2.70∗
(1.52)
−2.49∗
(0.92)
−0.00
(0.04)
0.66∗
(0.29)
−0.01
(0.01)
−0.24
(0.28)
−0.13
(0.59)
−0.68
(0.74)
−0.53
(0.76)
0.00
(0.06)
0.32
(0.22)
−0.77∗
(0.29)
−0.40
(0.71)
318
372.37
598.09
−126.18
Torture
3.40∗
(1.41)
−3.32∗
(1.22)
−2.77∗
(1.43)
0.47
(0.84)
0.02
(0.03)
−0.27
(0.27)
0.02
(0.01)
0.37
(0.25)
−0.32
(0.51)
−0.26
(0.70)
−0.06
(0.72)
−0.02
(0.05)
−0.31∗
(0.19)
0.47∗
(0.27)
−1.12∗
(0.66)
315
423.31
648.46
−151.65
Waterboarding
4.06∗
(1.81)
−5.12∗
(1.52)
−1.08
(1.71)
−3.39∗
(1.01)
−0.08∗
(0.04)
0.28
(0.33)
−0.02
(0.01)
−0.19
(0.31)
−0.11
(0.61)
1.78
(1.21)
1.56
(1.25)
−0.04
(0.06)
−0.46∗
(0.21)
0.65∗
(0.34)
0.95
(0.80)
318
303.58
529.30
−91.79
112
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
Torture, Conservation
Health Care, Conservation
Gay Adoption, Conservation
1.0 0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
1.0 0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
Waterboarding, Conservation
Taxes vs. Spending, Conservation
Gay Marriage, Conservation
Value Importance
0.8
Torture, Self−enhancement
Health Care, Self−enhancement
Gay Adoption, Self−enhancement
Figure 4.3: Schwartz values and predicting cross-pressuredness
Probability of being cross−pressured
1.0 0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
Waterboarding, Self−enhancement
1.0
Taxes vs. Spending, Self−enhancement
Gay Marriage, Self−enhancement
Republicans
Democrats
Party
5
The Economic Downturn and Value Stability
5.1 Responses to Economic Threat:
Between June of 2007 and February of 2009 the percentage of Americans who said
the “economy” was the most important problem facing America grew from 16%
to 86% (Gallup). The sub-prime mortgage crisis has left a lasting impression on
American politics and will most likely be the single most important issue voters
consider when they vote for president in 2012. The main question this chapter seeks
to answer is how did Democrats and Republicans react to the economic collapse
of 2008? In order to square the theory of values-based partisanship square with
research on economic evaluations, partisanship and voting, I use statistical matching
techniques to estimate the change in value importance within partisans over time.
Using two separate surveys from 2006 and 2010, which both asked the Schwartz short
form of values, I find that Democrats and Republicans reacted in some similar ways to
the events of 2007-2009 (Obama’s election, the recession, etc.) - both groups became
more focused on individual wealth and earning a living. However, and perhaps more
telling, the difference between other values (most notably equality of opportunity)
113
grew over time.
This analysis helps speak to the changes value structures undergo over time, but
is limited in a number of ways. First, the theory of values-based partisanship makes
no specific hypotheses about the way values ought to change when an individual is
faced with economic threat. For the purposes of illustration, however, the findings in
this chapter fit within the literature on macropartisanship and economic evaluations
of parties in so far as they show that value hierarchies can change within certain
groups over time. Second, due to the fact that the respondents being compared
are from two different surveys, the methods used can only approximate differences
over time for similar individuals. This, essentially, is the major problem facing
methodologists specializing in causal inference and matching techniques. Finally,
because we lack panel data and the gap between the samples is so large (four years),
we cannot say that the effects on value priority are solely the cause of the economic
downturn. However, given the severity of the economic collapse and the figures that
I present below, one may argue that if anything was going to have a large effect on
the importance of certain values between 2006 and 2010, the recession would be a
top candidate. With those caveats in place, I now move to describe why the economy
is theoretically linked to partisanship and present the results from the latest set of
analyses.
5.1.1
It’s the economy, stupid:
While political scientists know a great deal about how the health of the national
economy relates to both partisanship and elections, little work has been done on the
process that underlies such changes. Most have heard the phrase “it’s the economy,
stupid” in relation to how voters evaluate candidates for office. We also know that
there is a preponderance of evidence that Americans look to economic indicators
to evaluate those in office. As Fiorina (1981) notes, Americans assign rewards or
114
blame to the party (or individual) in charge during economic growth or decline. Still
others look to the economy-voting linkage in terms of investments, in which politicians are asking for voters to balance information costs and evaluations of parties
and issues in order to make decisions about candidates (Popkin, Phillips and Smith
1976). Kinder and Kiewiet (1981, 158) show that evaluations of “personal economic
problems are turned inward” while evaluations of national national economic conditions are channeled toward the “political system.” These are just a few of the works
that have evaluated the influence the national economy has on American politics.
Even more has been written about economic conceptions of partisanship (Fiorina
1981; Kiewiet 1983), how the economy affects the relative balance of partisanship in
America (MacKuen and Stimson 1989; Erikson, MacKuen and Stimson 2002) and
how the changing economy influences votes in presidential elections (Fair 1978).
The purpose of this chapter, however, is exploratory in the sense that while personal values are supposed to be relatively stable over time (Rokeach and Ball-Rokeach
1989). As values-based partisanship asserts (and has been shown in previous chapters), the personal values individuals hold on two continua are highly correlated and
predictive of a number of political attitudes and behaviors. However, the question
remains, how do these values change in the aggregate when faced with large changes
in the health of the American economy? Do value priorities change in predictable or
meaningful ways? Do the ways values change among partisans indicate that threats
to financial security are met with different ideological responses? Fortunately for
this project, the economic collapse of 2008 brings with it the opportunity to test
exactly these questions. Figure 5.1, below, shows the closing value of the Dow Jones
Industrial Average from early 2006 until the fall of 2011 as well as the unemployment
rate (from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) over the same time period. As we
can see, late 2008 and early 2009 represent the points in time when the economy
hit its low (according to these indicators). Since that time, the Dow has recovered
115
while unemployment hovers around 8.5%, much higher than the earliest point in the
time-series when the unemployment rate was just over 5%.
14000
Dow Jones Industrial Average
12000
10000
8000
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Figure 5.1: Economic downturn, as represented by the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Unemployment in America
By using national samples of American adults from both the beginning and the
end of the time period shown in figure 5.1, we can infer the ways in which the
shifting economy may have influenced Americans’ value priorities. To be clear, and
as I describe below, while the method employed in this paper allows us to better
compare two groups at two different points in time it does not allow us to say that any
differences we witness are solely the result of the economy. To be fair, other national
events may have had some profound influence on individuals’ values. However, given
the severity and lasting effects of the economic downturn it is plausible that being
threatened with financial insecurity caused individuals to rethink their priorities more
than any other event. As I mentioned earlier, in 2007 just 16% of Americans surveyed
by Gallup indicated that economic issues were the “most important problem facing
116
America,” in early 2009 this number had increased to nearly 90% before declining
to more recent numbers between 65 and 75%.1 Thus, while other problems could be
the ones that make individuals change their personal value priorities, those changes
we witness at the aggregate level may in fact be due to the economic downturn.
As I show below, a number of methodological steps were taken to make the two
independent samples were as comparable as possible.
5.1.2
Data and Methods:
The following analyses use two separate national sample surveys. The first survey was
the 2006 ANES pilot study, which was used in chapter two to show that partisans
predictably differ on their value priorities. This was a nationally representative
survey which interviewed over 600 individuals who had also completed the 2004
ANES time series study. Given this study’s design, 335 were asked the following
questions that measure personal values. The items all began with the stem “how
important is it to you that” and are shown below, along with their higher dimension
classifications:2
1. you are very successful? (SE)
2. you be in charge of other people who do what you tell them to do? (SE)
3. you be financially successful? (SE)
4. you be successful at getting other people’s respect for your achievements? (SE)
5. every person in the world have the same opportunities in life? (ST)
6. you help other people? (ST)
7. you feel safe from harm? (CON)
8. you follow traditions? (CON)
9. people always follow rules? (CON)
10. you have an exciting life? (OTC)
11. you have fun whenever you can? (OTC)
12. you choose what you do in your life? (OTC)
1
http://www.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.aspx
2
self-enhancement (SE), self-transcendence (ST), conservation (CON) and openness to change
(OTC).
117
The second survey, part of the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study
(CCES), asked 1000 adults the same twelve questions. This survey differed from the
ANES pilot study in both sampling methodology and mode (the ANES is a simple
random sample and data collection was done in person while the CCES was an
opt-in survey completed online with participants then matched to known population
covariates). Obviously this statistical approach is less than ideal. In order to get
at the shifts in personal values over time one would like to have panel data on
the same individuals from a simple random sample interviewed in the same way
over time. As the data are originally, comparing a sample of 1000 to a sample
of 335 could lead to a number of problems. Not least of which that the smaller
number of respondents in the 2006 ANES might be systematically different from
those in the 2010 CCES: they might differ in terms of their ideology, issue positions,
religion, gender and race. Thus, if we compare just the two samples we might be
observing differences on value priorities that are being driven by differences within
the sample on unexamined covariates. As we can see, this is certainly far from a
perfect experimental design or reliable panel data (Shadish, Cook and Campbell
2002). Thankfully, statisticians have been working on this very problem for a few
decades and political methodologists have made the implementation of such solutions
relatively easy.
The solution to the problem is to use “matching,” a statistical technique that
is employed “to exploit as much as possible all the information already available in
different data sources” by using statistical methods to integrate the data that have
already been collected (D’Orazio, Di Zio and Scanu 2006, 1). Through the use of
algorithms, cases are selected from the larger dataset that closely resemble those
of the smaller dataset on a number of pre-specified covariates. While their are a
number of different algorithms and matching techniques one can use, there is a simple
tradeoff between accuracy and sample size. Using exact matching would result in
118
every single case from the smaller dataset being mated with one other case from the
larger dataset that has the same values for any number of covariates. Given the small
sample sizes, as even 1000 cases is considered very small in the matching literature
(Rodgers and DeVol 1984; Rubin 1986; Dehejia and Wahba 1998, 2002; Rosenbaum
and Rubin 1983), I opted to use a “nearest-neighbor” algorithm in MatchIt (Ho et al.
2007). If we imagine the 2006 ANES study as the “untreated” data and the 2010
CCES as “treated” data, nearest neighbor matching reduces the multi-dimensional
Mahalanobis distance (Mahalanobis 1936) between matched cases in the treated and
untreated data and discards cases that are unable to be matched within a reasonable
distance.3 Again, given the software made publicly available by Gary King and
coauthors, this process is done in such a way that the treated and untreated data are
as close to each other as possible on the covariates specified by the researcher. For
a fuller treatment of nearest-neighbor matching methods, see Rässler (2002, chapter
2).
Given the number of questions that were asked in both surveys, I was able to
match the data on the following variables: ideology, partisanship, race, gender, and
views on abortion. While other variables were considered (income and home ownership, for example), those who owned homes in 2006 and in 2010 may be unrepresentative of the nation as a whole. In fact, looking at the matched data shows home
ownership rates fall from over 70% to 60% within the final sample. What is important to the question of value stability is that respondents were not actually matched
on their value preferences. However, as we can see from the graphics in figure 5.2
and summaries in table 5.1, the data are very similar on all matched variables and
unmatched variables are in the expected direction. The difference in respondents’
ages across the samples increases by almost four years, roughly the amount of time
3
Mahalanobis distance is similar to Euclidian distance but takes into account the covariance
between all variables being matched. If all the variables are uncorrelated, the Mahalanobis distance
is equivalent to the multidimensional Euclidian distance.
119
between the two surveys. While the original ANES data had 335 respondents who
had answered the Schwartz value inventory, only 256 were suitably matched to those
in the 2010 CCES, leaving us with two small samples to compare over time.
Table 5.1: Results from Non-parametric pre-processing via MatchIt (Ho et al. 2007)
Variable 2006 2010
Female 0.50 0.48
Partisanship (0-6) 3.19 3.02
Abortion (1-4) 2.90 3.02
Age 50.8 54.1
Self-enhancement 0.51 0.52
Conservation 0.56 0.56
White 0.84 0.77
Hispanic 0.02 0.03
Black 0.07 0.10
Ideology (0-6) 3.36 3.38
Democrats 0.47 0.42
Republicans 0.48 0.47
Other race 0.05 0.03
Cases 256 256
As the table and figure illustrate, the data from 2006 and 2010 are very similar
in terms of ideology, partisanship, racial composition and overall value systems. In
order to test how value systems changed between 2006 and 2010, I perform the
following statistical tests. First, we can examine the value systems of the samples at
the two points in time. For these ranks, each of the Likert responses were computed
as mean-deviated scores and then averaged and ranked from most important to least
important. An example of this is shown below in figure 5.3.
As we can see, only a few values shifted in terms of relative rank in the four
years the surveys span. Most notably, and perhaps least surprisingly, the value
of “making money” increased from position nine in 2006 to position five in 2010.
Being successful also became more important, moving from eight to seven. In terms
of values becoming less important, the values of “equal opportunity,” “safety” and
120
White
Black
Hispanic
Other race
Female
Conservation
Self−enhancement
Democrats
Republicans
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
0.8
Average
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
2006
2010
2006
2010
2006
2010
Year of Survey
Abortion
Ideology
Partisanship
3.0
Average
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
2006
2010
2006
2010
2006
2010
Year of Survey
Figure 5.2: Results from matching
“getting respect” all fell: equal opportunity was especially less important in 2010
falling from four to eight in the rankings. What discrete rankings can show us are
the priorities for a particular group at a particular point in time. However, the
nuance is lost as these values are mean-deviated meaning that their rankings are
only interesting insofar as they are relatively evaluated. As we can see in figure 5.4,
below, the most important values are still much more important than a number of
values in the middle of American value systems: safety, self-direction and helping
others were the three most important values among Americans at both points in
121
time. As we can see the level of importance for many of the values are so tightly
concentrated that the systems themselves become hard to read. In order to make
these results, I restrict the analysis to those values which saw significant changes in
their relative importance over time. For a value to be included in the analysis it
needed to have a significantly different mean rating in the full sample over the two
time periods. More specifically, this means the absolute value of the t-statistic for
the difference of means between 2006 and 2010 was greater than 1.96. These are
displayed below in figure 5.5.
What figure 5.5 shows us that was previously obfuscated is that in 2010 Americans
valued helping others, choosing what they did, making money, and leading an exciting
life. Conversely, values that became less important over that period of time were
being in charge and getting respect. Leaving for a moment the question of whether
the economic downturn is the sole force driving these differences, it is clear that
Americans in 2010 were more focused on helping themselves and helping others in
2010 compared to 2006. Americans wanted to be able to direct themselves and
make money, but also saw a renewed importance in helping others. Now, what
about partisans? Recall that the theory of values-based partisanship asserts that
those who wish to help others as opposed to helping themselves (self-enhancement
dimension) are more likely to be Democrats and those who focus on tradition and
security as opposed to openness to new experiences (conservation dimension) are
more likely to be Republicans. This has been shown in a number of ways in previous
chapters. However, if we limit our analysis to those who affiliated with one of the
major parties and reconstruct the same figures we saw above for the full sample, a
number of interesting patterns emerge.
Figure 5.6 shows the value systems among Democrats and Republicans in the two
samples. As we can see, for Democrats a number of values became more important
after the economic downturn: helping others, making money, following rules, and
122
leading an exciting life. Values that became less important for Democrats were
safety, getting respect and being successful. For Republicans, choosing what they
did, making money, following traditions and leading an exciting life became more
important while safety, having fun, getting respect and equal opportunity became less
important. Again, rank orderings are interesting but the theory of values posits that
the relative importance of each type of value is what motivates individual behavior.
We can examine these tensions within partisans by limiting the analysis to only the
variables that changed statistically over time and plotting them according to their
aforementioned mean-deviated scores. This is done below in figure 5.7.
As we can see, the differences between partisans on key values were exacerbated
once the economy tanked. While both groups saw the importance of making money
increase, other measures indicate that there was significant divergence of values after
the economic collapse. For Democrats, it became much more important to help
others and ensure equality of opportunity. For Republicans, equality of opportunity
became far less important while being successful, following rules and safety all became
much more important. If any pattern emerges, it is that Democrats responded to the
economic crisis by focusing on values that would help others and Republicans’ values
shifted in a way that indicate they are focused on helping themselves. To be fair,
Democrats still wish to choose what they do, and be safe, but in 2010 they valued
“helping others” as much as they valued anything in 2010. For Republicans, the gap
between their top two values (self-direction and safety) and the third most important
value (helping others) grew considerably. However, for Democrats, helping others
became statistically indistinguishable from self-direction. These differences can be
seen in figure 5.8.
123
5.1.3
Results:
What these results show is that the values that divided Americans in 2006 became
even more divisive in 2010. As the stock market collapsed and the reverberations of
the sub-prime mortgage crisis continue to be felt across the globe, those Americans
who were opposed on basic human values shifted in ways that can help explain the
seemingly growing mass polarization. For Democrats in 2010, we can see helping
others is nearly as important as choosing what they do. For Republicans, selfdirection and safety were far more important than helping others. Moreover, while
we see only a few changes in the aggregate (helping others, for example, became
more important over time), most of these aggregate differences are being driven by
much larger differences among partisans. Secondly, many of the values we may have
thought to be completely stable at the aggregate level are being rendered so by equal
and opposite shifts within American partisans. For example, as figure 5.5 shows,
equality of opportunity in 2010 was just as important as it was in 2006. However,
looking at the relative importance Democrats and Republicans placed on such a value
at both points in time indicates that those who valued it more prior to the economic
collapse valued it even more afterwards.
Again, while these differences cannot be solely attributed to the economic collapse, the different responses of partisans to these same events is striking. If one were
to takeaway anything from this chapter is that, as the data clearly show, Republicans
and Democrats not only differed on values in 2006 but the economic downturn (or
perhaps the policies of the Obama presidency) caused them to diverge even more in
their most basic value priorities. In light of the recession, Democrats became more
outwardly focused and valued equality of opportunity and helping others. On the
other hand, Republicans became more interested in values that serve to benefit the
individual: becoming more financially successful and respecting rules while devalu-
124
ing equality of opportunity. In summation, this set of analyses show that values are
relatively stable in the American population but that those who value certain ends
are likely to polarize even further when confronted with national economic crises.
125
Value Rank
1
Safety
Choose what I do
2
Choose what I do
Safety
3
Help Others
Help Others
4
Equal Opportunity
Follow Rules
5
Have Fun
Make Money
6
Follow Rules
Have Fun
7
Get Respect
Be Successful
8
9
10
Be Successful Equal Opportunity
Make Money
Get Respect
Follow Traditions Follow Traditions
11
Exciting Life
Exciting Life
12
Be in Charge
Be in Charge
2006
2010
Year
Figure 5.3: American Value Importance Over Time: 2006 - 2010
126
Choose what I do
Most important
Safety
Safety
Choose what I do
Help Others
Help Others
FollowMoney
Rules
Make
Average Importance
Equal
Opportunity
Have
Fun
Follow
Rules
Get
Respect
Be Successful
Make Money
Have Fun
Be
Equal
Opportunity
GetSuccessful
Respect
Follow Traditions
Follow
Traditions
Exciting
Life
Exciting Life
Be in Charge
Be in Charge
Least important
2006
Figure 5.4: American Values Over Time: 2006 - 2010
127
2010
Choose what I do
Most important
Choose what I do
Help Others
Help Others
FollowMoney
Rules
Make
Follow Rules
Get Respect
Make Money
Get Respect
Exciting Life
Average Importance
Exciting Life
Be in Charge
Be in Charge
Least important
2006
Figure 5.5: Changes in relative value importance: 2006 - 2010
128
2010
Democrats
Republicans
Choose what I do
Choose what I do
Safety
Choose what I do
2
Safety
Help Others
Choose what I do
Safety
3
Help Others
Safety
Help Others
Help Others
4
Equal Opportunity
Equal Opportunity
Follow Rules
Follow Rules
5
Have Fun
Have Fun
Have Fun
Make Money
6
Get Respect
Make Money
Be Successful
Be Successful
7
Be Successful
Follow Rules
Equal Opportunity
Have Fun
8
Make Money
Be Successful
Get Respect
Follow Traditions
9
Follow Rules
Exciting Life
Make Money
Equal Opportunity
10
Exciting Life
Get Respect
Follow Traditions
Exciting Life
11
Follow Traditions
Follow Traditions
Exciting Life
Get Respect
12
Be in Charge
Be in Charge
Be in Charge
Be in Charge
2006
2010
2006
2010
Rank
1
Year
Figure 5.6: Changes in value systems among Democrats and Republicans: 2006 2010
129
Democrats
Republicans
Choose what I do
Safety
Most important
Help Others
Help Others
Safety
Choose what I do
Equal Opportunity
Follow Rules
Follow Rules
Equal Opportunity
Make Money
Make Money
Be Successful
Get Respect
Be
Equal
Opportunity
GetSuccessful
Respect
Make Money
Make Money
Equal
Opportunity
Exciting
Life
Get Respect
Average Importance
Exciting Life
Get Respect
Be in Charge
Be in Charge
Be in Charge
Be in Charge
Least important
2006
2010
2006
2010
Figure 5.7: Changes in relative value importance among Democrats and Republicans: 2006 - 2010
130
Democrats
Republicans
Choose what I do
Safety
Most important
Choose what I do
Safety
Choose
what I do
Help Others
Help Others
Equal Opportunity
Equal Opportunity
Have Fun
Get Respect
Be Successful
Make
FollowMoney
Rules
Exciting Life
Average Importance
Follow Traditions
Safety
Safety
HaveMoney
Fun
Make
Follow Rules
Be Successful
Choose
what I do
Help Others
Follow Rules
Help Others
Follow Rules
Make Money
Be Successful
Have Fun
Be
Equal
Opportunity
GetSuccessful
Respect
Make Money
Follow Traditions
Have
Fun
Follow
Traditions
Exciting Life
Equal
Opportunity
Exciting
Life
Get Respect
Follow Traditions
Exciting Life
Get Respect
Be in Charge
Be in Charge
Be in Charge
Be in Charge
Least important
2006
2010
2006
2010
Figure 5.8: Changes in relative value importance among Democrats and Republicans (all values): 2006 - 2010
131
6
Project Summary and Future Research
6.1 Concluding remarks:
In contrast to previous theories of political partisanship, this thesis has laid out
a number of claims that personal values may be at the heart of partisan conflict in
America. To begin, this project has sought to show that Republicans and Democrats
have been sorting into their respective parties on the basis of their fundamental values. Chapter 1 laid out the basic theory of values-based partisanship: that those
who hold similar values are likely to associate with one another politically. Moreover, the theory suggests that given America’s two-party system and the findings
from cross-cultural psychology that suggest partisanship could be mapped onto the
two continua of the Schwartz value inventory. In chapter 2, I demonstrated that
the average Republican and the average Democrat can be thought of as holding
certain personal values: Republicans are more likely to value self-enhancement and
Democrats self-transcendence. Still, the question remained as to the extent to which
values interact with partisanship to produce political behavior. This question was
answered in chapter 3 using a series of experimental studies from a number of samples
132
that showed that the values a candidate is said to hold matter more than a candidate’s party. These findings are the first in political science to show that certain
value cues (individual success and social justice) could render appeals to the partisan heuristic ineffective. While that finding by itself may not be terribly interesting,
it does provide a great deal of evidence for the theory of values-based partisanship.
In chapter 4 I tested the consistency of political attitudes on the basis of personal
values. If chapters 2 and 3 were discussing the direction of partisan attachments,
chapter 4 sought to show how likely an individual is to hold political attitudes of
the other party based on a number of factors. As predicted, personal values show
extremely large effects in estimating an individuals’ propensity for holding a position
of the other party. More specifically, as self-enhancement values increase, Republicans are less likely to become cross-pressured and Democrats begin to have attitudes
in line with the Republican party. The same is true for conservation values, across
both parties values determine consistency among partisans. Moreover, this chapter
discusses alternative explanations for values-based partisan sorting and shows that
other explanations fall short. Finally, in chapter 5, I showed that Republicans and
Democrats became more polarized in their personal values as the economy collapsed.
By using matching techniques, I was able to isolate the temporal effects the economy (and other events between 2006-2010) had on the value systems of American
partisans. As we just saw, Democrats became more focused on the equality of opportunity while Republicans became far more concerned with individual safety and
power values.
In conclusion, this thesis has offered a great deal of evidence that personal values
may be at the heart of American politics. Still, there is more work to be done.
Additional data have been collected and are still to be analyzed. Most interestingly,
I have a few hundred parents and their children who have answered the Schwartz
value inventory to measure inter-generational value transmission and compare it to
133
the correlations of other political values over time. Lastly, I have data on career
choice from a random sample of Duke undergraduates, which shows that those who
are higher on self-transcendence values and openness values are attracted to careers
we know to be associated later in life with Democrats (teachers, public defenders,
etc.) while those who are higher on self-enhancement values are more attracted to
different careers (police, investment banking). When that data is finally analyzed
and added to this thesis, I hope it will be a significant contribution to the study of
political psychology and American politics.
134
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Biography
Christopher David DeSante graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts
degree with Honors in political science and philosophy from Allegheny College in
2005. From Meadville, Christopher moved to Nashville to attend Vanderbilt University to study modern political philosophy. He received an M.A. in political science
from Vanderbilt in 2006, and a second M.A. in Social and Political Thought in
2007. After coming to Duke in 2007, he received a certificate for Advanced Research
Methods as a member of the program for advanced research in the social sciences
(PARISS). He will complete a Ph.D. in political science at Duke in 2012.
Christopher also received an NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant in 2011. He
is a recipient of the Harold Stirling Vanderbilt Graduate Fellowship and the Robert
Wilson Graduate Fellowship in American Politics. From 2003-2004 he was in residence at St. Peter’s College, Oxford University.
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