William_T._Bianco,_David_T._Canon]_American_Polit

2 74 Chapter 8Chapter 8 || Political PartiesPolitical Parties

Real participation in party operations is open to citizens who become activists by working

for a party organization or one of its candidates. Activists’ contributions vary widely and

may include stuffing envelopes, helping out with a phone bank, being a delegate to a party

convention, attending campaign rallies, or campaigning door-to-door.

Early theories of party ID described it as a deep attachment to a party that was

acquired early in life from parents, friends, and political events and was generally

unaffected by subsequent events.^19 Further work showed that party ID does

not necessarily remain the same but rather involves continuing evaluation that

takes account of new information.^20 Thus, when people say they identify with the

Republican Party, they are saying that, based on what they have seen in American

politics, they prefer the positions suggested by the Republicans’ brand name and

how Republicans behave in office. At the same time, work by political scientists Donald

Green, Bradley Palmquist, and Eric Schickler shows that party ID shapes how people

think about politics and react to new information. Thus, when Republicans argue

for sending troops to fight ISIL in Syria while Democrats focus on aiding Syrian

refugees, the difference is not what they know but how they react to the same pieces of

information—a response that is shaped by their party affiliation.

Figure 8.2 gives data on party ID in America from 1992 to 2016, measured when

respondents were given the option to say whether they were a Democrat, a Republican,

or an Independent. Over this time period, the parties have been nearly evenly split. At

various times in the past, one party has opened some advantage over the other (as the

Democrats did in the early 2000s), but there is no consistent trend.

Independents Some early analyses concluded that Independents were unaffiliated

with a party because they were in the process of shifting their identification from one

party to the other.^21 Others saw Independents as evidence that more and more people

regard the parties as irrelevant to their view of politics and their voting decisions.^22 The

rise in the number of Independents was also seen as an indication that Americans were

becoming more politically savvy—learning more about candidates and not always

blindly voting for the same party.^23

More-recent work has modified these findings. Most Independents actually have

some weak attachment to one of the major political parties—in fact, some scholars refer

to Independents as “closet partisans:” people who have party ties but who simply don’t

admit that they do.^24 In Figure 8.2, for example, about a third of the electorate says it

7%^ of Americans say they

worked for a political candidate or

issue campaign in 2016.

Source: Washington Post

DID YOU KNOW?

Activist volunteers, such as these two

students canvassing in the crucial

swing state of Ohio, undertake most

of the one-on-one efforts to mobilize

support for a party and its candidates.

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