Party Polarization and Party Structuring of Policy Attitudes: A Comparison of Three NES Panel Studies

Political Behavior, Vol. 24, No.
3, September 2002 ( 2002)
PARTY POLARIZATION AND PARTY STRUCTURING OF POLICY ATTITUDES: A Comparison of Three NES Panel Studies
Geoffrey C. Layman and Thomas M. Carsey
The conventional wisdom in the partisan change literature predicts that increasing party conflict on one issue agenda leads to a decline in party conflict on another agendaa process called conflict displacement. We have argued that recent party politics in the United States has experienced conflict extension, with the Democratic and Republican parties in the electorate growing more polarized on cultural, racial, and social welfare issues, rather than conflict displacement. Here, we suggest that the failure of the literature to account for conflict extension results from incomplete assumptions about individual-level partisan change. The partisan change literature typically considers only issue-based change in party identification, which necessarily leads to the aggregate prediction of conflict displacement. This ignores the possibility of party-based change in issue attitudes. If party-based issue conversion does occur, the aggregate result can be conflict extension rather than conflict displacement. Our analysis uses data from the three-wave panel studies conducted by the National Election Studies in 1956, 1958, and 1960; in 1972, 1974, and 1976; and in 1992, 1994, and 1996 to assess our alternative account of individual-level partisan change. We show that when Democratic and Republican elites are polarized on an issue, and party identifiers are aware of those differences, some individuals respond by adjusting their party ties to conform to their issue positions, but others respond by adjusting their issue positions to conform to their party identification. Key words: political parties; party identification; elections; public opinion; voting behavior; party realignment.
Geoffrey C. Layman, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235 (geoff.layman@vanderbilt.edu); Thomas M. Carsey, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-2230 (tcarsey@ garnet.acns.fsu.edu). 199
0190-9320/02/0900-0199/0 2002 Plenum Publishing Corporation
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The conventional wisdom in the literature on mass partisan change is that party conflict is dominated byand party polarization takes shape along a single policy dimension (Carmines and Stimson, 1989; Key 1955; Schattschneider 1960; Sundquist 1983). During periods of stable party alignment, the parties mass coalitions are structured around that dimension, with each coalition unified by its attitudes toward the dominant agenda but divided on other issues that remain in the political background. Then, when a new issue agenda that cuts across the existing line of party cleavage emerges, party polarization on the new dimension coincides with a decline in party conflict on the old dimension. In short, the characteristic that identifies a party realignment [is] . . . the displacement of one conflict by another (Sundquist, 1983: 13, emphasis in the original). We show elsewhere (Layman and Carsey, 2000b, 2002) that the last 30 years of American party politics have been characterized not by conflict displacement, but by conflict extension. Public attitudes toward racial issues and cultural issues, the two major domestic policy agendas that have emerged since the 1960s, are distinct from and cut across both attitudes toward the social welfare and role of government issues that emerged during the New Deal era and each other (Abramowitz 1994; Knoke, 1979; Layman and Carsey 2002). However, increases in party polarization on these newer agendas have not led to decreases in party differences on social welfare. Instead, the Democratic and Republican mass coalitions have grown more polarized on social welfare, racial, and cultural issues.1 Why has recent partisan issue change not been characterized by conflict displacement? Put differently, why does the realignment literature point so uniformly to conflict displacement when the recent evidence suggests that conflict extension is quite possible? The reason, we contend, is that the literature makes assumptions about both the behavior of party elites and the mass response to it that, at least in contemporary American politics, may be faulty. The partisan change literature generally assumes that political elites engage in partisan conflict on only one policy dimension at a time (Carmines and Stimson 1989; Riker, 1982; Sundquist, 1983). Thus, when the parties elites stake out distinct positions on the new issues, they presumably take centrist stands on the old issues. As Schattschneider argues, a shift from the [old] alignment . . . to the [new] alignment . . . means that the old cleavage must be played down if the new conflict is to be exploited. . . . [I]t is impossible to keep the old and cultivate the new at the same time (1960: 63). This assumption has not held in recent decades. The parties convention delegates, candidates, and members of Congress have grown increasingly polarized on social welfare, racial, and cultural issues (Bond and Fleisher, 2000; Carmines and Stimson, 1989; Layman, 2001; Layman and Carsey, 2000a; Poole and Rosen-
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thal, 1997; Rohde, 1991; Stone, Rapoport, and Abramowitz 1990). When party elites polarize on multiple issue agendas, rather than just one, the parties in the electorate may well follow suit. However, the parties mass coalitions cannot follow if the realignment literatures assumptions about the individual-level processes of partisan change hold. Those assumptions do not allow for mass conflict extension and instead point necessarily to conflict displacement. The individual-level basis of mass partisan change is the focus of this article. We begin by explicating more clearly the individual-level theory underlying the conflict displacement argument. Then, we offer an alternative account of individual partisan change that comports with aggregate-level conflict extension. We test our account using data from the three-wave panel studies conducted by the National Election Studies (NES) in 1956, 1958, and 1960; in 1972, 1974, and 1976; and in 1992, 1994, and 1996. CONFLICT DISPLACEMENT, CONFLICT EXTENSION AND THE MICRO-LEVEL FOUNDATIONS OF PARTISAN CHANGE The typical, and often only, individual-level explanation for party polarization offered in the partisan change literature is issue-based change in party identification. Such change is triggered when party elites take increasingly divergent positions on some new set of issues that cuts across the existing lines of party conflict. As a result, individuals with ideologically extreme views on those new issues move into the party that shares their views, creating party coalitions with more polarized aggregate positions on the new issues. Scholars disagree about from where the new party members come. Some argue that it is current partisans who switch their allegiances (Erikson and Tedin, 1981; Sundquist, 1983), while others contend that new partisans are mobilized from the ranks of independents and nonvoters (Andersen, 1979; Clubb, Flanigan, and Zingale, 1980). However, both sides agree that increases in partisan issue polarization result from individuals changing their party ties rather than their issue preferences. If issue-based party conversion and party mobilization are the only individual-level processes that produce increases in aggregate party polarization on a new issue, then the end result is very likely to be conflict displacement. Because the new issues cross-cut the old issues that previously defined party conflict, many individuals are cross-pressured on the two agendas. They agree with their current party on the old issues, but prefer the other partys stand on the new issues. If many of these individuals choose new party affiliations based on their views on the new issues, there will be a movement into both parties of individuals who support the stands of their new partys elites on the
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new issues but may not support the partys position on the old issues. This, by itself, leads to increased polarization between the parties electoral coalitions on the new issues and decreased polarization on the old issues. Existing theories of partisan change fail to consider that, in response to growing polarization between party elites on an issue, some citizens may change their positions on the issue rather than their party ties. Although largely absent from the realignment literature (but see Gerber and Jackson, 1993; Hurley, 1989, 1991), the notion that, for some voters, partisanship may drive issue positions rather than issue positions driving partisanship is not new. Individuals often change their issue positions in response to changes in the stands of elites who share their political predispositions (Zaller, 1992), and this is true even for political activists, who tend to have more stable issue attitudes than ordinary citizens (Herrera, 1995; Rapoport and Stone, 1994). Moreover, a vast literature on voting behavior shows that party identification structures attitudes on issues (Campbell, Converse, Miller, and Stokes, 1960; Markus and Converse, 1979). Party identification is also more stable over time than are attitudes on specific issues (Converse and Markus, 1979; Green and Palmquist, 1990). Thus, if one causes the other, party identification may be more likely than issue attitudes to be the causal force (Miller, 2000). Part of the reason that the realignment literature may ignore issue conversion as a source of partisan change is that realigning issues are generally easy issues that arouse strong emotions and deeply held attitudes (Carmines and Stimson, 1989; Sundquist, 1983). However, party identification is more stable over time than are attitudes on even highly symbolic, emotion-laden issues such as abortion and civil rights (Converse and Markus 1979). In fact, we show elsewhere that party-based issue conversion has played an important role in the growing polarization of the parties mass coalitions (Carsey and Layman, 1999b) and the parties activists (Carsey and Layman, 1999a; Layman and Carsey, 1998) on the abortion issue. All of this suggests that changes in the aggregate issue positions of the parties coalitions may occur through both issue-based party conversion and party-based issue conversion. If that is true, then increased mass party polarization on multiple issue dimensions, even cross-cutting issue dimensions, is possible. If partisan change is driven entirely by issue-based party conversion, then when a new issue dimension emerges and is orthogonal (i.e., cross-cutting) to an older issue dimension, the views individuals hold on the old and new issues will remain orthogonal over time. Thus, increased polarization on one dimension should result in decreased polarization on the other (i.e., conflict displacement). However, if some individuals change their issue positions based on their partisanship, then what were previously uncorrelated issue positions will become more closely related over time. Thus, the parties in the electorate may become more polarized on the new issue dimension while
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remaining just as polarized, or growing even more polarized, on the older dimension (i.e., conflict extension).2 For example, imagine that social welfare serves as the main dividing line between the parties when the new agenda of cultural issues emerges and cuts across the social welfare cleavage. If party leaders take polarized stands on both social welfare and cultural matters, then many party identifiers who agree with their partys stand on social welfare will disagree with its stand on culture. Some of these cross-pressured individuals will switch their allegiances to the party with which they agree on cultural issues, thus increasing the level of polarization between the parties coalitions on cultural concerns. However, some partisanseither new members or individuals who remained in their old partyalso may change their views on social welfare and/or cultural issues. They may bring them closer to those of their partys leaders who are now sending consistently liberal or conservative signals on both issue agendas.3 The resulting convergence in the social welfare and cultural attitudes of party identifiers means that there will not necessarily be a decrease in party polarization on social welfare even as polarization on culture expands. TEMPORAL AND CROSS-SECTIONAL VARIATION IN PARTY STRUCTURING OF POLICY ATTITUDES The extent to which party identification structures attitudes on policy issues, leading individuals to move their own policy attitudes toward more ideologically extreme positions, should vary over time for the electorate as a whole and across individuals at any point in time. At the aggregate level, the key factor is the degree to which Democratic and Republican elites are polarized on particular issues or on multiple policy agendas. There are many reasons why citizens might change their outlooks on policy issues. However, there is no reason to expect the views of Democratic and Republican identifiers to move in opposite directions unless Democratic and Republican leaders have taken clearly different stands on the issues. As Zaller (1992) demonstrates, when political elites from different ideological or partisan camps agree with each other on an issue, the most likely result at the mass level is that ordinary citizens from the different camps will move together toward that mainstream position. When, however, Democratic and Republican elites are polarized on an issue, the views of Democratic and Republican identifiers are likely to polarize, with Democrats converting to more liberal positions and Republicans growing more conservative. Extending the argument to multiple, cross-cutting policy dimensions, there is no obvious reason, outside the context of party politics, why citizens should have consistently liberal or consistently conservative views on dissimilar issue agendas like social welfare, race, and culture. In fact, it might seem illogical
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to expect the same individual to favor, for example, a limited role for government in promoting economic and racial equalitythe conservative view on social welfare and racebut an active role for government in promoting traditional notions of social order and moralitythe conservative view on culture. Such a package of issue positions, however, is not illogical because voters develop and express their views based on the alternatives presented by the two political parties (Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock, 1991; Zaller, 1992). In recent years, the choice increasingly offered to voters is one between a Republican party that takes consistently conservative positions on social welfare, racial, and cultural issues and a Democratic party that is consistently liberal on all three agendas. Within this context, it is quite reasonable to expect that some Democratic identifiers may come to adopt liberal stands on all three agendas, and some Republican identifiers may convert to conservative positions on all three sets of issues. In a different partisan context, where the parties elites are not differentiated on the various policy agendas or are polarized on some issues but not on others, we would not expect the views of party identifiers to converge toward a uniformly liberal or uniformly conservative position. Our focus on the mass response to elite cues should not be taken to suggest that partisan change is an entirely top-down process. Political elites do not always generate new political issues, and, in fact, citizen activists may play a greater role than party leaders and elected officials in championing the issues that cause partisan change (Carmines, 1991). Moreover, increases in issue polarization between the parties mass coalitions may be a cause of as well as a response to increases in elite-level partisan divisions. However, if individual Democrats and individual Republicans in the mass electorate are moving in opposite directions on issues (especially multiple, cross-cutting sets of issues), there must be some reason for them to believe that the positions of their parties (or the groups and ideological camps represented within their parties) are moving in opposite directions. Those party positions are defined by and evidenced by the issue stands of party elites.4 We are not concerned with the causes of elite party polarization here, but only with how, and the extent to which, individuals in the mass electorate respond to this polarization. Two of the main sources of variation in how individuals should respond are party attachment and awareness of elite-level party differences. Zaller (1992) suggests that citizens are most likely to receive and accept political cues from elites who share their own political predispositions. Thus, as Democratic and Republican elites grow more polarized on social welfare, racial, and cultural matters, it should be Democratic and Republican identifiers who respond to these cues by moving their own attitudes on the three agendas toward a consistently liberal or conservative outlook. In contrast, political independents should be unlikely to accept political cues from Democratic or Republican
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elites and thus unlikely to demonstrate constraint or increased ideological extremity. Of course, party identifiers, even strong party identifiers, are not all equally likely to follow the ideological lead of party elites. Numerous scholars note that politically sophisticated citizens are most likely to structure their own issue preferences in a manner consistent with elite-level cues (Converse, 1964; Sniderman et al., 1991; Zaller, 1992). Political sophistication includes a number of things, but the crucial element for us is recognition of where the parties and their candidates stand relative to each other on political issues (Carmines, Renten, and Stimson, 1984). There is no reason to expect individual Republicans to convert to more conservative positions on an issue and individual Democrats to move in a liberal direction unless they recognize that the Republican partys stand on the issue is clearly more conservative than that of the Democratic party. THREE DIFFERENT POLITICAL ERAS WITH DIFFERENT EXPECTATIONS FOR PARTY STRUCTURING To test our hypotheses about individual-level differences in party-based issue conversion, we need data that records the same individuals attitudes toward and awareness of party differences on various issue agendas at multiple points in time. Each of the three-wave panel studies conducted by the NES fits that bill. The 197219741976 panel and the 199219941996 panel both contain questions in each of their waves about panel respondents attitudes toward social welfare, racial, and cultural issues and respondents awareness of the relative positions of the two parties on those issues. Cultural issues such as abortion and gender equality had not emerged on the political agenda at the time of the 195619581960 panel study. However, that study includes indicators of panel respondents attitudes toward and awareness of party differences on social welfare and racial issues. To test our hypotheses about temporal differences in party structuring of mass issue attitudes, we need panel data from multiple political eras that differ in the extent to which Democratic and Republican elites were polarized on issues and in the number of issue dimensions on which they were polarized. Fortunately, the three NES panels provide such differences in political context. The periods from 1956 to 1960, from 1972 to 1976, and from 1992 to 1996 were quite different in terms of both the overall level of party polarization and the number of issue agendas on which the parties were polarized. The lack of issue voting, ideological sophistication, and attitudinal constraint found in the NES surveys from 1952 through 1960 is well documented (Campbell et al., 1960; Converse, 1964), and the relative lack of critical issues and partisan conflict during the era has been cited as a reason for those find-
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ings (Nie, Verba, and Petrocik, 1976). To the extent that there were party differences on domestic issues during this period, they were primarily on the social welfare concerns of the New Deal. Cultural issues had not yet emerged, and while racial issues such as desegregation and civil rights for AfricanAmericans had come onto the scene, the parties stands on them were largely indistinguishable (Carmines and Stimson, 1989). However, even party differences on social welfare were muted in comparison to those of the early New Deal years. The Republican nomination of Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 represented a victory for the moderate-liberal wing of the party, and the policies of Eisenhowers administration signaled a belief in the basic necessity of a social welfare safety net (Rae, 1989). The limited nature of partisan ideological divisions generally would continue with the nominations of relative moderates Nixon and Kennedy in 1960. The domestic policy divisions between the two parties were both deeper and broader by the early 1970s. The earlier decline of party differences on the social welfare and economic role of government came to a halt with the Republican presidential nomination of arch-conservative Barry Goldwater in 1964 and with the expansion of the welfare state under Democratic President Lyndon Johnsons Great Society. Although the welfare policies of the Nixon administration were fairly moderate, his campaign rhetoric was much more conservative (Rae, 1989). The partisan consensus on civil rights was shattered in 1964 when Johnson championed the Civil Rights Act and Goldwater opposed it, and party differences on race would continue to grow into the 1970s (Carmines and Stimson 1989). In contrast, there was virtually no party difference on cultural issues like abortion, womens rights, and school prayer. The Democrats did move to the cultural left in 1972 with the nomination of George McGovern. But, the parties in Congress remained virtually indistinguishable on cultural issues, and the Democrats moved back to the cultural center in 1976 with the nomination of Born-Again Christian Jimmy Carter (Layman, 2001). In the early-to-mid-1990s the partisan issue divide was deeper and wider than in either of the two earlier periods. Ronald Reagans two presidential campaigns and 8-year presidency in the 1980s signaled a noticeable movement of the GOP to the right on all three domestic policy agendas. Reagan and his supporters advocated substantial reductions in the federal governments role in providing welfare and regulating the economy, strongly opposed racially liberal policies such as busing and affirmative action, and called for constitutional amendments to outlaw abortion and restore prayer to the public schools. This wide-ranging Republican conservatism was amplified even further in the early 1990s as southern conservatives such as Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott, and Dick Armey moved to the forefront of the GOP leadership and engineered the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994. By the mid 1990s, the parties
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activists and elected officials were more polarized on racial issues and social welfare issues than they had been in the 1970s, and they had become clearly differentiated on cultural and moral issues (Bond and Fleisher, 2000; Layman, 2001; Poole and Rosenthal, 1997). The differences in the partisan contexts of these three periods are evidenced by differences in the degree to which participants in the three panel studies were aware of party issue differences. Table 1 shows the percentage of respondents to the 1960 wave of the 19565860 panel, the 1976 wave of the 19727476 panel, and the 1996 wave of the 19929496 panel who recognized that the Republican party was more conservative than the Democratic party on various issues.5 Awareness of party issue differences increased substantially across the three panel studies. Respondents in 1960 were almost entirely unaware of the GOP being more conservative than the Democrats on racial issues. That reflects the political reality that to the extent that there were any party distinctions on civil rights issues in the 1950s and in 1960, it was the Democratic party, with its strong base in the South, that was the more conservative party (Carmines and Stimson, 1989). There was much greater awareness of party differences on social welfare issues, but still only a minority of respondents saw the Republicans as more conservative than the Democrats. By 1976, awareness of party differences on both social welfare and racial issues had increased. A majority of panel respondents saw the Republicans as being more conservative than the Democrats on the issues of government responsibility to guarantee jobs and government provision of medical insurance. There was still only a minority of respondents who recognized that the GOP was more conservative than the Democrats on issues of racial equality, but the minority was much more substantial in 1976 than it was in 1960. However, reflecting the lack of partisan difference on cultural issues at the time, there was virtually no recognition that the Republicans had more conservative positions than the Democrats on the issues of womens rights and abortion. The fact that the parties were more polarized in the 1990s than they had been in the earlier periods was clearly not lost on voters. Awareness of party differences was much greater among panel respondents in 1996 than it was in the previous two NES panels on all three issue agendas. In fact, a majority of panel respondents recognized that the GOP was more conservative than the Democratic party on every issue, and, on every issue except womens rights, it was a large majority. These disparities in the level of mass awareness of partisan issue differences point to clearly different expectations for the three panel studies. In the 1956 19581960 panel, there should be some evidence of party identification structuring attitudes toward social welfare issues, but no evidence of party-based issue conversion on racial issues. In the 197219741976 panel, we should begin to see evidence of party structuring of attitudes toward racial issues and
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TABLE 1. Awareness of Partisan Issue Differences in the 19561960, 19721976, and 19921996 Panels (in percentages) 19561960 19721976 19921996 Panel Panel Panel Issue and Group Social Welfare Government Guarantee of Jobsc All Panel Respondents Partisans Independents Government Subsidizing Medical Cared All Panel Respondents Partisans Independents Government Services and Spending All Panel Respondents Partisans Independents Racial Government Ensuring Fair Treatment for Blacks in Employment and Housing All Panel Respondents Partisans Independents Government Efforts to Improve the Social and Economic Position of Blacks All Panel Respondents Partisans Independents Government Intervention in School Desegregation All Panel Respondents Partisans Independents Busing to Integrate Schools All Panel Respondents Partisans Independents Cultural Womens Rights All Panel Respondents Partisans Independents 1960a 1976b 1996b
44.29 46.06 38.64 41.32 43.97 40.63
59.85 62.96 59.69 51.65 53.92 49.00
72.86 81.06 66.40 73.00 77.74 72.13 76.05 79.66 72.95
24.95 25.98 23.88 13.00 14.26 11.19
47.51 49.36 42.80 37.57 38.86 36.53 23.47 25.95 23.62
67.22 71.29 66.94 55.63 56.62 54.69
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TABLE 1. (Continued) 19561960 19721976 19921996 Panel Panel Panel Issue and Group Abortion All Panel Respondents Partisans Independents 1960a 1976b 13.50e 12.73 14.44 1996b 62.39 66.46 67.44
Source: National Election Studies Panels (195619581960, 197219741976, and 1992 19941996). a The entries for 1960 are the percentages of respondents who stated that the Democrats were more likely to hold liberal positions or that the Republicans were more likely to hold conservative positions. b The entries for 1976 and 1996 are the percentage of respondents who placed both parties on the scale for the particular issue and who placed the Republicans to the right of the Democrats. Percentages in italics are based on placements of candidates when respondents were not asked about parties. c In 1960, the question asked about the government seeing to it that everyone who wants to work can find a job. In 1976 and 1996, the question asked about the government seeing to it that everyone has a job and a good standard of living. d In 1960, the question asked about the government helping people get doctors and hospital care at low cost. In 1976 and 1996 panels, the question asked about a government insurance plan which would cover all medical and hospital expenses. e In 1976, respondents were asked to identify the party more likely to support a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion.
more evidence than in the earlier panel of party structuring on social welfare issues. However, there should not be evidence of party-based issue conversion on cultural issues. In the 199219941996 panel, we should see clear evidence of partisanship structuring attitudes toward social welfare, racial, and cultural issues. Moreover, because the parties elites were clearly differentiated on all three issue dimensions, we should see a pattern of party identifiers merging their attitudes toward these three agendas. Because there were key issue dimensions on which Democratic and Republican elites had not yet taken distinct positions, there should be less evidence of party identifiers bringing their attitudes toward different issue agendas together in the 1956 1960 and 19721976 panels. PARTISANSHIP AND ATTITUDINAL CONVERGENCE IN THE THREE PANELS We begin our analysis by testing two hypotheses about the relationship between individuals attitudes on domestic policy issues in the periods from
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1956 to 1960, 1972 to 1976, and 1992 to 1996. First, panel respondents should be more likely to merge their social welfare, racial, and cultural attitudes together in the 19921996 panel than in the earlier two panels. Second, even in the 1990s panel, we should see evidence of growing attitudinal convergence only among party identifiers and not among independents. Party identifiers should be much more likely than independents to follow the lead of party elites and merge their views on the three sets of issues toward a uniformly liberal or uniformly conservative position. To test these hypotheses, we conduct confirmatory factor analyses of the attitudes of 19561960 panel respondents on social welfare and racial issues in both 1956 and 1960, and of the attitudes of 19721976 and 19921996 panel respondents on social welfare, racial, and cultural issues in the first and third waves of those panels.6 In all three panels, we conduct these analyses for all panel respondents, respondents who identified with the same party in both the first and third waves, and respondents who identified themselves as independents in both the first and third waves.7 We also estimate two different measurement models for each group in each year: one with all of the issues loading on a single latent variable and one with different issue dimensions (racial, social welfare, and cultural issues in the 19721976 panel and 1992 1996 panel, racial and social welfare in the 19561960 panel) loading on separate latent variables.8 To assess the relationship between attitudes toward these three dimensions, we examine both the average standardized loading of each issue on one factor and the correlations between the different issue factors in the multiple-factor solutions.9 Table 2 presents the results of these analyses for the 19561960 panel. As expected, this table shows no evidence of a convergence of the social welfare and racial attitudes of all panel respondents, party identifiers, or independents between 1956 and 1960. Three of the four social welfare issues do have at least slightly stronger loadings on a single factor in 1960 than in 1956 for each group, but the loadings for the two racial issues are generally smaller in 1960 than in 1956. There is no increase either in the average loading of all issues on the single factor or in the correlation between social welfare and racial attitudes in the two-factor solution for any of the three groups. The results for the 19721976 panel, presented in Table 3, are very similar. Attitudes on social welfare issues among all respondents and partisans do load more strongly on the single factor in 1976 than in 1972. However, the loadings of individual racial and cultural issues in 1976 tend to be either smaller than or the same as those in 1972 for all groups. The average loading of all issues on the single factor does not increase over the course of the panel for any of the three groups. In all cases, the correlations between the social welfare, racial, and cultural factors in the three-factor solution are smaller in 1976 than in 1972.
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TABLE 2. Confirmatory Factor Analyses of Issue Attitudes for All Respondents, Partisans, and Independents in the 19561960 Panel All Panel Respondentsa 1956 1960 Partisansb 1956 1960 Independentsc 1956 1960
One-Factor Solution Social Welfare Issues Government ensures jobs 1.00 (.65) 1.00 (.69) 1.00 (.67) 1.00 (.69) 1.00 (.43) 1.00 (.71) Subsidized medical care .92 (.59) .91 (.65) .95 (.64) .95 (.67) .97 (.40) .78 (.54) Government aid for building schools .71 (.54) .81 (.59) .71 (.56) .85 (.61) .58 (.31) .63 (.46) Government intervention in housing/power .39 (.25) .32 (.22) .43 (.29) .34 (.24) .78 (.35) .18 (.13) Racial Issues School desegregation .35 (.21) .26 (.16) .24 (.15) .29 (.18) 1.22 (.46) .30 (.19) Black employment and housing .65 (.45) .52 (.40) .59 (.42) .54 (.41) .96 (.44) .50 (.38) Average standardized loading (N) 2 (df = 9) e d 1/2 f g 1 /2 Two-Factor Solution rsocial welfare and racial 2 (df = 8) 2(2 factor vs. 1 factor) (df = 1) e d 1/2 f g /2 1 .45 (1132) 101.18 .94/.94 .85/.87 .40 26.71 74.47 .99/.99 .99/.99 .45 (1132) 147.63 .98/.98 .96/.96 .29 18.08 129.55 .99/.99 .99/.99 .46 (674) 67.60 .93/.94 .83/.85 .32 20.62 46.98 .99/.99 .99/.99 .47 (674) 87.86 .98/.98 .96/.96 .33 15.68 72.18 .99/1.00 .99/1.00 .40 (146) 21.99 .88/.93 .72/.81 .30 6.02 15.97 .99/.99 .99/.99 .40 (146) 29.95 .97/.98 .94/.96 .27 4.70 25.25 .99/.99 .99/1.00
Source: 195619581960 National Election Studies Panel. Note: Entries are unstandardized factor loadings. The standardized loadings are in parentheses. Analyses computed using full information maximum likelihood estimation with missing values. a Only individuals who participated in all three waves of the panel study. b Panel respondents who identified themselves as Democrats (strong or weak) in both 1956 and 1960 and respondents who identified themselves as Republicans (strong or weak) in both 1956 and 1960. c Panel respondents who identified themselves as independents (leaning or non-leaning) in both 1956 and 1960. d Bentler and Bonetts (1980) normed fit index e Bollens (1989a) incremental fit index f Bollens (1986) relative fit index g Bentler and Bonetts (1980) non-normed fit index *Not significant at p < .05. All other factor loadings, correlations, and 2 tests are significant at p < .05.
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TABLE 3. Confirmatory Factor Analyses of Issue Attitudes for All Respondents, Partisans, and Independents in the 19721976 Panel All Panel Respondents 1972
One-Factor Solution Social Welfare Issues Government ensures jobs Progressive tax rate Government health insurance Racial Issues Government help for blacks Rights of the accused Pace of civil rights Busing School integration Cultural Issues Womens rights Legalize marijuana Abortion Average standardized loading (N) 2 (df = 44) 1/2 1/2 Three-Factor Solution rsocial welfare and racial rracial and cultural rsocial welfare and cultural 2 (df = 41) 2(3 factor vs. 1 factor) (df = 3)a 2(3 factor vs. 2 factor) (df = 2)b 1/2 1/2
Partisans 1972 1976
Independents 1972 1976
1976
1.00 (.44) 1.00 (.55) 1.00 (.50) 1.00 (.59) 1.00 (.40) 1.00 (.47) .50 (.19) .41 (.19) .45 (.19) .52 (.27) .68 (.21) .43 (.17) .93 (.33) 1.46 1.12 1.25 1.07 1.85 .92 (.41) .90 (.37) .95 (.47) 1.07 (.34) (.65) (.35) (.51) (.65) (.61) 1.46 1.32 1.31 1.13 1.79 (.60) (.46) (.50) (.53) (.42) .91 (.35) 1.48 1.03 1.07 .97 1.73 (.68) (.42) (.52) (.51) (.50)
(.65) 1.23 (.67) 1.32 (.67) 1.08 (.46) .67 (.34) .87 (.42) .62 (.56) .91 (.52) 1.18 (.62) .82 (.59) .96 (.61) 1.03 (.63) .94 (.53) 1.60 (.58) 1.77 (.60) 1.52 .56 (.28) .85 (.41) .34 (.18) .43 (1320) 583.32 .86/.87 .79/.80 .63 .46 .09* 211.06 372.43 144.06 .95/.96 .92/.93 .60 (.26) .68 (.34) .24 (.12) .43 (650) 168.78 .92/.94 .88/.91 .71 .49 .08* 83.83 84.95 25.46 .96/.98 .94/.97
.89 (.34) 1.12 (.44) .59 (.26) .43 (1320) 360.36 .91/.92 .87/.88 .65 .55 .15 142.70 217.66 52.60 .97/.98 .94/.96
.39 (.22) 1.58 (.52) 1.06 (.45) .59 (.33) 2.03 (.61) 1.33 (.52) .19 (.11) 1.44 (.51) .84 (.36) .43 (650) 314.90 .85/.87 .77/.80 .69 .39 .02* 115.09 199.81 68.44 .94/.96 .91/.94 .46 (297) 114.43 .89/.93 .83/.89 .69 .71 .50 82.89 31.36 4.18* .92/.96 .87/.93 .45 (297) 160.82 .84/.87 .75/.81 .52 .55 .26 77.94 82.88 33.19 .92/.96 .87/.93
Source: 197219741976 National Election Studies Panel. Note: See Table 2 for a description of the elements in the table. a Comparing a model with social welfare, racial, and cultural attitudes loading on separate factors to one with all attitudes loading on a single factor. b Comparing a model with social welfare, racial, and cultural attitudes loading on separate factors to one with social welfare and racial attitudes loading on the same factor and cultural attitudes loading on another factor. *Not significant at p < .05. All other factor loadings, correlations, and 2 tests are significant at p < .05.
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The estimates for the 19921996 panel, presented in Table 4, paint a very different picture. Among all respondents, there is clear evidence of convergence in individuals views on social welfare, racial, and cultural issues. In the single-factor solution, the standardized loading of nearly every issue was stronger in 1996 than in 1992, resulting in an average loading that was noticeably larger in 1996. The correlations between latent social welfare, racial, and cultural attitudes in the three-factor model are also clearly larger in 1996 than in 1992.10 Strikingly, the correlations between cultural attitudes and both social welfare and racial attitudes are not statistically significant in 1992 but are easily significant in 1996. As expected, the overall increase in the relationship between attitudes on the three sets of domestic issues from 1992 to 1996 is due to growing attitudinal constraint among party identifiers and not among independents. The patterns for partisans are very similar to those for all respondents, with the average loading of the issues on a single factor and the correlations between the latent factors in the three-factor model clearly increasing over the course of the panel study. Among independents, in contrast, the average loading of issue attitudes on a single factor actually declines slightly between the first and third waves of the panel. The correlation between social welfare and racial attitudes in the three-factor model for independents is also noticeably lower in 1996 than in 1992. The correlations between cultural attitudes and both social welfare and racial attitudes are statistically insignificant in both years.11 Tables 2 through 4 present clear evidence for elite-driven party structuring of individual issue attitudes. Because Democratic and Republican elites were not clearly differentiated on all of the domestic issue agendas in the periods from 1956 to 1960 and from 1972 to 1976, there were no cues for party identifiers to merge together their attitudes on those agendas, and they did not do so. In the early- to mid-1990s, however, the clear polarization of the parties on social welfare, racial, and cultural issues sent a clear message to citizens about the elite-level ideological convergence on these issues. As expected, party identifiers followed these cues and began to bring together their views on the three agendas. Independents did not follow the cues and showed no signs of increased constraint. THE IMPACT OF PARTY IDENTIFICATION ON ATTITUDINAL CHANGE IN THE THREE PANELS The differences between the degree of attitudinal convergence in the three panel studies and between party identifiers and independents in the 1992 1996 panel suggest that when party elites take polarized stands on an issue agenda, party identification causes some individuals to change their attitudes on the issues. In other words, while some individuals respond to elite issue
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TABLE 4. Confirmatory Factor Analyses of Issue Attitudes for All Respondents, Partisans, and Independents in the 19921996 Panel All Panel Respondents 1992
One-Factor Solution Racial Issues Government help for blacks Racial equality in jobs Racial preferences in hiring Social Welfare Issues Spending to help homeless Government health insurance Government services/ spending Government ensures jobs Spending on welfare Spending to help the poor Cultural Issues Abortion Womens rights School prayer Average standardized loading (N) 2 (df = 54) 1/2 1/2 Three-Factor Solution rsocial welfare and racial rracial and cultural rsocial welfare and cultural 2 (df = 51) 2(3 factor vs. 1 factor) (df = 3) 2(3 factor vs. 2 factor) (df = 2) 1/2 1/2
Partisans 1992 1996
Independents 1992 1996
1996
.80 (.53) 1.13 (.45) .78 (.45) .86 (.55) .84 (.50) .70 (.53) 1.00 (.65) 1.08 (.58) 1.04 (.63) .04 (.02)* .18 (.13) .04 (.03)* .42 (597) 292.28 .90/.92 .86/.88 .71 .07* .07* 146.22 146.06 43.72 .95/.97 92/.95
.87 (.69) 1.28 (.54) .94 (.56) .87 (.53) .86 (.59) .74 (.65) 1.00 (.74) .91 (.57) 1.07 (.66) .19 (.11) .32 (.23) .08 (.07)* .50 (597) 309.61 .90/.92 .86/.88 .81 .26 .23 178.41 131.20 40.00 .94/.96 .91/.94
.82 (.53) 1.20 (.45) .65 (.37) .95 (.55) 1.00 (.56) .75 (.55) 1.00 (.64) 1.14 (.57) 1.16 (.64) .22 (.11)* .16 (.10)* .11 (.07)* .42 (325) 170.21 .89/.92 .84/.89 .69 .15* .14* 93.76 76.45 23.90 .94/.97 .91/.96
.85 (.70) 1.23 (.55) .96 (.61) .91 (.56) .93 (.66) .75 (.68) 1.00 (.77) .92 (.62) 1.11 (.69) .23 (.15) .31 (.23) .12 (.11)* .53 (325) 188.10 .90/.93 .86/.89 .82 .26 .28 96.68 91.42 29.70 .95/.98 .92/.96
.67 (.52) 1.02 (.43) .69 (.48) .82 (.55) .61 (.44) .62 (.55) 1.00 (.70) 1.03 (.62) .88 (.56) .13 (.08)* .22 (.19)* .06 (.05)* .43 (133) 113.84 .86/.92 .79/.88 .81 .13* .12* 68.45 45.39 3.62* .91/.98 .87/.96
.74 (.51) 1.43 (.46) .59 (.31) 1.18 (.55) .87 (.53) .77 (.53) 1.00 (.66) .75 (.38) 1.24 (.61) .27 (.12)* .23 (.13)* .03 (.02)* .40 (133) 134.08 .82/.89 .74/.83 .64 .21* .11* 98.87 35.21 9.36 .87/.93 .80/.89
Source: 199219941996 National Election Studies Panel. Note: See Tables 2 and 3 for a description of the elements in the table. *Not significant at p < .05. All other factor loadings, correlations, and 2 tests are significant at p < .05.
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polarization by changing their party identification based on their issue positions, others respond by bringing their issue attitudes closer to those of their partys leaders. To test this idea directly, we estimate structural equation models that examine the reciprocal relationship over time between party identification and attitudes toward the various domestic policy agendas. We estimate separate models for each issue dimension in each panel. We are able to make direct comparisons between the estimates for the 197219741976 and 1992 19941996 panels because they share identical questions about the same issues. The 195619581960 panel has no issue questions in common with the other two panels. So, we begin with our comparison of the estimates for the 1970s and 1990s panels, and then turn to the results for the first NES panel study. Figure 1 illustrates the general form of our models, which correct for measurement error in both party identification and the particular issue attitude. There is only one observed measure of party identification in the NES surveys: the standard 7-point party identification scale. To make direct comparisons between the estimates for the 1970s panel and the 1990s panel, it is necessary to examine only those issue questions that are included in all three waves of both panels. Since only one social welfare issue (government guarantee of jobs and a good standard of living), one racial issue (government responsibility to help racial minorities), and one cultural issue (womens rights) were asked about in each wave of both panel studies, each model that we estimate includes only one observed measure of attitudes toward the particular issue dimension. Thus, the measurement model for both party identification and issue attitude is the standard single-indicator measurement model in which observed party identification/issue attitude (in rectangles in Figure 1) in each wave of the panel is a function of latent or true party identification/issue attitude (in ovals) and some random measurement error (E). The standard assumptions for the measurement errors and the structural disturbance terms (D) are that the covariances between the measurement errors and the latent variables and between the measurement errors and the disturbance terms are all zero (Bollen, 1989b; Finkel, 1995). Even with these constraints, the measurement models for party identification and issue attitude remain underidentified. In order to identify the model, we employ a standard set of restrictions proposed by Wiley and Wiley (1970). We assume that the error variances of observed party identification/issue attitude are equal over time, that the measurement errors are uncorrelated with each other, and that the effects of observed party identification/issue attitude on latent party identification/issue attitude are all equal to one. The latter constraint also ensures that unobserved party identification/issue attitude has the same scale as the observed 7-point indicator of party identification/issue attitude.12
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FIG. 1. Structural equation model of cross-lagged effects between party identification and issue attitudes.
Note: Stabilities and cross-lagged effects for pairs of variables at T1 and T2 and the same pair of variables at T2 and T3 are constrained to be equal to each other.
217
The structural portion of the model proposes that there are cross-lagged effects between true party identification and true issue attitude over time: An individuals issue attitude at one time point is a function of his or her attitude at the previous time point and his or her party identification at the previous time point. An individuals party identification at one time point is a function of his or her party identification and issue attitude at the previous time point. Because the model controls for both variables values at the previous time point, the lagged effects of partisanship on issue attitude and of issue attitude on partisanship can be interpreted as the effect of one variable on changes in the other variable over time (Finkel, 1995). We model the relationship between issue attitude and partisanship as reciprocal, but not simultaneous, for two reasons. First, and most importantly, our substantive focus differs from that of the voting behavior literature where models of synchronous effects between party identification and issue attitudes generally are found (Page and Jones, 1979). We are not interested in whether party identification is exogenous or endogenous to issue attitudes at a single point in time. Instead, we are interested in the effect of party identification on changes over time in issue attitude and of issue attitudes on changes over time in party identification. The cross-lagged-effects model is better equipped to examine this than is a model of contemporaneous effects. Second, Finkel (1995) demonstrates that the cross-lagged models applicability is not limited to discrete time processes of change. It is also appropriate even if we assume that the reciprocal effects between variables occur continuously over time.13 Under these circumstances, the cross-lagged model tends not to be misleading about the direction of causal influence (Dwyer, 1983: 352). Table 5 presents the estimates of the stability coefficients and cross-lagged effects in our models for both the 1970s and 1990s panels.14 The strong and statistically significant stability coefficients indicate that both party identification and issue attitudes are highly stable over time, with, as past work has shown (Converse and Markus, 1979; Green and Palmquist, 1990), partisanship being especially stable. Despite the enduring nature of these orientations, we do find some evidence of reciprocal effects between partisanship and issue attitudes over time. In the 19721976 period, the parties had distinct stands on social welfare and racial issues, but not on cultural issues. Thus, we should see evidence of individuals changing their party identification in response to their social welfare and racial attitudes and of individuals altering their social welfare and racial attitudes in response to their partisanship, but not of cross-lagged effects between party identification and cultural attitudes. These expectations are clearly met. On cultural issues, ones previous party identification has no effect on the change in ones attitudes on cultural issues between 1972 and 1974 (1974 and 1976). Similarly, ones cultural attitudes in 1972 (1974) have no
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TABLE 5. Estimates of Structural Coefficients in the Models of Cross-Lagged Effects Between Party Identification and Issue Attitudes in the 197219741976 and 199219941996 Panels Social Welfare Racial (Government (Government Ensures Jobs) Help for Blacks) and Party ID and Party ID
197219741976 Panel Stabilities of Latent Variablesa 1972 Party ID 1974 Party ID 1974 Party ID 1976 Party ID 1972 Issue Attitude 1974 Issue Attitude 1974 Issue Attitude 1976 Issue Attitude Cross-Lagged Effects Between Latent Variablesa 1972 Party ID 1974 Issue Attitude 1974 Party ID 1976 Issue Attitude 1972 Issue Attitude 1974 Party ID 1974 Issue Attitude 1976 Party ID (N) 2 (df = 9) 199219941996 Panel Stabilities of Latent Variablesa 1992 Party ID 1994 Party ID 1994 Party ID 1996 Party ID 1992 Issue Attitude 1994 Issue Attitude 1994 Issue Attitude 1996 Issue Attitude Cross-Lagged Effects Between Latent Variablesa 1992 Party ID 1994 Issue Attitude 1994 Party ID 1996 Issue Attitude 1992 Issue Attitude 1994 Party ID 1994 Issue Attitude 1996 Party ID (N) 2 (df = 9)
Cultural (Womens Rights) and Party ID
.96 (.97) .96 (.97) .81 (.86) .81 (.87) .11 .11 .07 .07 (.14) (.15) (.05) (.05)
.96 (.97) .96 (.98) .86 (.84) .86 (.90) .04 .04 .03 .03 (.05) (.05) (.03) (.03)
.97 (.97) .97 (.98) .83 (.85) .83 (.92) .006 .006 .002 .002 (.006)* (.007)* (.002)* (.002)*
(1320) 49.69
(1320) 41.43
(1320) 33.88
.93 (.90) .93 (.94) .84 (.84) .84 (1.01) .11 .11 .13 .13 (.16) (.20) (.09) (.09)
.95 (.90) .95 (.96) .80 (.87) .80 (.89) .09 .09 .07 .07 (.12) (.14) (.05) (.05)
.96 (.90) .96 (.97) .98 (.94) .98 (.95) .04 .04 .02 .02 (.06) (.06) (.01)* (.02)*
(597) 100.84
(597) 60.43
(597) 9.84*
Source: 197219741976 and 199219941996 National Election Studies Panels. Note: The entries are unstandardized coefficients. Standardized coefficients are in parentheses. All observed indicators range from 1 (most liberal/Democratic) to 7 (most conservative/Republican). Analyses computed using full information maximum likelihood estimation with missing values. All variables in the structural model are latent variables with loadings of 1.0 on observed indicators. 1, 2, 1, and 2 all range from .97 to 1.00. a Stabilities and cross-lagged effects for pairs of variables in 1972 (or 1992) and 1974 (or 1994) and the same pair of variables in 1974 (or 1994) and 1976 (or 1996) are constrained to be equal to each other. *Not significant at p < .05. All other factor loadings, regression weights, and 2 tests are significant at p < .05.
219
bearing on the change in ones party identification between 1972 and 1974 (1974 and 1976). On social welfare and racial issues, there is support for the realignment literatures conventional wisdom that partisan issue polarization leads individuals to alter their party ties. Individuals with conservative attitudes on social welfare and racial issues in 1972 (1974) were more likely than individuals with liberal views on those issues to move their party identification in a Republican direction between 1972 and 1974 (1974 and 1976). However, we also find evidence of existing partisans changing their positions on social welfare and racial issues to bring them closer to those of their parties elites. Republicans were more likely than Democrats to move their attitudes on these issues in a conservative direction. Specifically, a one-unit increase in Republican party identification in 1972 (1974) leads to an increase in conservatism of .11 on social welfare and of .04 on race between 1972 and 1974 (1974 and 1976). In the 1990s, Democratic and Republican elites were clearly divided on cultural issues and were even more polarized on social welfare and race than they were in the 1970s. Thus, we should see evidence of party structuring of issue attitudes on all three issue agendas and the impact of partisanship on social welfare and racial attitude change should be larger than it was in the 1970s. These expectations are met almost entirely. The impact of party identification on changes in racial attitudes over the panel waves is not only statistically significant but is also more than twice as large in the 1990s as in the 1970s. An increase of one unit in Republican party identification in 1992 (1994) leads to an increase of .09 in racial issue conservatism between 1992 and 1994 (1994 and 1996). Racial issue attitudes also have a significant effect on changes in party identification over the three panel waves. There is no evidence of attitudes toward womens rights leading to changes in party identification in the 1990s. However, unlike in the 1970s panel, there is evidence of party structuring of attitudes toward womens rights, with an increase of one unit in affiliation with the GOP in 1992 (1994) leading to an increase of .04 in conservatism between 1992 and 1994 (1994 and 1996). Finally, Republicans were significantly more likely than Democrats to change their social welfare attitudes in a conservative direction, just as social welfare conservatives were significantly more likely than social welfare liberals to become more closely aligned with the GOP over the waves of the panel. The standardized effects indicate that the effect of partisanship on changes in social welfare attitudes are slightly larger in the 1990s panel than in the 1970s panel.15 Table 6 presents the measurement and structural coefficients for crosslagged models of the relationship between party identification and social welfare attitudes and between party identification and racial attitudes in the 195619581960 panel. Because there is only one observed indicator of party identification, its measurement model has the same restrictions as the models
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TABLE 6. Estimates of Measurement and Structural Coefficients in the Models of Cross-Lagged Effects Between Party Identification and Issue Attitudes in the 195619581960 Panel Social Welfare Attitudes Factor Loadingsa Latent Party ID Observed Party ID 1956 1958 1960 Social Welfare Attitudes Govt. Guarantee Jobs 1956 1958 1960 Social Welfare Attitudes Govt. in Housing and Power 1956 1958 1960 Social Welfare Attitudes Govt. Aid for Schools 1956 1958 1960 Racial Attitudes Black Employment/Housing 1956 1958 1960 Racial Attitudes School Desegregation 1956 1958 1960 Stabilities of Latent Variablesb 1956 Party ID 1958 Party ID 1958 Party ID 1960 Party ID 1956 Issue Attitude 1958 Issue Attitude 1958 Issue Attitude 1960 Issue Attitude Cross-Lagged Effects Between Latent Variablesb 1956 Party ID 1958 Issue Attitude 1958 Party ID 1960 Issue Attitude 1956 Issue Attitude 1958 Party ID 1958 Issue Attitude 1960 Party ID Racial Attitudes
1.00 (.94) 1.00 (.94) 1.00 (.94) 1.00 (.56) 1.00 (.54) 1.00 (.61) .40 (.22) .40 (.23) .40 (.24) .96 (.62) .96 (.58) .96 (.63) .96 .96 .99 .99 .08 .08 .07 .07 (.94) (.97) (.99) (.91) (.12) (.11) (.04) (.05)
1.00 (.94) 1.00 (.94) 1.00 (.94) 1.00 (.62) 1.00 (.68) 1.00 (.67) 1.05 (.52) 1.05 (.58) 1.05 (.57) .97 .97 .99 .99 .04 .04 .03 .03 (.94) (.98) (.89) (.99)
(.05) (.06) (.02)* (.02)*
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TABLE 6. (Continued ) Social Welfare Attitudes (N) 2 (df ) 1/2 1/2 (1132) 233.99 (53) .99/.99 .98/.99 Racial Attitudes (1132) 104.92 (25) .99/.99 .99/.99
Source: 195619581960 National Election Studies Panel. Note: The entries are unstandardized coefficients. Standardized coefficients are in parentheses. All observed indicators range from 1 (most liberal/Democratic) to 7 (most conservative/Republican). Analyses computed using full information maximum likelihood estimation with missing values. a The loadings of the latent variables on the observed indicators are constrained to be equal across panel waves. b Stabilities and cross-lagged effects for pairs of variables in 1956 and 1958 and the same pair of variables in 1958 and 1960 are constrained to be equal to each other. *Not significant at p < .05. All other factor loadings, regression weights, and 2 tests are significant at p < .05.
for the 1970s and 1990s panels. However, because there are three indicators of social welfare attitudes and two indicators of racial attitudes in 1956, 1958, and 1960, we are able to relax some of the restrictions in those measurement models.16 Given that party differences on social welfare had existed since the initiation of the New Deal, but the parties had not yet taken distinct stands on civil rights, we would expect party identification to have a reciprocal relationship with social welfare attitudes but not with racial attitudes in the 19561958 1960 panel. Those expectations are largely met. Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats to change their social welfare attitudes in a conservative direction, while social welfare conservatives are more likely than social welfare liberals to grow more attached to the GOP over time. Racial attitudes are not related to changes over time in party identification. Party identification does have a significant effect on changes in racial attitudes, but the effect is a negative one. Republican identifiers are more likely than Democrats to move their racial policy attitudes in a liberal direction. That may be due to the GOPs traditional reputation as the party of Lincoln and the Democrats position as the party of the Jim Crow South, or to the Republicans in Congress being more supportive than the Democrats of civil rights legislation in the 1940s and 1950s (Carmines and Stimson, 1989). The results in Tables 5 and 6 suggest that when the parties elites take polarized stands on a set of issues, the resulting increase in the polarization of
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the parties in the electorate results not just from issue-based changes in party identification but also from party-based changes in issue attitudes: party identifiers bringing their attitudes closer into line with their partys stands. When the parties elites are not clearly different on an issue, party plays no role in structuring attitudes on the issue and issue attitudes play no role in shaping party identification. AWARENESS OF PARTY DIFFERENCES AND PARTY STRUCTURING OF ISSUE ATTITUDES IN THE THREE PANELS A number of scholars have shown that the key factor linking party elite polarization on an issue to the polarization of the parties mass coalitions on that issue is mass awareness of party differences (Carmines and Stimson, 1989; Hetherington, 2001; Zaller, 1992). Unless individuals are aware that the parties are differentiated on an issue, there is no reason for them to change their party identification based on their attitudes on the issue (Carmines and Stimson, 1989), and there is no reason for them to alter their attitudes on the issue based on their party identification (Layman and Carsey, 2002). Thus, we suspect that the reason that the reciprocal effects of party identification and issue attitudes on each other over time are stronger in the 19921996 panel than in the 19561960 and 19721976 panels is that respondents in the 1990s were more aware than respondents in the other two panels that the Republican party was more conservative than the Democratic party on social welfare, racial, and cultural issues. To test this idea directly, we reestimate our cross-lagged models separately for individuals who see the GOP as being more conservative than the Democrats on the particular issue and for individuals who do not perceive such partisan differences. If differential levels of awareness account for the different results in the three panel studies, then when we control for awareness, we should see the same patterns across the panels. Among individuals who recognize that the Republican party is more conservative than the Democratic party on an issue, there should be evidence of party identification affecting changes in issue attitudes and of issue attitudes affecting changes in party identification. Among individuals who are not aware of those differences, there should be no reciprocal effects over time between party identification and issue attitudes.17 We begin with the two panels for which we can make direct comparisons. Table 7 presents the estimates of structural coefficients in our models in the 19721976 and 19921996 panels for respondents who were not aware of partisan issue differences and individuals who were aware of those differences.18 As expected, the results for the two panel studies are nearly identical. In both panels, there is no evidence of reciprocal effects between party identi-
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TABLE 7. Cross-Lagged Effects Between Party Identification and Issue Attitudes by Awareness of Party Differences on Issues: Estimates of Structural Coefficients in the 197219741976 and 199219941996 Panels Social Welfare Racial (Government (Government Ensures Jobs) Help for Blacks) and Party ID and Party ID
Not Aware of Party Differences on the Issue 197219741976 Panel Stabilities of Latent Variablesa 1972 Party ID 1974 Party ID 1974 Party ID 1976 Party ID 1972 Issue Attitude 1974 Issue Attitude 1974 Issue Attitude 1976 Issue Attitude Cross-Lagged Effects Between Latent Variablesa 1972 Party ID 1974 Issue Attitude 1974 Party ID 1976 Issue Attitude 1972 Issue Attitude 1974 Party ID 1974 Issue Attitude 1976 Party ID (N) 2 (df = 9) 199219941996 Panel Stabilities of Latent Variablesa 1992 Party ID 1994 Party ID 1994 Party ID 1996 Party ID 1992 Issue Attitude 1994 Issue Attitude 1994 Issue Attitude 1996 Issue Attitude Cross-Lagged Effects Between Latent Variablesa 1992 Party ID 1994 Issue Attitude 1994 Party ID 1996 Issue Attitude 1992 Issue Attitude 1994 Party ID 1994 Issue Attitude 1996 Party ID (N) 2 (df = 9) Aware of Party Differences on the Issue 197219741976 Panel Stabilities of Latent Variablesa 1972 Party ID 1974 Party ID 1974 Party ID 1976 Party ID 1972 Issue Attitude 1974 Issue Attitude 1974 Issue Attitude 1976 Issue Attitude
.97 (.97) .97 (.97) .74 (.86) .74 (.73) .03 .03 .01 .01 (.04)* (.04)* (.01)* (.01)*
.99 (.99) .99 (1.02) .76 (.73) .76 (.78) .04 .04 .01 .01 (.05)* (.05)* (.01)* (.01)*
.95 (.96) .95 (.96) .84 (.86) .84 (.90) .03 .03 .02 .02 (.04)* (.04)* (.02)* (.02)*
(382) 7.70*
(519) 13.89*
(820) 19.59
.92 (.86) .92 (.94) 1.20 (.99) 1.20 (2.11) .03 .03 .14 .14 (.05)* (.10)* (.07)* (.09)*
.97 (.95) .97 (.94) .70 (.80) .70 (.75) .02 .02 .05 .05 (.03)* (.04)* (.04)* (.04)*
.99 (.92) .99 (.99) 1.05 (.98) 1.05 (.95) .03 .03 .12 .12 (.05)* (.05)* (.06) (.07)
(149) 15.93*
(179) 17.23
(256) 14.15*
.95 (.97) .95 (.96) .77 (.83) .77 (.82)
.94 (.94) .94 (.95) .87 (.88) .87 (.89)
1.02 (1.01) 1.02 (1.04) .75 (.82) .75 (.83)
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TABLE 7. (Continued ) Social Welfare Racial (Government (Government Ensures Jobs) Help for Blacks) and Party ID and Party ID
Cross-Lagged Effects Between Latent Variablesa 1972 Party ID 1974 Issue Attitude 1974 Party ID 1976 Issue Attitude 1972 Issue Attitude 1974 Party ID 1974 Issue Attitude 1976 Party ID (N) 2 (df = 9) 199219941996 Panel Stabilities of Latent Variablesa 1992 Party ID 1994 Party ID 1994 Party ID 1996 Party ID 1992 Issue Attitude 1994 Issue Attitude 1994 Issue Attitude 1996 Issue Attitude Cross-Lagged Effects Between Latent Variablesa 1992 Party ID 1994 Issue Attitude 1994 Party ID 1996 Issue Attitude 1992 Issue Attitude 1994 Party ID 1994 Issue Attitude 1996 Party ID (N) 2 (df = 9)
.18 .18 .11 .11
(.26) (.27) (.09) (.08)
.12 .12 .11 .11
(.17) (.17) (.08) (.08)
.10 .10 .04 .04
(.11) (.12) (.04) (.04)
(615) 79.41
(500) 52.35
(253) 21.14
.93 (.93) .93 (.94) .85 (.87) .85 (.96) .14 .14 .18 .18 (.21) (.23) (.12) (.12)
.94 (.90) .94 (.96) .82 (.88) .82 (.91) .12 .12 .15 .15 (.18) (.21) (.10) (.10)
.94 (.90) .94 (.93) .95 (.94) .95 (.95) .09 .09 .09 .09 (.13) (.13) (.06) (.06)
(400) 92.25
(367) 61.83
(321) 29.10
Source: 197219741976 and 199219941996 National Election Studies Panels. Note: The entries are unstandardized coefficients. Standardized coefficients are in parentheses. All observed indicators range from 1 (most liberal/Democratic) to 7 (most conservative/Republican). Analyses computed using full information maximum likelihood estimation with missing values. All variables in the structural model are latent variables with loadings of 1.0 on observed indicators. 1, 2, 1, and 2 all range from .97 to 1.00. a Stabilities and cross-lagged effects for pairs of variables in 1972 (or 1992) and 1974 (or 1994) and the same pair of variables in 1974 (or 1994) and 1976 (or 1996) are constrained to be equal to each other. *Not significant at p < .05. All other factor loadings, regression weights, and 2 tests are significant at p < .05.
fication and attitudes on any of the three issues for individuals who are not aware of where the parties stand relative to each other on those issues. The only case in which there is a statistically significant lagged effect of either party identification or issue attitude on the other is the effect of attitude on womens rights in 1992 (1994) on changes in party identification between 1992 and 1994 (1994 and 1996), but this effect is negative.
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In contrast, the reciprocal effects of party identification and issue attitudes for individuals who are aware of party differences on issues are statistically significant and in the expected direction in both the 1970s and the 1990s. Republicans in 1972 (1974) or 1992 (1994) are more likely than Democrats to convert to more conservative positions on social welfare, racial, and cultural issues between 1972 and 1974 (1974 and 1976) or between 1992 and 1994 (1994 and 1996). Conservatives on all three issue agendas in 1972 (1974) or 1992 (1994) are more likely than liberals on those agendas to become more closely aligned with the GOP between 1972 and 1974 (1974 and 1976) or between 1992 and 1994 (1994 and 1996). Table 8 shows the estimates for 195619581960 panel respondents of cross-lagged effects between party identification and attitudes on two individual social welfare issues (government guarantee of jobs and government intervention in housing and power) and one individual racial issue (government ensuring fair treatment for blacks in jobs and housing).19 We estimate the models separately for respondents who view the Republicans as being more conservative than the Democrats on those issues and for respondents who do not recognize such partisan differences. The results are very similar to those for the 1970s and 1990s panels. Among respondents who do not see the Republicans as more conservative than the Democrats on issues, there generally are either no reciprocal effects between partisanship and issue attitudes or effects that are not in the expected direction. The one exception is a small, but statistically significant, effect of attitudes toward government ensuring jobs on changes in party identification. There are significant cross-lagged effects between party identification and attitudes toward government ensuring fair treatment for blacks. However, those effects are negative, with Republicans being more likely than Democrats to change their issue attitudes in a liberal direction, and racial liberals being more likely than racial conservatives to become more Republican over time. In contrast, the cross-lagged effects are all significant and in the expected direction for respondents who do see the GOP as more conservative than the Democrats on issues. Republican identifiers are more likely than Democrats to convert in a conservative direction on the issues, and conservatives on the issues are more likely than liberals to become more closely identified with the Republican Party. In sum, these results show that awareness of party issue differences plays a major role in translating party elite polarization on an issue into individuallevel partisan change. However, that change may take more than one form. As the realignment literature predicts, some individuals who come to see the parties as taking distinct stands on an issue change their party identifications to conform with their views on the issue. But, what the literature largely ig-
226
TABLE 8. Cross-Lagged Effects Between Party Identification and Issue Attitudes by Awareness of Party Differences on Issues: Estimates of Structural Coefficients in the 195619581960 Panel Government Guarantee of Jobs Not Aware .95 .95 .89 .89 .001 .001 .04 .04 (551) 16.10* (438) 23.02 (.001)* (.001)* (.04) (.04) .20 .20 .08 .08 (.24) (.25) (.07) (.07) .02 .02 .03 .03 (.03)* (.03)* (.02)* (.02)* (493) 8.76* (.94) (.98) (.87) (.92) .93 .93 .89 .89 (.95) (.96) (.91) (.95) .96 .96 .85 .85 (.97) (.98) (.85) (.85) .96 .96 .77 .77 .26 .26 .09 .09 Aware Not Aware Aware (.94) (.96) (.98) (.69) (.44) (.40) (.06) (.06) (366) 79.92 Government Intervention in Housing and Power Govt. Ensure Fair Treatment for Blacks in Jobs and Housing Not Aware .97 .97 .92 .92 .06 .06 .01 .01 (.95) (.98) (.93) (.96) (.08) (.08) (.003) (.003) (725) 7.31* Aware .91 .91 .96 .96 .15 .15 .08 .08 (.92) (.99) (.92) (.99) (.16) (.16) (.07) (.08) (241) 11.14*
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Stabilities of Latent Variablesa 1956 Party ID 1958 Party ID 1958 Party ID 1960 Party ID 1956 Issue Att. 1958 Issue Att. 1958 Issue Att. 1960 Issue Att. Cross-Lagged Effects Between Latent Variablesa 1956 Party ID 1958 Issue Att. 1958 Party ID 1960 Issue Att. 1956 Issue Att. 1958 Party ID 1958 Issue Att. 1960 Party ID
(N) 2 (df = 9)
Source: 195619581960 National Election Studies Panels. Note: The entries are unstandardized coefficients. Standardized coefficients are in parentheses. All observed indicators range from 1 (most liberal/ Democratic) to 7 (most conservative/Republican). Analyses computed using full information maximum likelihood estimation with missing values. All variables in the structural model are latent variables with loadings of 1.0 on observed indicators. 1, 2, 1, and 2 all range from .96 to 1.00. a Stabilities and cross-lagged effects for pairs of variables in 1956 and 1958 and the same pair of variables in 1958 and 1960 are constrained to be equal to each other. *Not significant at p < .05. All other factor loadings, regression weights, and 2 tests are significant at p < .05.
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nores is that other individuals who become aware of party polarization on an issue change their attitudes on the issue to conform with their party loyalties. CONCLUSION The last three decades of American party politics have been characterized not by conflict displacement, as the conventional wisdom in the realignment literature would predict, but by conflict extension. At the same time that the parties in the electorate have grown much more polarized on newer policy agendas such as cultural and racial issues, they have remained just as polarized or grown even more so on older agendas such as social welfare issues. The reason that conflict extension has been possible, we argue, is not just that Democratic and Republican elites have become polarized on social welfare, racial, and cultural issues, but also that the process of individual-level partisan change allows for such an aggregate outcome. The partisan change literature contends that the individual-level basis for aggregate increases in party issue polarization is individuals changing their party ties based on their attitudes on the issues. Our evidence confirms that this is part of the partisan change process. However, we also clearly show that some individuals respond to increases in elite-level polarization not by changing their party ties but by changing their issue attitudes in response to those ties. When Democratic and Republican elites are clearly differentiated on an issue and citizens recognize that difference, then a significant number of party identifiers will bring their attitudes on the issue closer into line with the stance of their partys leaders. When party elites are polarized on more than one issue agenda, the process of party identifiers converting their positions on issues toward the dominant stand of their parties means that issue dimensions, such as social welfare and culture, that were once orthogonal to each other will not remain so over time. When party elites do not take consistently liberal or consistently conservative positions on multiple policy agendas, as was the case from 1956 to 1960 and from 1972 to 1976, there is little evidence of convergence in partisans views on the different sets of issues. However, when party elites do take consistently liberal or consistently conservative views on multiple policy agendas, as they did in the early- to mid-1990s, the views of party identifiers on cross-cutting issue agendas do merge closer together. When previously cross-cutting issue dimensions become more closely related to each other, increases in mass party polarization on one no longer necessarily lead to decreases in party polarization on the other. Instead, the parties coalitions may well become polarized on both dimensions. Our evidence strongly supports the idea that the context of party politics and the behavior of partisan elites exert a substantial influence on the issue
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attitudes of the mass electorate (Zaller, 1992) and the degree of attitudinal constraint displayed by the electorate (Carmines and Stimson, 1989; Nie et al., 1976). Of course, the degree of horizontal constraint between attitudes on different issues and vertical constraint between party identification and issue attitudes will vary across individuals (Converse, 1964). Clearly political sophistication or awareness is a key factor in explaining that variation. However, like other work (Sniderman et al., 1991; Zaller, 1992), our evidence suggests that partisan attachments are just as important. Without attachments to a party, even the most sophisticated individualseven, for instance, individuals who are entirely aware of the relative issue positions of the parties will not respond to party elite cues and structure their policy attitudes in a consistent fashion. It is individuals who are both aware of the environment of partisan politics and have attachments to the parties who are most likely to respond to elite cues and structure their attitudes accordingly.
Acknowledgments. We wish to thank the participants in the Vanderbilt Conference on Parties and Partisanship and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. John Geer and Brad Palmquist deserve special thanks for organizing the conference. We also thank John for his suggestions on and support of this paper. The data used in this study were obtained from the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. The Consortium bears no responsibility for their use.
APPENDIX: TWO-WAVE CROSS-LAGGED MODELS IN THE 19721976 AND 19921996 PANELS

In order to expand the number of indicators of social welfare and cultural attitudes in our models of cross-lagged effects between party identification and issue attitudes, we estimate models using data from only the first and last waves of the 19721976 and 19921996 panel studies. There are two social welfare issuesgovernment guarantee of jobs and government providing health insuranceand two cultural issues abortion and womens rightsthat are common to the 1972, 1976, 1992, and 1996 surveys.20 In order to identify a measurement error model with only two waves of data, we need at least two observed indicators for each latent variable, and thus one more indicator of partisanship in addition to the 7-point party identification scale. For that, we turn to the difference between respondents feeling thermometer rating of Republicans and their rating of Democrats.21 We also impose other standard restrictions necessary to identify a two-wave, two-indicator model (Finkel, 1995).22 The results are presented in Table A1 and are very similar to those shown in Table 5. Both partisanship and issue attitudes are highly stable over time. There are statistically significant cross-lagged effects between social welfare attitudes and party identification in both panels. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to grow more conservative over time on social welfare; social welfare conservatives are more likely than social welfare liberals to grow more Republican over time. However, there are no significant cross-lagged effects between cultural attitudes and party identification in
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TABLE A1. Estimates of Measurement and Structural Coefficients in the Two-Wave Models of Cross-Lagged Effects Between Party Identification and Issue Attitudes in the 19721976 and 19921996 Panels 19721976 Panel Cultural Attitudes Factor Loadingsa Latent Party ID Observed Party ID 1972/1992 1976/1996 Latent Party ID Party Thermometer Score 1972/1992 1976/1996 Cultural Attitudes Abortion 1972/1992 1976/1996 Cultural Attitudes Womens Rights 1972/1992 1976/1996 Social Welfare Attitudes Govt. Guarantee Jobs 1972/1992 1976/1996 Social Welfare Attitudes Govt. Health Insurance 1972/1992 1976/1996 Stabilities of Latent Variablesb 1972/1992 Party ID 1976/ 1996 Party ID 1972/1992 Issue Attitude 1976/1996 Issue Attitude Cross-Lagged Effects Between Latent Variablesb 1972/1992 Party ID 1976/ 1996 Issue Attitude 1972/1992 Issue Attitude 1976/1996 Party ID Social Welfare Attitudes 19921996 Panel Cultural Attitudes Social Welfare Attitudes
1.00 (.90) 1.00 (.95) .28 (.62) .28 (.68) 1.00 (.63) 1.00 (.66) .80 (.43) .80 (.51) .97 (.93) 1.45 (1.35)
1.00 (.90) 1.00 (.92) .29 (.62) .29 (.69) 1.00 (.55) 1.00 (.69) 1.15 (.52) 1.15 (.65)
1.00 (.87) 1.00 (.93) .53 (.82) .53 (.85) 1.00 (.80) 1.00 (.78) .45 (.48) .45 (.46)
1.00 (.86) 1.00 (.91) .54 (.83) .54 (.85) 1.00 (.64) 1.00 (.72) 1.04 (.61) 1.04 (.69) .99 (.92) .86 (.84)
.96 (.94) 1.03 (.93) 1.06 (.92) 1.08 (1.10)
.01 (.01)* .08 (.05)*
.20 (.29) .19 (.11)
.13 (.13) .08 (.07)
.21 (.30) .29 (.18)
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TABLE A1. (Continued ) 19721976 Panel Cultural Attitudes (N) 2 (df = 18) (1320) 286.52 Social Welfare Attitudes (1320) 283.43 19921996 Panel Cultural Attitudes (597) 198.29 Social Welfare Attitudes (597) 253.46
Source: 197219741976 and 199219941996 National Election Studies Panels. Note: The entries are unstandardized coefficients. Standardized coefficients are in parentheses. All observed indicators range from 1 (most liberal/Democratic) to 7 (most conservative/Republican). Analyses computed using full information maximum likelihood estimation with missing values. 1, 2, 1, and 2 all range from .96 to 1.00. a The loadings of the latent variables on the observed indicators are constrained to be equal across panel waves. b Stabilities and cross-lagged effects for pairs of variables in 1972 (or 1992) and 1974 (or 1994) and the same pair of variables in 1974 (or 1994) and 1976 (or 1996) are constrained to be equal to each other. *Not significant at p < .05. All other factor loadings, regression weights, and 2 tests are significant at p < .05.
the 19721976 panel. These effects appear only in the 19921996 panel, with Republicans being more likely than Democrats to become more culturally conservative, and cultural conservatives being more likely than cultural liberals to grow more Republican.
NOTES
1. What we call conflict extension shares some elements of what has been labeled ideological realignment by others (Abramowitz and Saunders, 1998, 2002); Putz and Shepherd, 2001). The difference is that the ideological realignment perspective assumes, at least implicitly through the measures it uses, that mass ideology falls along a single liberal-conservative continuum, whereas we argue that public issue attitudes fall into multiple distinct dimensions and the parties coalitions are becoming more polarized along each of those dimensions. For a fuller discussion, see Layman and Carsey (2002). 2. In an earlier article (Layman and Carsey, 2000b), we develop a dynamic model that demonstrates that mass conflict extension is not possible if there is no party-based issue conversion. When we allow for the possibility of issue conversion and party conversion, the model points to an increase over time in party polarization on multiple agendasconflict extension. In that article, we make the simplifying assumption that all citizens are either Democrats or Republicans. Preliminary work that relaxes this assumption continues to show that conflict extension remains much more likely to occur and occurs on a larger scale with party-based issue conversion than without it. 3. Take, for example, a Republican coalition that now includes two groups: (a) upper-status business conservatives who remain in the party because of its stands on social welfare but are
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culturally liberal, and (b) Christian conservatives who recently came into the party because of its cultural conservatism but, because of their modest income levels, are not very conservative on social welfare. If Republican elites stake out conservative ground on social welfare and culture, then the business conservatives may grow more conservative on cultural issues, and the Christian conservatives may grow more conservative on social welfare issues. The end result should be that the Republican coalition grows more conservative on culture, while remaining as conservative, or becoming even more conservative, on social welfare. 4. There is at least one alternative explanation for the recent conflict extension in party politics that is partially bottom-up. Southern whites tend to be relatively conservative on all three domestic issue agendas: racial, cultural, and social welfare. Thus, their movement out of the Democratic party and eventually into the Republican party made the Republican coalition more conservative, in the aggregate, on all three agendas, and left the Democratic coalition less conservative on all three agendas. However, this is only part of the explanation for mass conflict extension. We show, in other work, that there has been an increase in the difference between the Republican and Democratic coalitions on social welfare, racial, and cultural issues outside of the South as well as in the South (Layman and Carsey 2000b). Moreover, if we find the sort of individual-level change that we expect to find here, it cannot be explained by aggregate partisan change in a particular region. 5. The individuals used for this and all subsequent analyses are those who responded to all three waves of each panel (all respondents in the table). The partisans in the table are those who identified with the same party (either as strong or weak identifiers) in both the first and last waves of a panel. The independents are those who identified themselves as independents (both leaning and nonleaning) in both the first and last waves of a panel. In 1960, respondents were presented with particular positions on issues and asked which party was more likely to hold that position. Respondents are coded as being aware of party differences on issues if they identified the Democrats as the party more likely to hold liberal positions (e.g., responded Democrats to the question Which party do you think is more likely to see to it that everybody who wants to work can find a job?) or the Republicans as the party more likely to hold conservative positions. All other respondents are coded as not being aware of party differences. Similar questions were not available for the 1956 or 1958 waves of the panel. The percentages for 1976 and 1996 are based on questions that asked respondents to place both parties on issue scales. Respondents are coded as placing the two parties correctly on the issue if they placed the Republicans as more conservative than the Democrats. All other respondents are coded as not placing the parties correctly. The only observations treated as missing are those respondents who were not asked one or both questions (placement of Democrats, placement of Republicans) on the particular issue. We measure levels of awareness only in the last waves of the 1970s and 1990s panels for two reasons. First, this allows for comparisons with the 19561960 panel, where we can only use the last wave. Second, the 1992 wave of the 1990s panel includes measures of awareness on very few issues and on no racial issues. Measuring awareness in the last wave of a panel raises the possibility that respondents levels of political awareness are not representative of the average citizens level because they already have taken part in two surveys about politics. In fact, the levels of awareness were slightly higher in the third wave than in the first wave of both the 1970s and 1990s panels. This is not a problem here for two reasons. First, we are interested in comparing levels of awareness across the three political periods, not between the first and third waves of panels, and we are measuring awareness in the last wave of all three panels. Second, the conclusions we draw here about differences in awareness between the 19721976 and 19921996 periods would be exactly the same if we based them on data from the first waves of both panels.
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6. The analysis for each panel study uses attitudes toward all of the social welfare, racial, and cultural issues that were asked about in both the first and third waves of the panel. 7. All analyses are based on only those individuals who responded to all three waves of each panel. For that set of panel respondents, our analyses do not exclude missing values. We estimate our models using Amos 4.0, which computes full information maximum likelihood (FIML) estimates even in the presence of missing data (Andersen, 1957). Wothke and Arbuckle (1996) describe the FIML procedure used by Amos and show that the estimates produced by it are more consistent and efficient than those produced by methods using pairwise or listwise deletion of missing observations. 8. For each model, we take into account measurement error in each observed indicator, and, when there is more than one latent variable, we assume that each one covaries with every other latent variable. To provide a scale for the latent variables, we constrain the factor loading for one observed indicator to be equal to one. For the single-factor model, that indicator is attitude toward government responsibility to ensure jobs. For the two-factor model with 19561960 panel data, we set to one the loadings of the black employment and housing indicator on the racial factor and the government ensuring jobs indicator on the social welfare factor. For the three-factor models with 1970s and 1990s panel data, we set to one the loadings of the government help for blacks indicator on the racial factor, the government ensuring jobs indicator on the social welfare factor, and the abortion indicator on the cultural factor. All observed indicators are coded to range from 1 (most liberal) to 1 (most conservative). 9. We tested the difference between the chi-square test of overall fit for the models with two latent factors (19561960) or three latent factors (19721976, 19921996) and the chi-square test for the model with one latent factor. This difference itself follows the chi-square distribution with degrees of freedom equal to the difference in the degrees of freedom between the constrained and unconstrained models. These tests indicate that a two-factor solution fits the data significantly better than does a one-factor solution for each group in both waves of the 19561960 panel and that a three-factor solution fits the data significantly better than does either a one- or two-factor solution for each group in both waves of the 1970s and 1990s panels. 10. One surprising finding is that the correlation between the racial and cultural factors in the three-factor solution is much larger in the 1970s panel than in the 1990s panel. This seems to run counter to our expectations. However, changes in the nature of the racial policy agenda between the early 1970s and the early 1990s probably account for this result better than attitudes on particular racial and cultural issues in the 1970s being more closely related than attitudes toward the same issues in the 1990s. The racial agenda in the 1960s and early 1970s was focused primarily on issues of racial integration and equal treatment for AfricanAmericans, and attitudes toward those issues are shaped principally by cultural factors such as racial prejudice. By the 1990s, the racial agenda had expanded to include issues such as affirmative action and social welfare assistance for blacks, and attitudes toward those issues are shaped more by political factors such as liberal-conservative ideology than by prejudice and other cultural predilections (Sniderman and Piazza, 1993). Thus, it may be that the determinants of attitudes toward the racial policies of 1960s and early 1970s were more closely related to factors such as religion and region that shape cultural issue-attitudes than were the factors influencing racial attitudes in the 1990s. In fact, when we compare the relationship between attitudes on the one racial issue that was common to the 1970s and 1990s panel studiesgovernment responsibility to help improve the social and economic position of blacksand cultural issue-attitudes, there is little evidence of a stronger connection in the earlier period. Most importantly, the evidence in Tables 3 and 4 shows a growing
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11.
12.
13.
14. 15.
16.
relationship between the attitudes of party identifiers on racial and cultural issues from 1992 to 1996, but a declining relationship between racial and cultural attitudes from 1972 to 1976. That the analysis for each panel employs a different set of issues may raise questions about our ability to compare across the panels. So, using data from the first and last waves of the 19721976 and 19921996 panels (the 19561960 panel has no questions in common with the other two panels), we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis in which the five issues that are common to both panelsgovernment help for blacks, government health insurance, government ensuring jobs, abortion, and womens rightsload on a single factor. The results are nearly identical to those presented. There is no increase in attitudinal constraint between 1972 and 1976 among any group, but there is a clear increase in constraint from 1992 to 1996 among all respondents and partisans (but not among independents). For example, the average loading of the five issues among partisans was .40 in both the first and last waves of the 1970s panel. In the 1990s panel, that loading increased from .41 in 1992 to .52 in 1996. Green and Palmquist (1990, pp. 878879) impose these same Wiley-Wiley restrictions to correct for measurement error in their analyses of the dynamic relationship between party identification and political attitudes. If the relationship between variables is continuous over time, then, if panel waves are equally spaced, the cross-lagged effects between different variables and the lagged effects of each variable on itself should be equal across panel waves (Finkel, 1995). So, we restrict the crosslagged effects between issue attitudes and party identification and the lagged effects of each variable on itself to be equal across panel waves. We also estimated models that relaxed this equality assumption and the results were very similar to those presented here. We do not show the factor loadings of latent party identification and issue attitude on the observed indicators of those variables because we constrain those factor loadings to be equal to one. The fact that our models use only one observed indicator of each issue agenda may limit our ability to generalize from these results to the relationship between party identification and attitudes toward the whole social welfare, racial, and cultural agendas. That may be particularly true for the cultural agenda because the single issue is womens rights, which is not as central to the debates over cultural policy as are issues such as abortion and homosexual rights. So, as a check, we estimated two-wave cross-lagged models using two indicators of social welfare attitudes (government ensuring jobs and government health insurance), two indicators of cultural attitudes (womens rights and abortion), and two indicators of partisanship (the party identification scale and the difference between the Republican and Democratic feeling thermometers) with data from the first and last waves of the 19721976 and 19921996 panel studies. There is still only one racial issue common to the first and last waves of both panels, so we did not include racial attitudes in these analyses. The results, presented in the appendix, are nearly identical to those shown in Table 5. There are statistically significant cross-lagged effects between party identification and social welfare attitudes in both panels. However, there are significant reciprocal effects between party identification and cultural attitudes only in the 1990s panel. For the measurement models of issue attitudes, we do not restrict the error variances for observed indicators to be equal over time, and we allow measurement errors for specific indicators to be correlated with each other over time. We set the scales of the latent variables by constraining the effect of partisanship on the party identification scale, the effect of social welfare attitude on observed attitude toward government guarantee of jobs, and the effect of racial attitude on observed attitude toward government ensuring fair treatment for blacks in jobs and housing to be equal to one. All observed indicators range from 1 (most liberal/ Democratic) to 7 (most conservative/Republican). The effects of the latent variables on the other observed indicators are constrained to be equal across panel waves.
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17. For the analyses in Tables 7 and 8, we measure awareness of party issue differences in the same way as in Table 1. 18. As in Table 5, we do not present the measurement coefficients because all of the factor loadings are constrained to be equal to one. 19. We turn here to single indicators of issue attitudes because the awareness questions ask only about whether there are party differences on particular issues and not on entire issue agendas. Because these are single indicator models, we employ the same Wiley-Wiley assumptions used for the estimates in Tables 5 and 7. 20. Although it should have a minimal effect on the results, we should note that the question about abortion and the response options are slightly different in the 1990s NES surveys than in the surveys in the 1970s. 21. All of the observed indicators in the model are coded to range from 1 (most liberal/Democratic) to 7 (most conservative/Republican). 22. We assume that the measurement errors and latent variables, the measurement errors and disturbance terms, and the measurement errors and structural disturbances over time are all uncorrelated. We set the scale of the latent variables by constraining the effect of partisanship on the party identification scale, the effect of social welfare attitude on observed attitude toward government guarantee of jobs, and the effect of cultural attitude on observed attitude toward abortion to be equal to one. The effects of the latent variables on the other observed indicators are constrained to be equal across panel waves.
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Political Behavior, Vol. 24, No.

3, September 2002 ( 2002)

LAYMAN AND CARSEY

PARTY POLARIZATION AND STRUCTURING OF POLICY ATTITUDES

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PARTY POLARIZATION AND STRUCTURING OF POLICY ATTITUDES

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PARTY POLARIZATION AND STRUCTURING OF POLICY ATTITUDES

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PARTY POLARIZATION AND STRUCTURING OF POLICY ATTITUDES

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44.29 46.06 38.64 41.32 43.97 40.63

59.85 62.96 59.69 51.65 53.92 49.00

72.86 81.06 66.40 73.00 77.74 72.13 76.05 79.66 72.95

24.95 25.98 23.88 13.00 14.26 11.19

47.51 49.36 42.80 37.57 38.86 36.53 23.47 25.95 23.62

67.22 71.29 66.94 55.63 56.62 54.69

PARTY POLARIZATION AND STRUCTURING OF POLICY ATTITUDES

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PARTY POLARIZATION AND STRUCTURING OF POLICY ATTITUDES

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Partisans 1972 1976

Independents 1972 1976

PARTY POLARIZATION AND STRUCTURING OF POLICY ATTITUDES

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Partisans 1992 1996

Independents 1992 1996

PARTY POLARIZATION AND STRUCTURING OF POLICY ATTITUDES

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PARTY POLARIZATION AND STRUCTURING OF POLICY ATTITUDES

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Cultural (Womens Rights) and Party ID

PARTY POLARIZATION AND STRUCTURING OF POLICY ATTITUDES

LAYMAN AND CARSEY

(.05) (.06) (.02)* (.02)*

PARTY POLARIZATION AND STRUCTURING OF POLICY ATTITUDES

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PARTY POLARIZATION AND STRUCTURING OF POLICY ATTITUDES

Cultural (Womens Rights) and Party ID

.95 (.97) .95 (.96) .77 (.83) .77 (.82)

.94 (.94) .94 (.95) .87 (.88) .87 (.89)

1.02 (1.01) 1.02 (1.04) .75 (.82) .75 (.83)

LAYMAN AND CARSEY

Cultural (Womens Rights) and Party ID

.18 .18 .11 .11

(.26) (.27) (.09) (.08)

.12 .12 .11 .11

(.17) (.17) (.08) (.08)

.10 .10 .04 .04

(.11) (.12) (.04) (.04)

PARTY POLARIZATION AND STRUCTURING OF POLICY ATTITUDES

PARTY POLARIZATION AND STRUCTURING OF POLICY ATTITUDES

LAYMAN AND CARSEY

APPENDIX: TWO-WAVE CROSS-LAGGED MODELS IN THE 19721976 AND 19921996 PANELS

PARTY POLARIZATION AND STRUCTURING OF POLICY ATTITUDES

.96 (.94) 1.03 (.93) 1.06 (.92) 1.08 (1.10)

.01 (.01)* .08 (.05)*

.20 (.29) .19 (.11)

.13 (.13) .08 (.07)

.21 (.30) .29 (.18)

LAYMAN AND CARSEY

PARTY POLARIZATION AND STRUCTURING OF POLICY ATTITUDES

LAYMAN AND CARSEY