IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/10562.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Party Hacks and True Believers: The Effect of Party Affiliation on Political Preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Gould, Eric
  • Klor, Esteban

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of party affiliation on an individual?s political views. To do this, we exploit the party realignment that occurred in the U.S. due to abortion becoming a more prominent and highly partisan issue over time. We show that abortion was not a highly partisan issue in 1982, but a person?s abortion views in 1982 led many to switch parties over time as the two main parties diverged in their stances on this issue. We find that voting for a given political party in 1996, due to the individual?s initial views on abortion in 1982, has a substantial effect on a person?s political, social, and economic attitudes in 1997. These findings are stronger for highly partisan political issues, and are robust to controlling for a host of personal views and characteristics in 1982 and 1997. As individuals realigned their party affiliation in accordance with their initial abortion views, their other political views followed suit.

Suggested Citation

  • Gould, Eric & Klor, Esteban, 2015. "Party Hacks and True Believers: The Effect of Party Affiliation on Political Preferences," CEPR Discussion Papers 10562, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10562
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP10562
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edward L. Glaeser & Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2005. "Strategic Extremism: Why Republicans and Democrats Divide on Religious Values," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(4), pages 1283-1330.
    2. Joseph G. Altonji & Todd E. Elder & Christopher R. Taber, 2005. "Selection on Observed and Unobserved Variables: Assessing the Effectiveness of Catholic Schools," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 151-184, February.
    3. Brady, David & Schwartz, Edward P, 1995. "Ideology and Interests in Congressional Voting: The Politics of Abortion in the U.S. Senate," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 84(1-2), pages 25-48, July.
    4. Christina M. Fong & Erzo F. P. Luttmer, 2009. "What Determines Giving to Hurricane Katrina Victims? Experimental Evidence on Racial Group Loyalty," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 64-87, April.
    5. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2000. "Economics and Identity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 715-753.
    6. McCAULEY, JOHN F., 2014. "The Political Mobilization of Ethnic and Religious Identities in Africa," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 108(4), pages 801-816, November.
    7. Ebonya Washington & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2009. "Sticking with Your Vote: Cognitive Dissonance and Political Attitudes," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 86-111, January.
    8. Stock, James H & Wright, Jonathan H & Yogo, Motohiro, 2002. "A Survey of Weak Instruments and Weak Identification in Generalized Method of Moments," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(4), pages 518-529, October.
    9. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-475, March.
    10. Erzo F. P. Luttmer, 2001. "Group Loyalty and the Taste for Redistribution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(3), pages 500-528, June.
    11. Converse, Philip E. & Markus, Gregory B., 1979. "Plus ça change…: The New CPS Election Study Panel," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 73(1), pages 32-49, March.
    12. Beck, Paul Allen & Dalton, Russell J. & Greene, Steven & Huckfeldt, Robert, 2002. "The Social Calculus of Voting: Interpersonal, Media, and Organizational Influences on Presidential Choices," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 96(1), pages 57-73, March.
    13. Klor, Esteban F. & Shayo, Moses, 2010. "Social identity and preferences over redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(3-4), pages 269-278, April.
    14. Shayo, Moses, 2009. "A Model of Social Identity with an Application to Political Economy: Nation, Class, and Redistribution," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 103(2), pages 147-174, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Arnaud Wolff, 2022. "The Signaling Value of Social Identity," Working Papers of BETA 2022-15, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    2. Peter Schwardmann & Egon Tripodi & Joël J. van der Weele, 2019. "Self-Persuasion: Evidence from Field Experiments at Two International Debating Competitions," CESifo Working Paper Series 7946, CESifo.
    3. Gisèle Umbhauer & Arnaud Wolff, 2022. "istance in Beliefs and Individually-Consistent Sequential Equilibrium," Working Papers of BETA 2022-37, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Müller, Daniel, 2019. "The anatomy of distributional preferences with group identity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 785-807.
    2. Klor, Esteban F. & Shayo, Moses, 2010. "Social identity and preferences over redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(3-4), pages 269-278, April.
    3. Erik Lindqvist & Robert Östling, 2013. "Identity and redistribution," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 469-491, June.
    4. Sanjit Dhami & Emma Manifold & Ali al‐Nowaihi, 2021. "Identity and Redistribution: Theory and Evidence," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(350), pages 499-531, April.
    5. Neher, Frank, 2012. "Preferences for redistribution around the world," Discussion Papers 2012/2, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    6. Marie Claire Villeval, 2021. "Group Identity and Social Preferences by Yan Chen and Sherry X. Li," Post-Print halshs-03504258, HAL.
    7. Joan Costa Font & Frank Cowell, 2015. "European Identity and Redistributive Preferences," CEP Discussion Papers dp1362, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    8. Joan Costa-Font & Frank Cowell, 2015. "Social Identity And Redistributive Preferences: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 357-374, April.
    9. Marie Claire Villeval, 2021. "Group Identity and Social Preferences (chapter X)," Post-Print halshs-03504316, HAL.
    10. Markku Kaustia & Samuli Knüpfer & Sami Torstila, 2016. "Stock Ownership and Political Behavior: Evidence from Demutualizations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(4), pages 945-963, April.
    11. ten Kate, Fabian & Klasing, Mariko J. & Milionis, Petros, 2023. "Societal diversity, group identities and their implications for tax morale," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 1048-1067.
    12. Kohler, Pierre, 2012. "Three essays on the economic and cultural integration of migrants in Switzerland: putting into perspective the influence of economic discrimination and of host society culture," MPRA Paper 38129, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Neher, Frank, 2012. "Preferences for Redistribution around the World," Working Papers 26/2012, Universidade Portucalense, Centro de Investigação em Gestão e Economia (CIGE).
    14. Bernard, Mark & Hett, Florian & Mechtel, Mario, 2016. "Social identity and social free-riding," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 4-17.
    15. Aksoy, Billur & Chadd, Ian & Koh, Boon Han, 2023. "Sexual identity, gender, and anticipated discrimination in prosocial behavior," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    16. Paetzel, Fabian & Sausgruber, Rupert, 2018. "Cognitive ability and in-group bias: An experimental study," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 280-292.
    17. Sanjit Dhami & Emma Manifold & Ali al-Nowaihi, 2018. "Prosociality, Political Identity, and Redistribution of Earned Income: Theory and Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 7256, CESifo.
    18. Manuel Denzer, 2019. "Estimating Causal Effects in Binary Response Models with Binary Endogenous Explanatory Variables - A Comparison of Possible Estimators," Working Papers 1916, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    19. Chakravarty, Surajeet & Fonseca, Miguel A., 2010. "Social identity, group composition and public good provision: an experimental study," MPRA Paper 23115, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Jeffrey Smith & Arthur Sweetman, 2016. "Viewpoint: Estimating the causal effects of policies and programs," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 49(3), pages 871-905, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Partisanship; Political preferences;

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10562. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.