Annotated Bibliography: Party Members

Andrew Garner POL 628 Dr. Guo Annotated Bibliography: Party Members

Dalton, Russell J. 2000. “The Decline of Party Identifications.” In Parties without Partisans: Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies, eds. Russell J. Dalton and Martin P. Wattenberg. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 19-36. Dalton examines the decline in party identification across nineteen advanced industrial democracies. He finds substantial decline in both the total percentage of identifiers as well as the percentage of strong identifiers. However, the largest change in party identification across advanced industrial democracies is reflected in the dramatic increase in the percentage of non-partisans. The chapter then turns towards explaining this trend towards “dealignment”. Dalton identifies three general categories of explanations. First, generational patterns result when younger voters fail to develop partisan attachments at rates commensurate with previous generations. Increased levels of education and increased communications technology combine to reduce the need for citizens to rely on parties for political information. This pattern of cognitive mobilization also helps explain the aggregate trends in dealignment noted by Dalton. Finally, the relationship commonly posited between dealignment and performance—measured by satisfaction with democracy—is shown to be weak and inconsistent across countries. Despite some methodological problems (the author does not place all three categories of explanatory variables into the same regression model, for instance), Dalton’s chapter provides the most comprehensive examination of partisanship across advanced industrial democracy.

Dalton, Russell J. 2002. Citizen Politics: Public Opinion and Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies. 3rd edition. New York: Chatham House Publishers. Chapters 7-9. These three chapters represent the book’s most explicit treatment of political parties across advanced industrial democracies. Dalton first examines the ideological and social bases of party support among the electorate. By applying the Alford Class Voting Index, he finds that class-based voting has declined considerably in the US, Great Britain, Germany, and France. These trends are attributed to changing economic and social conditions. Dalton also argues that denominational voting has declined in these four countries. Together, these trends suggest that parties making appeals explicitly on the bases of class and religious considerations are losing their core bases of support. In Chapter 9, Dalton examines different models of party identification as well as the decline in partisanship. Causes of this decline include cognitive mobilization, technological and communications changes, and the failure of parties to adequately handle contemporary political issues. Dalton concludes by noting that, contrary to critics of dealignment, the decline in party identification can have both positive and negative effects on political systems. 2

Sinnott, Richard. 1998. “Party Attachment in Europe: Methodological Critique and Substantive Implications.” British Journal of Political Science, Vol 28, No. 4, pp. 627- 650. Sinnott examines the different measures of party identification found in the Eurobarometer. The “absolute” question asks if respondents are close to a party while the “relative” question asks if they are closer to one party than all others. The distribution of party attachment across European countries differs according to which measure is used, with the absolute question suggesting higher levels of party attachment than the relative question. Sinnott offers various methodological solutions for overcoming the problems associated with these different measures. The article is a good reminder that concepts originating in American Politics do not always fit neatly into the Comparative literature.

Bartels, Larry M. 2000. “Partisanship and Voting Behavior, 1952-1996.” American journal of Political Science, Vol 44, No. 1, pp. 35-50. Bartels creates a new model of American partisan voting which captures both the general distribution of party identification and the effect of partisanship on voting behavior. This is done by regressing vote choice on three levels of partisanship– weak, strong, and independent–and then calculating the probit estimates. The results show a large increase in partisan voting beginning in the 1970's. Bartels concludes that, “the conventional wisdom among scholars and commentators regarding the ‘decline of parties’ in American politics is badly outdated,” p. 35. Much of the “party decline” literature in American Politics rivals the literature in Comparative Politics. Although Bartels’ article deals with partisanship in the United States, it nonetheless suggests that both fields should rethink the “dealignment” hypothesis.

Sanders, David. 2003. “Party Identification, Economic Perceptions, and Voting in British General Elections, 1974-1997.” Electoral Studies, Vol 22, No 2, pp. 239-263. Examining the role of party identification in British elections, Sanders finds that partisanship and economic perceptions serve as powerful explanations of voting behavior. These findings are notable considering the substantial decline in British party identification over the last 30 years.

Ray, Leonard. 2003. “When Parties Matter: The Conditional Influence of Party Positions on Voter Opinions about European Integration.” The Journal of Politics, Vol 65, No. 4, pp. 978-994. Leonard examines a nonrecursive model where strategic position-taking by parties both influences and is influenced by party attachment (as well as other aspects of voter opinions). The findings suggest that the link between parties and voters is not a simple unidirectional relationship, but instead involves reciprocal causation.

Scarrow, Susan E. 2002. “Party Decline in the Parties State? The Changing Environment of German Politics.” In Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies, eds. Paul Webb, David Farrell, and Ian Holliday, pp. 77-106. Scarrow argues that “party decline” in Germany depends upon which functions or elements of the party one is examining. She finds that party attachments have decreased and, more importantly, that party legitimacy has declined during the 1990’s. Membership as a percentage of the electorate reached a high of 4.7% in 1980, but has since shrunk to 3%. Even so, Scarrow argues that parties as organizations have not declined in Germany. They are still able to dominate public resources and the political agenda. In addition, German parties still perform many of the vital functions demanded of them, including interest aggregation and encouraging mass participation. Scarrow’s article suggests that much of the concern over “party decline” has been overstated.

Calvert, Randall. 2002. “Identity, Expression, and Rational-Choice Theory.” In Political Science: The State of the Discipline, eds Ira Katznelson and Heleven V. Milner, pp. 568-598. Calvert examines identity and expression—concepts most often associated with psychological models of behavior—from a rational choice perspective. Although Calvert covers a variety of behaviors such as voting and ethnic violence, the chapter is most notable for its work on partisanship and ideology. Calvert presents party identification from a game theoretical perspective and relies heavily on Anna Harvey’s (1998) book Votes Without Leverage. Participation in politics is part of a broader social game in which individuals are actors. From this perspective, partisanship becomes a way to gain benefits cheaply in a game of social exchange. Membership and identification in political parties can therefore be explained by the social (instead of political) benefits they provide citizens. Though not explicitly oriented towards the party membership literature, this work nonetheless offers a good theoretical background for the “demand side” explanations of membership decline among European parties.