The Rise of Party/Leader Identification in Western Europe

• Author: Diego Garzia
• Date: 01 September 2013
• Published date: 01 September 2013
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912912463122
• Subject Matter: Articles

Political Research Quarterly

66(3) 533 –544

© 2012 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912912463122

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Regular Article

Introduction

Few concepts, if any at all, have had such a big leverage

in electoral research than that of party identification.

Since its introduction in the mid-1950s (Campbell, Gurin,

and Miller 1954), the concept has been subject to a con-

siderable amount of attention and scholarly research

(Bartle and Bellucci 2009b; Berglund et al. 2005; Budge,

Crewe, and Farlie 1976; Campbell et al. 1960; Dalton and

Wattenberg 2000; Fiorina 1981; Holmberg 1994; Johnston

2006; W. Miller and Shanks 1996; Richardson 1991;

Schmitt and Holmberg 1995). At the heart of this endur-

ing interest lies the fundamental observation that voters

have some kind of generalized predisposition to support a

particular party over time (W. Miller 1991). Although

virtually all scholars agree on the need to account for

these predispositions, there is widespread disagreement

about its causes and how these should be interpreted and

measured (Bartle and Bellucci 2009a).

In its classical formulation, party identification was con-

ceived as “the individual’s affective orientation to an impor-

tant group object in his environment” (Campbell et al. 1960,

121). According to the social-psychological reading, such

orientation is rooted in early socialization and based on pri-

mary group memberships (race, religion, social class).

Among its crucial features, party identification was said to

be stable—that is, virtually immune from short-term

forces—and it was thus considered being cause (but not

consequence) of less stable attitudes and opinions about,

that is, candidates and issues (Johnston 2006). As

explained by the authors of The American Voter, “The

influence of party identification on perceptions of politi-

cal objects is so great that only rarely will the individual

develop a set of attitude forces that conflicts with this

allegiance” (Campbell et al. 1960, 141).

However, it did not take much time before severe criti-

cisms arose with respect to the supposed stability of party

identification. Making use of richer data sets and increas-

ingly sophisticated statistical techniques, later analyses

showed that partisan ties at the individual level were much

more unstable than originally thought, and indeed strongly

responsive to those short-term forces that they were

thought to cause (Fiorina 1981; C. Franklin and Jackson

1983; Page and Jones 1979). Moreover, sources of schol-

arly disagreement did not limit to the debate between

Michigan scholars and the “revisionists” (Fiorina 2002).

Another serious matter of dispute was related to the appli-

cability of the concept outside the United States. In fact,

the very existence of partisan identifications in European

multiparty systems was at the core of many critical chap-

ters included in Party Identification and Beyond (Budge,

Crewe, and Farlie 1976). The cross-national applicability

of the concept was especially contested in Thomassen’s

(1976) most celebrated chapter (see also Crewe 1976;

Inglehart and Klingemann 1976).

463122PRQXXX10.1177/1065912912

463122Political Research QuarterlyGarzia

1European University Institute, San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy

Corresponding Author:

Diego Garzia, European University Institute, Via dei Roccettini 9,

I-50014 San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy.

Email: Diego.Garzia@eui.eu

The Rise of Party/Leader Identification

in Western Europe

Diego Garzia1

Abstract

This article investigates the attitudinal drivers of partisanship in Western Europe, focusing in particular on the role

exerted by voters’ evaluation of party leaders. The cross-sectional analysis is performed on pooled national election

study data from three established parliamentary democracies (Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands). Results highlight

the growing statistical association between leader evaluations and voters’ feelings of partisan attachment throughout

the last three decades. Further analyses of selected panel data provide evidence for a causal interpretation in which

voters’ evaluation of party leaders plays a crucial role in shaping their feelings of attachment to parties.

Keywords

comparative political behavior, electoral change, party identication, personalization of politics, political psychology