CHAPTER 11 - Change in Political Party and Issue Attitudes

Abstract

This chapter discusses the change in political party and issue attitudes. Political voting is largely determined by three factors: the political party of the candidate, the stance of the candidate toward salient political issues, and the candidate's personal characteristics, such as warmth or trustworthiness. Multiple regression analysis has usually suggested that party identification and political attitudes are the strongest predictors of vote; though these two variables are themselves correlated. The focus of this chapter is on the causal determination of these two attitudes and the explanation for the correlation between them. The causal theories to be tested assume that the primary determinant of political identification and political attitudes is the messages emitted by the parties as to their stands on various issues. The specific theories are derived from the theories of attitude change. In these theories, the political party is given the role of the source of messages, where the content of the message is the stand taken by the party. The voter is given the role of the receiver and his attitude is his own position toward the issue addressed by the party message under consideration. The overall impact of the set of messages presented by the party can be assessed by cumulating the impacts across the various issues.