Cohort Analysis of Party Identification Among Southern Whites, 1952-1972

Abstract

Cohort studies generally find that different generations retain the same pattern of partisanship throughout their lifecycles. In contrast, this study finds that changes within generations contribute greatly to the decline in traditional Democratic affiliation among southern whites. Carol A. Cassel is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. The author is indebted to Robert Erikson and Norman Luttbeg for their encouragement and helpful comments. POQ 41 (1977) 28-33 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.156 on Sat, 10 Sep 2016 05:02:00 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms COHORT ANALYSIS OF PARTY IDENTIFICATION 29 Table 1. Party Identification among Whites by Region, 1952 and 1972 South Nonsouth 1952 1972 1952 1972 Democrat 79% 47% 43% 35% Independent 10 34 25 37 Republican 10 19 33 28 NOTE: The data were made available by the Inter-university consortium for Political Research. Neither the Center for Political Studies nor the Consortium bear any responsibility for the analysis or interpretation presented here. 1971. He did not exclude interregional migrants to the South. While migrants are known to have made an important contribution to the changing distribution of partisans in the South (Converse, 1966; 1972), in a sixyear period, migrants would have little effect on the relative size of cohort shifts. Glenn found all age cohorts contributed to an increase of 24 percentage points in political Independence in the South from 1965 to 1969, although the oldest cohorts made somewhat smaller shifts. Three-fifths of this increase in Independents, however, was lost from 1969 to 1971 as cohorts shifted back to the parties, and Republicans made a net gain of approximately 5 percentage points. Although Glenn did not view increasing southern Independence as the first stage of a southern movement to the Republican party, he found evidence that older as well as younger cohorts were adopting the Republican label in the South. Glenn's study of short-term partisan shifts in the South leaves unanswered important questions about the long-term trend away from Democratic affiliation: (1) What is the relative impact of generational change and aggregate life-cycle shifts on the overall trend away from Democratic affiliation in the South? (2) Does the long-term trend include adoption of a new (Republican) party label or merely shifts to political Independence? (3) Is there a relationship between age and ability to make life-cycle shifts? To assess more clearly the extent of life-cycle and generational shifts, we must first isolate the native white population. Interregional migrants must be excluded so that the addition of nonsoutherners to the South is not confused with aggregate life-cycle shifts and generational differences. Likewise, inclusion of blacks would obscure shifts away from the traditional Democratic affiliation of the South. Blacks only recently emerged as participants in the southern electoral system and are overwhelmingly Democratic for different reasons from those of white southerners.