Reflections on the Past and Present of Research on Partisan Identity

Abstract

AbstractScholarship on partisanship has been transformed by political scientists’ embrace of social and cognitive psychology in the past few decades. This interdisciplinary union has drastically changed the way political scientists examine the origins and effects of partisanship. In this essay, I provide a brief history of scholarship on partisanship, its transformation into a partisanidentityas well as its role in the study of polarization. I then demonstrate how this identity framework has propelled research on negative partisan identity in the U.S. two-party system and European multi-party systems. I conclude with a few avenues for future research that could enrich our understanding of partisanship.Scholarship on partisanship has been transformed by political scientists’ embrace of social and cognitive psychology in the past few decades. Since then, the concept of partisan identity has become widely known beyond the narrow subfield of political psychology. Indeed, the sheer volume of research on the origins, measurement, and effect of partisan identity on political behavior is indicative of its centrality in the general discipline of political science. In this essay, I provide a brief (and therefore necessarily incomplete) history of scholarship on partisanship as well as its transformation into a partisanidentity. I then review contemporary research on positive and negative partisan identity in the U.S. and beyond, focusing on their differential effects on political attitudes and behavior. Last, I sketch out a few thoughts on the complexities and caveats of current scholarship, including a plea for more research on the interaction of partisanship with other identities, the necessity of studying partisanship in more externally valid contexts, as well as the promise of common identities in bridging partisan divisions.