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Partisan Polarization
A critical book comparison of The Great Alignment by Alan Abramowitz and in Neither Liberal
nor Conservative by Donald Kinder and Nathan Kalmoe
Many attempts have been made by scholars to try and identify how and why people vote the way
they do. Are voters polarized along party lines and ideologically motivated, or are voters simply
ideologically innocent? These are questions that are addressed in The Great Alignment by Alan
Abramowitz and in Neither Liberal nor Conservative by Donald Kinder and Nathan Kalmoe. In
the former, the book suggests that the political climate in the United States is polarized primarily
on party and ideological lines. The polarization that is identified in this book is based on
divisions being racially, culturally and ideologically charged, with some acknowledgement to
geography, interaction effects and the role of negative partisanship. While the latter book agrees
that the voting population has become more divided on partisan lines, it negates the fact that
voters are ideologically motivated and suggests that there is more data to support that everyday
Americans are ideologically neutral. This review will argue that while Abramowitz makes
excellent points regarding various factors that keep people divided based on partisan and
ideological grounds, Kinder and Kalmoe are more convincing because they provide evidence to
prove that ideology and partisan polarity are different, that ideology is a skewed measurement
that only reflects the political elite, and that ideology does not accurately explain opinions on
issues, economic perceptions and vote choice, but rather partisanship and identity politics do.
Kinder and Kalmoe have provided readers with a meticulous and compelling defence of Philip
Converse’s assessment of the ideological sophistication of the American public. What makes this
book superior is how the authors have differentiated ideology and partisanship. Kinder and
Kalmoe argue that Americans are not ideologically polarized, and that ideology often, but
incorrectly, gets fused with partisanship (Kinder & Kalmoe, 2017, p. 87-91). They recognize that
the mass public has become more partisan, but also recognize that there is little evidence to
suggest that it has become more ideological. Abramowitz would disagree greatly with the
sentiments of Kinder and Kalmoe, arguing that the role of ideology and the prevalence of
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ideological thinking in the electorate is important and relevant (Abramowitz, 2018 p. 47, 82).
Abramowitz would argue that the ideological divide between the parties themselves are much
sharper. In his work, Abramowitz provides statistics to suggest that voters today are far more
ideological than they were in the 1950s and 1960s and that the connection between ideology and
partisanship does exist. He argues that, “in terms of shared variance, the relationship between
ideology and party identification was about twice as strong in 1988 as in 1972 among northern
whites, but about seven times as strong among southern whites” (Abramowitz, 2018, p. 98).
Therefore, there is evidence to suggest that ideology and partisanship are aligned. Despite the
evidence that suggests that voters are more ideological now then they have been in the past,
Abramowitz fails to mention how this increase has been slight to say the least. Ideological
extremists have crept up from 3% in 1972 to 6% in 2012. Kinder and Kalmoe contend that this
movement is fairly slow and by no means indicative of a populace polarizing toward the extreme
Kinder and Kalmoe would argue that Abramowitz does not justify why this alignment exists and
does not bother to explore whether there are other factors involved that make this alignment
prevalent. Abramowitz would respond by considering the role of geography in this instance. He
recognizes that the political geography of the country has changed dramatically since the 1960s
(Abramowitz, 2018, p. 180). Abramowitz argues that this is directly due to the ideological
realignment of the parties. Sixty years ago, the geographic divisions within the country had little
to do with policy and ideology. Today they are strongly correlated with policy and ideology,
which is partially why he may be skeptical of Kinder and Kalmoe’s work that is based off of
Converse’s assessment from the 1960’s, as much has changed since then. The most conservative
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geographic units (states, districts, counties) are the most Republican and the most liberal units
are the most Democratic. Abramowitz would argue that some of that reflects geographic self-
sorting, but much of it reflects ideological realignment (Abramowitz, 2018, p. 182). Abramowitz
also argues that correlations among issue positions and values, and both ideological self-
identification and party identification (and between ideological and party identification), are
stronger today than they were in the past (Abramowitz, 2018, p. 204). This can be seen in ANES
data but also in the Pew data on growing issue consistency and partisan polarization. However,
Kinder and Kalmoe found that Americans did not use ideological language, lacked consistency
in issue positions, and did not possess stable attitudes on issues, which are all indicators of
people with strong ideologies (Kinder & Kalmoe, 2017, p. 72-74). To further support this view,
Kinder and Kalmoe found that if you asked an average voter in the year 2000 whether they were
Conservative, liberal, moderate, or none of the above, their answer would only be 63 percent
predictive of what they would tell you two years learn (Kinder & Kalmoe, 2017, p. 76). While
Abramowitz’s argument is convincing in that it recognizes that a correlation exists, Kinder and
Kalmoe find this to be flawed as it lacks consistency, therefore making their stance stronger.
Despite Abramowitz’s conviction, his argument does not explain the motives behind why people
are ideologically motivated, and rather, he simply states facts and statistics without providing
much explanation of why the data is what it is. Kinder and Kalmoe, on the other hand, truly
dissect the data and explain and analyze why it is projecting certain information. Their argument
is found to be particularly convincing because the evidence in their book suggests that about half
of respondents are moderate when asked about ideology (Kinder & Kalmoe, 2017, p. 52-55).
However, when asked about partisanship, more people are actually willing to claim if they
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identify with a specific party. Kinder and Kalmoe show that while most Americans are willing to
provide an answer to the standard ideological identification question, they found that about a
quarter of Americans refuse to choose, and another third of Americans place themselves in the
middle where they neither consider themselves liberal or conservative. Through this data, the
authors suggest that ideological identification is a function of party identification (Kinder &
Kalmoe, 2017, p. 52-55). For example, one may think “I must be conservative because I vote
republican often”. The authors also suggest that when voters have dissonance in their views, they
don’t change their party, but they do change their ideology to fit within the mold of what their
chosen political party agrees with, which may help explain why the correlation that Abramowitz
had identified between party identification and ideology exists. The statistical findings, paired
with the following justification provided by Kinder and Kalmoe suggests that over half of the
American population are not ideological. This proves that Kinder and Kalmoe’s findings are
Kinder and Kalmoe argue that ideology is a skewed measurement that only reflects the political
elite. Abramowitz contrasts in his views, believing that “there is no “disconnect” between
political elites and the American public: America is a polarized country whose leaders reflect the
diverging priorities and values of the constituents who elected them” (Abramowitz, 2018, p. 233-
234). He continues to talk about the most recent presidential election and explained how
“negative partisanship was more important on the Republican side because Republican elites,
during and after the primaries, were far more divided than Democratic elites about their party’s
eventual nominee” (Abramowitz, 2018, p. 326). He argues that because of the rise of negative
partisanship, we are in a new age of party loyalty and straight-ticket voting, despite the negative
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feelings of many voters toward the parties and the popularity of the “independent label”
(Abramowitz, 2018, p. 13). This perspective focused very much on an elitist point of view, and is
a perfect example of how elite perceptions should not be applied to the general public. It was this
exact perception that made the media, and the American people, think that Trump would not get
elected, because it reflected sentiments of those who had the platform to speak (the elites). While
the party insiders and Republican elites were more divided on the basis of whether or not Trump
was a true conservative, the people simply did not care. There seemed to be more popularity for
trump than what was expected. It was a surprise because elites were secure in thinking that a
Most of the political and elitist right were confident that, once the primaries were underway, that
the Republican Party voters would recognize Trump’s flaws in his conservatism and settle on a
more conventional candidate. The dominant discourse in the media applied the doubts that the
Republican elite had about him to the whole population. When Trump got elected, it shocked
many political insiders, as people had assumed that elitist perspectives and doubt was something
that all American republicans had shared and felt. However, this certainly was not the case,
especially for the uneducated, rural population who are not represented in the predominant
dialogues that occur within the Republican elitist sphere. Trump, because of his celebrity status,
his financial gains, and his media presence, was able to campaign without insider party support.
This shows that party triumphs over ideology. Republicanism is Republicanism, and for most of
the voting population, being a Republican is based more on group attachments and resentments,
such as racial resentment. This is a sentiment that perhaps both Kinder, Kalmoe and Abramowitz
can agree on, and one that Trump really worked with. These were the voters Trump understood
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and political elites did not, and he understood them because he is one of them. His group
allegiances, for the working class and rural communities, were strong, even though his ideology
was flexible. This proves the fact that one does not need to be a consistent conservative to appeal
to Republican voters, because most of them are also not consistent conservatives either. The fact
of the matter is that there is much more to politics than ideology, and Kinder and Kalmoe
recognize that.
Abramowitz tends to make these grand claims, backed up by a plethora of statistics, but does not
dissect these statistics, nor does he bother to look for biases in these statistics, such as whether or
not ideology only reflects a small proportion of the target population. Kinder and Kalmoe are
very convincing in their argument because they found that individuals with higher levels of
political information, interest, and education are more likely to place themselves on the
ideological spectrum, thus indicating that ideological identification only really captures political
elite and is not reflective of the everyday American, making it a skewed measure that should not
be applied to the American public as a whole (Kinder & Kalmoe, 2017, p. 31-34) One can
appreciate this acknowledgement as the authors make it clear that ideological identification does
matter, and does not discount Abramowitz’s argument altogether. However, they realize that the
relevance of ideology is simply more suited towards the political elite, as it will primarily have
its impact for a small proportion of the population that have higher levels of political knowledge
and interest. The authors recognize that elites and non elites do not operate and behave the same
way and therefore one should not base assumptions of one group to identify assumptions of the
other, as in the case for predicting the outcome of this past presidential election.
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Kinder and Kalmoe also argue that opinions on issues, economic perceptions and vote choice
that are often thought to be ideologically polarizing are actually polarized more by partisanship.
Almost no one uses ideology to organize and explain their beliefs and few people have the
necessary knowledge to do so. For example, partisanship has a much larger marginal effect and
aggregate effect on vote choice in presidential and congressional elections. Essentially, partisan
politics is ultimately rooted in identity politics (Kinder & Kalmoe, 2017, p. 136-138). The
authors show that identification is actually predicted by factors, such as past voting behaviour,
social group and family membership, and events such as the Civil Rights movement (Kinder &
Kalmoe, 2017, p. 116-117). This is a sentiment that Abramowitz would partially agree with, as
he believes in key historical events and relationships that have deeply imbedded a divide within
America. He claims that racial resentment and those resenting changes have become increasingly
Republican. He also suggests that those welcoming them, have become increasingly Democratic.
This transformation has included “the civil rights revolution, the expansion of the regulatory and
welfare state that was first created during the New Deal era, large-scale immigration from Latin
America and Asia, the changing role of women, the changing structure of the American family,
the women’s rights and gay rights movements, and changing religious beliefs and practices”
(Abramowitz, 2018, p. 41). This also helps explain why people have very unstable opinions that
shift from one year to the next. This is not due to a genuine conversion (and re-conversion) on
the issues, but reflects that many people have “non-attitudes” about issues (Kinder & Kalmoe,
2017, p. 32-34). This leads Kinder and Kalmoe to conclude that ideological identification is
simply a summary or reflection of people’s perceptions, beliefs, and experiences about current
political climates, and is a cause (not an effect) of one’s political views (Kinder & Kalmoe, 2017,
p. 119-120). Therefore, while people think they may be ideological, the truth is that the
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overwhelming majority of Americans hold no meaningful ideological convictions, and Kinder
Abramowitz and critics would argue that while Kinder and Kalmoe’s sentiments may be true, it
seems as if they often go out of their way to discount ideology altogether, even when it may be
relevant. For example, when using ideological identification to predict policy, Kinder and
Kalmoe also control for values of limited government and equal opportunity (Kinder & Kalmoe,
2017, p. 103-106). Abramowitz and critics would argue that this is an odd implementation for
such a control, as nowhere else in their work do Kinder and Kalmoe control for this variable.
Also Kinder and Kalmoe tend to use other values and variables in the data, such as
topics like abortion, they did not conclude that ideological identification is relevant to social
issues, like how Abramowitz would. Rather, Kinder and Kalmoe chose to add additional control
variables such as the feelings towards women’s issues to understand if there are externalities
involved. In addition, when it came to LGBTQ rights there were also some ideological
correlations (Kinder & Kalmoe, 2017, p. 103-106). However, Kinder and Kalmoe suspected that
this had to do with other factors, so they chose to run the data again to include variables such as
faith, religion, religiosity, and group sentiments to see if this would change the outcomes. The
outcomes did in fact change, and that initial correspondence with ideology also disappeared too
(Kinder & Kalmoe, 2017, p. 103-106). This ultimately proved that voters are not motivated by
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While Abramowitz would agree that there are cultural motivations that help explain the polarity
of the voting population, he would also be skeptical to how Kinder and Kalmoe sought out this
data. Abramowitz and critics would argue that accounting for other variables in this case is
simply used as a tactic to remove the correlation that the data has with ideology, and that the
authors are not interpreting the data as it is and are searching for proof to discredit ideology as a
factor. Supporters would say that Kinder and Kalmoe are enhancing the data and using extra
controls to determine that the data is not necessarily based solely on the research question, but
has other external factors that affect the outcome. This exercise of searching for biases and
externalities is one that can be appreciated, as it helps interpret the data in a different, and more
comprehensive way. Ultimately, it helps shows that there may be other underlying reasons why
people answer a certain way on the surveys that gauge for ideological thinking, and that it may
After reviewing both The Great Alignment by Alan Abramowitz and in Neither Liberal nor
Conservative by Donald Kinder and Nathan Kalmoe, it is fair to conclude that the debate over
whether American voters have become more polarized ideologically is irrelevant, and in fact,
voters are not ideological at all. Kinder and Kalmoe’s findings of ideological innocence
challenges studies, such as that of Abramowitz’s, on representation that have attempted, but
failed, to assess the correspondence between citizens’ and politicians’ ideological positions. The
approach of Kinder and Kalmoe is convincing, given its clear and broad focus on the range of
factors that should characterize behaviour and ideological thinking in the general public. The
authors have effectively utilized the range of ANES studies, including panel studies, and the
Youth-Parent Socialization Panel Study, to show the ideological innocence of the American
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people. Moreover, by comparing these findings with the pervasive effects of partisan
identification, and by demonstrating that ideology matters, but only for the most engaged and
elite segment of the population, this confirms Converse’s original study which points to the fact
References:
Abramowitz, A. I. (2018). The Great Alignment: Race, Party Transformation, and the Rise of
Kinder, D. R., & Kalmoe, N. P. (2017). Neither liberal nor conservative: Ideological innocence
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