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Ideological vs.

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

By: Misha Khorramshahi


20573480
PSCI 490 - University of Waterloo
Professor Gerry Boychuk

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

ends of the ideological spectrum (Kinder & Kalmoe, 2017, p. 80-82).

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

more convincing and more explanatory in nature than Abramowitz’s findings.

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

critical majority of Republican primary voters are “true conservatives”.

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

and Kalmoe do an excellent job of explaining why.

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

traditionalism. When ideological identification predicted attitudes towards more controversial

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

ideology, but are rather influence by other forces.

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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

not all be based on ideology, but rather based on experiences.

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

that most Americans are innocent of ideology.

References:

Abramowitz, A. I. (2018). The Great Alignment: Race, Party Transformation, and the Rise of

Donald Trump. Yale University Press.

Kinder, D. R., & Kalmoe, N. P. (2017). Neither liberal nor conservative: Ideological innocence

in the American public. University of Chicago Press.

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