The Rise of the Independent: A Story of Economic and Political Disaffection

• In Event: Ideology and Partisanship: Convergences and Divergences

Abstract

Scholars find that US citizens possess many overlapping identities. Some scholars describe political identity in unidimensional terms, some in multidimensional terms, and others in schematic terms of varying levels – i.e. embedded and superordinate. The current state of the literature details many different determinants of identity. I theorize that large scale phenomena that are perceived as destabilizing to the political system generate political attitudes of discontent. Here, attitudes of discontent include disaffection, dissatisfaction, dissent, powerlessness, political unawareness, and exhaustion. I theorize that these feelings of discontent inoculate people from traditional modes of political identity and cause people to alter their partisan identity into a non-partisan one. In this way, claiming an independent identity, and independents’ subsequent participation in the political process and vote choice, is therefore the result of destabilizing large-scale socioeconomic and political phenomena. I also theorize that the contemporary political landscape, is marked by new forms of political destabilization that also serve to explain the unprecedented increase in independent identity among individuals in the US. Specifically, polarization, inequality, economic recession, and economic stagnation generate feelings of discontent among the US citizenry and account for the increase in independent political identity. Utilizing hierarchical linear modeling and secondary data from nationally representative surveys, including the General Social Survey (GSS) from 1980-2018, American National Election Studies (ANES) from 1980-2016, and the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) from 2006-2018, I find that large-scale socioeconomic and political phenomena significantly contribute to the increase of independent political identity among respondents in the US.

Author

• Stavros George Papadopoulos, The University of Connecticut