Ideology Matters: The Substantive Basis of Ideological Identification

• In Event: Reconsidering Ideology in Mass Publics

Abstract

Students of political behavior and representation have been divided on whether or not political ideology is issue based–i.e., founded on substantive attitudes–or a social identity–i.e., derived from a sense of belonging to a group. I argue that this is a false dichotomy. Identities can be shaped by preferences and groups can be formed based on substantive affinities. I claim that ideological identification is issue-based, and yet an affectively-loaded, closely held social identity. I then address the perhaps more important question: does ideology matter? The traditional view among scholars is that voters are ideologically naive. According to this argument, ideological labels “liberal,” “moderate,” and “conservative” are volatile, carry little if any substantive meaning, and do not affect behavior. I thus conduct a series of analyses to gauge how prevalent, stable and affectively loaded ideological labels are. I also evaluate their association with attitudes and behavior. I examine 10 panel surveys, spamming 45 years, to show that ideological identification is highly stable over time. Additionally, my analysis of data from the American National Election Studies indicates that, controlling for measurement error and addressing multicollinearity, ideological identification is affectively loaded, it predicts attitudes on substantive issues, and it has an independent role on the variable at the center of democratic politics: vote choice. These results suggest a more optimistic view of democracy--one in which voters are knowledgeable and comfortable with ideological language. Theoretically, it begs for reassessment of how political scientists understand ideology in America.

Author

• Lucas de Abreu maia, University of California, San Diego