From Confusion to Clarity
Issues and American Voters, 1956-1968
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3565757 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gerald M Pomper (Rutgers Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1972 |
| Volume | 66 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 415-428 |
| Publication date | 1972-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Political Science Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1957786 |
| OpenAlex | W2312913484 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 181 |
| References cited | 30 |
Analysis of national election surveys from 1956 to 1968 reveals significant changes in the voters' perceptions of issues and the major parties. There has been a considerable increase in the correlation of party identification and opinion on six major issues, relating to social welfare, racial integration, and foreign aid. Voters are more prone to see a difference between the parties on these issues and are increasingly likely to identify the Democratic party as favorable to federal governmental action. These findings contrast with those of The American Voter and similar studies. The reasons for the changes cannot be found in demographic factors, as tested by controls for age cohorts, education, region, and race. More probably the explanation lies in strictly political factors. A particularly important event was the presidential campaign of 1964, in which ideological differences between the parties were deliberately emphasized. The electorate responded to this campaign by becoming more ideologically aware, and its learning appears to have persisted through the 1968 election. This finding suggests that past conclusions about the low ideological awareness of the electorate were specific to the Eisenhower era, and that the issue content of the vote will vary with the stimuli provided by the general political environment
CLARITY · Confusion · Democracy · Identification (biology · Ideology · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Presidential election · Presidential system · Race (biology · Sociology · Welfare · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Gender Politics and Representation · Gender Studies · Law · Policy Transfer and Learning · Psychology · Social Psychology
Toward a Sixth Party System? Partisanship and Political Development
Partisan Models and the Search for Party Effects in the US Senate
Interest Group Theory
The Party Faithful
How Parties Nominate Presidents
The Comparative Advantage of State Interest Organization Research
Theories of Parties
The Road Less Taken
Party Coalitions in the US Congress
Social and Economic Justice Movements and Organizations
Who Sings in the Heavenly Chorus?
Party Nominating Procedures and Recruitment—State and Local Level
Activists, Influence, and Representation in American Elections
Methodological Issues in the Study of Political Parties
Political Parties and Consultants
State Parties Research
The Mobilization and Influence of Business Interests
What a Difference Twenty-Five Years Makes
Interest Groups and Agendas
Interest Groups in American Elections
The State of Research on Political Parties and Interest Groups
The Evolution of National Party Organizations
Lobbying and Influence
Urban Interest Groups
The Evolution and Alteration of American Party Coalitions
The Pure Partisan Institution
Linking Political Parties and Interest Groups
The President, Party Politics, and Constitutional Development
Winning Isn't Everything
Methodological Perspectives on Interest Groups
American Political Parties
The American Public Mind
Wishful Thinking Among European Parliamentarians
Issue Congruence
Policy Preferences and Party Choice
Whom to Represent? Role Orientations of Legislators in Europe
The Scope of EU Government
The Political Regime
The Cognitive Basis of Voting
A Political Community?
Political Representation and Legitimacy in the European Union
In Conclusion
Distinctiveness and Cohesion of Parties
Policy Performance
Partisan Bonds
Measuring Agreement in Ordered Rating Scales
The Oxford handbook of American political parties and interest groups
The "Politics" of Redistribution
Slip, Sliding Away or Le Plus Ça Change
Debate Watching and the Acquisition of Political Knowledge
Retrospective Versus Prospective Statements and Outcome of Presidential Elections
Ignored Racism
A Model of Primary Voter Behavior
Polarization and the Decline of Economic Voting in American National Elections
Differentiation and Integration
The Black-and-White Model of Attitude Stability
It's the Financial Crisis, Stupid! How Framing and Competency Signals Altered the Economic Vote in the US and Germany
A generational shift
Who Knows Best? Education, Partisanship, and Contested Facts
The rationale for supporting nuclear power
Foreign Affairs and Party Ideology in America
Voting Preferences and the Environment in the American Electorate
Alienation in the United States
One-dimensional, multidimensional, or non-dimensional? Ideological structure in mass and elite opinion
Party and policy in voter choice
Abortion Attitudes, Gender, and Candidate Choice in Presidential Elections
Political Involvement and the Development of Political Attitudes
Two Models of Public Opinion
Party and Ideology in the U.S. House of Representatives
Quiénes cambiaron de partido durante la Gran Recesión? Un estudio de 12 países de Europa occidental
Parteineigung als Fakt oder Parteineigung durch Fakten
The role of attitude importance in social evaluation
Plus ça change
Individual differences in perceptions and preferences for political candidates
Political Representation and Legitimacy in the European Union
A Multivariate Explanation of Decreasing Turnout in Presidential Elections, 1960-1976
Variability in Electoral Behavior
Approaching the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election From a Diversity of Explanatory Principles
The Uses of Entropy in the Multivariate Analysis of Categorical Variables
A New Partisan Voter
A Latent Class Analysis of Tolerance for Nonconformity in the American Public
Ideological Identification and the American Voter
Ideology and the Tax Revolt
Party Identification, Status, and Race in the South
Race and Electoral Mobilization
Evaluating Presidential Candidates
The Effect of Reference Groups, Opinion Polls, and Attitude Polarization on Attitude Formation and Change
Social Stereotyping and the Concept of Party Identification
Strong feelings
The formation and structure of political belief systems
Measuring Constituency-Representative Linkages
Beyond Willie Horton and the Pledge of Allegiance
Another Issue Comes Out
Inoculation in Political Campaign Communication
Measuring the relative impact of issues and the economy in democratic elections
Mass Political Attitudes and the Survey Response
National and Local Forces in State Politics
Assessing the Structure of Policy Preferences
Political Beliefs, Policy Interpretations, and Political Persuasion
Southern Partisan Changes
Critical elections and the mainsprings of American politics.
Ideology and discontent
Elections and the political order
The political beliefs of Americans
The Responsible Electorate
Liberal Tradition in America
Political Change in Britain
American Voting Behavior
Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System
The People's Choice
A Theory of Critical Elections
Ideology in the Public's Conceptualization of the 1964 Election
Consistency and the Persistence of Ideology
The Structure of Beliefs Among Leaders and the Public
Generation, Maturation, and Party Affiliation
Partisan Realignment in the United States
Electoral Studies and Democratic Theory
Issue Conflict and Consensus among Party Leaders and Followers
The Liberal Tradition in America
Issue Salience and Party Choice
Electoral Myth and Reality
Discerning a Causal Pattern among Data on Voting Behavior
One-Party Politics and the Voter
Some Dynamic Elements of Contests for the Presidency
| Unique citing works | 181 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,42 |
| Citation span | 1973 - 2026 (54) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 180 |