The Power and Influence of Political Identities Beyond Political Contexts

20 Pages Posted: 27 Aug 2013

See all articles by Chelsea Phillips

Chelsea Phillips

University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill - Department of Political Science

Thomas Carsey

University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill

Date Written: 2013

Abstract

Scholarship in identity politics looks at the general social identity formation process, asks how social identities become politicized, and then examines the consequences for political attitudes and behaviors of social identity politicization. While party identification scholarship considers what identification with a party consists of and its impact on numerous political factors, these two scholarly traditions rarely interface. This is surprising given that both share the goal of explaining the causes and consequences of political identification. In this paper, we examine the impact of political identity on non-political attitudes. We do so through the analysis of two independent surveys that both included similar list experiments. We find relatively strong evidence that political identities influence non-political attitudes, though that effect does not appear to be linearly related to the strength of one’s own political identity.

Keywords: Social identity; Identity politics; Party identification; Ideology; List Experiments

Suggested Citation

Phillips, Chelsea and Carsey, Thomas, The Power and Influence of Political Identities Beyond Political Contexts (2013). APSA 2013 Annual Meeting Paper, American Political Science Association 2013 Annual Meeting, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2303255

Chelsea Phillips (Contact Author)

University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill - Department of Political Science ( email )

361 Hamilton Hall
CB#3265
Chapel Hill, NC 27599
United States

Thomas Carsey

University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill ( email )

102 Ridge Road
Chapel Hill, NC NC 27514
United States

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