List of Figures
List of Tables
Preface
1. Partisanship and Independence
2. Partisan Shifts among Blacks and Southerners
3. The Civic Virtue of Partisans and Independent
4. How Independents Vote
5. Partisans or Independents?
6. Age, Education, and Dealignment
7. Issues and Dealignment
8. Alienation and Independence
9. Alternatives
10. Conclusions
Appendix: Items in the National Election
Studies Alienation Indexes
Bibliography
Index
Bruce Keith is an independent scholar in the Bay Area. David Magleby teaches Political Science at Brigham Young University. Candice Nelson teaches Political Science at The American University. Elizabeth Orr works for the city of Denver. Mark Westlye works for the Office of the President of the University of California. Raymond Wolfinger teaches Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley.
In the tradition of the best social science survey research, typified by Angus Campbell and others' The American Voter (1966; Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1980. reprint), Keith and five other respected political scientists scrutinize nearly 40 years of data on individuals' psychological attachment to political parties. The result of their thorough and painstaking analysis is aptly summarized in the title of this compact volume. They concisely deflate accumulated conventional wisdom that party identification has lost importance as a predictor of voter behavior. Rather than the two-fifths of the electorate found by previous studies to be Independents, the authors convincingly demonstrate that only 11 percent of the electorate are genuine political neutrals. Succinct, lucid, and coherent, this volume deserves a place on every political science bookshelf. Highly recommended.-- Grace Franklin, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., Ohio
Since the 1960s, political pundits have warned that the growing numbers of American voters who call themselves Independents portends a dramatic, potentially volatile political change. In a careful academic review of data from studies at the University of Michigan, Keith, an independent scholar, and his colleagues demolish that myth. Most Independents, they emphasize, are actually closet Republicans or Democrats; only a few are ``pure'' Independents. The authors acknowledge that the growth in Independents cannot be linked to any specific issue or to dissatisfaction with the party system or the parties' doctrinal vagueness. But pure Independents are more likely to be disenchanted with the political system as well as more politically uninformed and uninvolved than other Independents or those affiliated with a party. The authors end on a ``doubly cheerful note'': party identification remains important, and the increase in Independents does not suggest political decay. It might have been fruitful had they also noted how our electoral system, unlike those offering proportional representation, effectively shuts out third parties, making it virtually meaningless to stray from the two established ones. (June)
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