Race, Republicans, and the Return of the Party of Lincoln

1. Toward a Theory of Party Image Change

1 Toward a Theory of Party Image Change WHILE THE IMPORTANCE and study of party identi‹cation has been duly noted, the study of party images—individuals’ perceptions or stereotypes of political parties—has received signi‹cantly less attention . Based on the extant literature, we know the contents of party image (Matthews and Prothro 1964; Trilling 1976; Sanders 1988) and the impact of party image on candidate evaluation (Rahn 1993). Less explored are the conditions under which individuals’ party images can be altered. Studies (e.g., B. Campbell 1977; Carmines and Stimson 1989) have observed changes in party behavior and attempted to link them to similar changes in partisan alignment. Scholars, however, have not examined changes in party image at the individual level. More speci‹cally, scholars have not incorporated party activities into models of party image change. As a result, we do not know which party strategies alter party images and what circumstances moderate the strategies’ impact. This chapter seeks to develop a theoretical framework for understanding when party images can be reshaped. In particular, I answer the question of whether aesthetic changes unaccompanied by corresponding changes in policy positions can alter voters’ perceptions of political parties along a particular dimension. I argue that a party will succeed in reshaping its image when voters perceive the new image as different from the old. Party Images Each of the two major parties1 is associated with political symbols— policies, candidates, and constituencies—that give meaning to these 10 1. The discussion of political parties in this project is limited to the behavior of the national organizations. organizations for members of the U.S. electorate.2 Sears (2001) explains, “When presented to us, these political symbols rivet our attention and evoke strong emotion. These emotions are dominated by a simple good-bad, like-dislike evaluative dimension” (15). Since affective evaluations of the parties are a function of their symbolic components , political parties manipulate the symbols with which they are connected to gain favorable evaluations and ultimately electoral victory . Parties seek to manipulate not only which symbols get associated with their party but also the meaning individuals assign to these symbols . The totality of the political symbols one associates with a political party is known as a party image. Party images form because at some point, political parties become synonymous with certain policy positions and groups in society. Petrocik (1996) suggests that parties have sociologically distinctive constituencies and the linkage between a party’s issue agenda and the social characteristics of its supporters is quite strong, even in the United States. It is a completely recursive linkage: groups support a party because it attempts to use government to alter or protect a social or economic status quo which harms or bene‹ts them; the party promotes such policies because it draws supporters, activists, and candidates from the groups. Issue handling reputations emerge from this history, which, by the dynamics of political con›ict, is regularly tested and reinforced. (828) These reputations develop into an individual’s party image (the “voter’s picture of the party”) and guide subsequent evaluations of a party (Matthews and Prothro 1964). Party image is not the same as party identi‹cation. While the two concepts are related, party image differs in that “two people may identify with the same party but have very different mental pictures of it and evaluate these pictures in different ways” (Matthews and Prothro 1964, 82). Trilling (1976) argues that “an individual’s party image not surprisingly is likely to be related to his party identi‹cation, but his party image will consist less of purely psychological, affective components and more of substantive compoToward a Theory of Party Image Change 11 2. Borrowing Sears’s (2001) de‹nition, a political symbol is “any affectively charged element in a political attitude object” (15). The political attitude object in this study is a political party. nents” (2).3 Milne and MacKenzie (1955) describe party images as “symbols; the party is often supported because it is believed to stand for something dear to the elector. It matters little that the ‘something’ may be an issue no longer of topical importance; the attachment to the symbol, and the party, persists” (130). Symbols in this case denote not simply mascots and insignias but also candidates, issue positions, and historical events that exemplify a political party. Each element can be categorized as either policy oriented or devoid of...