Political interest furthers partisanship in England, Scotland, and Wales

According to much of the literature, partisanship in Britain exercises little independent influence on the vote but merely reflects voters’ prospective and retrospective evaluations of the parties’ performance with regard to their management of the economy, national security, and public services. In this view, partisanship comes close to Fiorina’s model of a “running tally” of political experiences. Similarly, Dalton’s notion of “cognitive mobilization” suggests that seeking out political information should undermine both the need for and the likelihood of party identification. Applying Mixed Markov Latent Class Analysis to the British Election Study Panel 1997–2000, we challenge these perceptions by demonstrating that partisanship is more stable than previously thought, and that high levels of political interest are linked to higher levels of partisanship and possible also to higher levels of stability. This is much more in line with classic ideas about party identification than with “revisionist” critiques of the Michigan model, and with current models of political cognition. Moreover, it suggests that political interest renders affective ties more powerful in stabilizing themselves.

综观现有大量文献，英国的党派认同（partisanship）对选民投票几乎不具备独立影响力，仅能反映选民对各政党在经济治理、国家安全与公共服务领域表现的前瞻性与回溯性评价。据此观点，党派认同近似于菲奥里纳（Fiorina）提出的“政治经历动态累计”（running tally）模型。与之类似，道尔顿（Dalton）提出的“认知动员”（cognitive mobilization）理论指出，主动获取政治信息会削弱选民对党派认同的需求与形成可能性。本研究将混合马尔可夫潜在类别分析（Mixed Markov Latent Class Analysis）方法应用于1997—2000年英国选举研究追踪调查（British Election Study Panel）数据，通过实证表明党派认同比此前学界认知更为稳定，且较高的政治兴趣与更强的党派认同水平相关，同时或也与更高的认同稳定性存在关联，由此对上述主流观点提出挑战。这一结论与学界关于党派认同的经典理论更为契合，而非密歇根模型（Michigan model）的“修正主义”（revisionist）批判，同时也符合当前的政治认知模型。此外，该研究还表明，政治兴趣会强化情感联结的自我稳定效应。