Replication Data for: What Do You Mean by “Democrat” and “Republican”? Evidence from a Conjoint Experiment

To better understand the nature of American mass party identification, it is crucial to examine how voters understand terms used in measuring partisanship in public opinion surveys, such as “Democrat” and “Republican.” For this purpose, we conducted a conjoint experiment where respondents evaluated hypothetical profiles’ partisanship. We show that, in contrast to previous studies which rely on one theoretical perspective to understand mass partisanship, multiple theories are reflected in how voters understand labels representing their partisanship. Further, the results suggest that many Americans seem to equate party identification with vote choice, contrary to standard assumptions in American political behavior research that these are separate concepts.

为深入探析美国大众政党认同的本质，考察选民如何理解公共舆论调查中用于衡量党派身份的术语（如“民主党人”“共和党人”）至关重要。为此，我们开展了一项联合实验，让受访者对假想人物形象的党派身份进行评估。研究发现，与此前仅依托单一理论视角解读大众党派认同的既有研究不同，选民理解自身党派身份标签的方式实则反映了多种理论视角。此外，研究结果表明，多数美国人似乎将政党认同与投票选择等同起来，这与美国政治行为研究领域认为二者为相互独立概念的主流假设相悖。