Table 3 Factor Analysis by Strength of Party Identification, 1988-2000: Loadings of the Same 11 Issues on a Single Factor and Factor Correlations from Three-Factor Models of the Same Issues

Partisan Group and Issue	1988	1992	1996	2000
Strong Partisans
Spending for food stamps	.81 (.53)	.85 (.52)	.85 (.59)	1.05 (.60)
Spending for social security	.20 (.22)	.44 (.32)	.61 (.47)	.57 (.41)
Government health insurance	.82 (.57)	.96 (.60)	.91 (.66)	.80 (.50)
Government services/spending	.63 (.55)	.77 (.58)	.78 (.67)	.84 (.62)
Government ensure jobs	1.00 (.73)	1.00 (.68)	1.00 (.77)	1.00 (.65)
Abortion	.01 (.01)*	.26 (.14)	.38 (.23)	.29 (.14)
Women's rights	.17 (.13)	.28 (.20)	.37 (.30)	.07 (.05)*
Homosexual discrimination laws	.51 (.30)	.80 (.40)	.84 (.48)	.93 (.44)
Racial equality in jobs	1.05 (.52)	1.17 (.51)	.76 (.56)	1.49 (.63)
Racial preferences in hiring	.82 (.53)	.84 (.45)	.88 (.55)	1.13 (.58)
Government help for blacks	.94 (.70)	1.01 (.68)	.81 (.67)	.95 (.64)
(N)	(634)	(719)	(543)	(302)
Average standardized loading	.43	.47	.54	.48
Average loading of cultural issues	.14	.25	.34	.22
3-factor: rsw & Oult./r racial & cult/rSW & racial	.16/.22/.81	.46/.43/.80	.60/.55/.83	.30/.24/.81
Weak and Leaning Partisans
Spending for food stamps	1.19 (.54)	.81 (.44)	.88 (.49)	.60 (.31)
Spending for social security	.13 (.09)	.42 (.26)	.42 (.26)	.42 (.23)
Government health insurance	.84 (.42)	.75 (.44)	.73 (.45)	.76 (.40)
Government services/spending	.72 (.46)	.70 (.50)	.72 (.55)	.80 (.50)
Government ensure jobs	1.00 (.56)	1.00 (.62)	1.00 (.67)	1.00 (.59)
Abortion	.01 (.01)*	.18 (.09)	.23 (.11)	.14 (.06)*
Women's rights	.22 (.12)	.33 (.21)	.27 (.19)	.24 (.15)
Homosexual discrimination laws	.56 (.23)	.76 (.34)	.91 (.41)	.79 (.33)
Racial equality in jobs	1.41 (.47)	1.36 (.49)	.79 (.47)	1.68 (.60)
Racial preferences in hiring	.98 (.46)	.66 (.36)	.84 (.48)	.78 (.42)
Government help for blacks	1.19 (.65)	.88 (.57)	.92 (.65)	.99 (.61)
(N)	(1150)	(1438)	(1007)	(302)
Average standardized loading	.36	.39	.43	.36
Average loading of cultural issues	.12	.21	.24	.18
3-factor: rSw & cu|t./rracial & cult/rSW & racial	.13/. 18/. 76	.32/.30/.64	.37/.41/.70	.36/.31/.65
Pure Independents
Spending for food stamps	.96 (.50)	.94 (.50)	.54 (.40)	3.23 (.62)*
Spending for social security	.23 (.24)	.43 (.27)	.37 (.29)	.89 (.21)*
Government health insurance	.89 (.51)	.49 (.29)	.35 (.28)	.81 (.18)*
Government services/spending	.67 (.48)	.68 (.48)	.49 (.52)	1.03 (.28)*
Government ensure jobs	1.00 (.61)	1.00 (.59)	1.00 (.84)	1.00 (.22)
Abortion	-,38(-.2O)	-.28 (-.13)*	-.27 (-.17)*	-.31 (-.05)*
Women's rights	.17 (.11)*	.03 (.02)*	-.01 (-.01)*	.04 (.01)*
Homosexual discrimination laws	.25 (.12)*	.20 (.09)*	.46 (.28)	1.82 (.34)*
Racial equality in jobs	1.23 (.48)	1.42 (.51)	.39 (.36)	3.43 (.49)*
Racial preferences in hiring	.78 (.44)	.79 (.42)	.28 (.21)*	1.31 (.28)*
Government help for blacks	.82 (.50)	.94 (.56)	.70 (.60)	1.28 (.28)*
(N)	(215)	(287)	(145)	(107)
Average standardized loading	.34	.33	.35	.26
Average loading of cultural issues	.01	-.01	.03	.10
3-factor: rsw & cu|t./r racial & cult/rSW & racial	-.017-.017.53	.017-.017.6I	-.097.16*/.74	.11V-.177.68

Source: 1988-2000 National Election Studies

Note: Entries are unstandardized factor loadings. Standardized loadings are in parentheses.

'Not significant at p<.05. All other factor loadings and correlations are significant at p<.05.

796

GEOFFREY С. LAYMAN AND THOMAS M. CARSEY

factor.¹³ Because cultural issues tend to load most weakly on a single factor, we also show the average standardized loading of all cultural attitudes. Finally, we show the cor­relations between latent issue attitudes in the three-factor model and the estimated level of party polarization on the three latent factors in each year.¹⁴

The results show that attitude constraint on these eleven issues increased between 1988 and 1996 for strong party identifiers. The average loading of all issues on a single factor increased from .43 to .54 and the average loading of cultural issues more than doubled from .14 to .34. The correlation in three-factor models between la­tent cultural attitudes and latent social welfare attitudes nearly quadrupled between 1988 and 1996, and the cor­relation between the racial and cultural factors increased from .22 to .55. An increase in constraint is also evident for weak and leaning partisans, with both the loadings on a single factor and correlations between the cultural fac­tor and the social welfare and racial factors growing stronger. However, these increases are less dramatic than they are for strong partisans. The relationships between the cultural, racial, and social welfare attitudes of party identifiers grew weaker between 1996 and 2000. How­ever, those relationships were generally stronger in 2000 than they were in 1988.

Importantly, there is no evidence of growth in attitu-dinal constraint among pure independents over time. The average loading of all issues on a single factor was lower in 2000 than it was in 1988, and the loadings of cultural issues display no pattern of growth. In fact, the correlation between the cultural factor and the social welfare and racial factors in a three-factor solution is sta­tistically insignificant in each year.

An alternative hypothesis to ours is that the patterns in Table 3 are due to the mobilization and demobiliza­tion of individuals into and out of the parties in the elec­torate rather than increased attitudinal convergence among individual party identifiers. The individuals most likely to come into and/or stay in parties may be those who share the consistently liberal or conservative views

¹³ To provide a scale for this single latent variable, we set the factor loading of observed attitudes toward government responsibility to ensure jobs to one in each analysis.

¹⁴We also estimated one- and three-factor models for the attitudes of all respondents on these eleven issues, and found a growth in at­titude constraint between 1988 and 1996. The average loading of all issues and of cultural issues on a single factor increased consid­erably, as did the correlations between the cultural factor and the other two factors in the three-factor model. There was also a clear increase in party polarization, estimated in the same way as in Fig­ure 1, on social welfare, racial, and cultural issues. Levels of atti­tude constraint and party polarization were lower in 2000 than in 1996, but remained higher than in 1988.

of party elites on all three major issue agendas, while in­dividuals who do not have uniformly liberal or conserva­tive views on the three agendas are more likely to become independents. This is most likely occurring to some de­gree, but the question is whether the growth in attitude constraint among party identifiers is due solely to mobi­lization/demobilization or is at least partly due to attitu­dinal convergence among individual partisans. To answer that, we turn to panel data from the 1992,1994, and 1996 NES surveys and compare the levels of attitude con­straint across the three panel waves of individuals who identified with the same party in each wave to those who were independents in each wave. Table 4 shows the load­ings of attitudes toward the five social welfare and three cultural issues that were in each panel wave for both par­tisan groups.¹⁵ It also shows the average standardized loadings of all issues and of cultural issues on that factor, as well as the correlations between the social welfare and cultural factors from two-factor models.

Even over a short four-year period, there is clear evi­dence of individual party identifiers merging their atti­tudes on social welfare and cultural issues. The average loading of all issues and of cultural issues on a single fac­tor increased noticeably between 1992 and 1996, particu­larly for attitudes on abortion and women's rights. The correlation between social welfare and cultural attitudes in a two-factor model nearly doubled for partisans over this period. In contrast, there is no evidence of increased attitudinal constraint among independents. The average loadings, either of all issues or of cultural issues, on a single factor did not increase at all, and the correlation between the social welfare and cultural factors was smaller in 1996 than in 1992 for independents. The level of attitu­dinal constraint among independents is also lower than it is for partisans in all three waves of the panel.

Together, the results in Tables 3 and 4 confirm that the individuals who are most likely to take cues from party leaders—party identifiers, particularly strong par­tisans—have followed their lead by growing more consis­tently conservative or more consistently liberal in their attitudes toward the major domestic issue agendas. As expected, citizens without attachments to the parties have lower levels of attitudinal constraint and have not displayed any increase in attitudinal constraint across distinct issue dimensions.

¹⁵We do not include racial issues in this analysis because there were only two racial issues that were in each of the three panel waves and because the very small sample size for independents cre­ated difficulties for estimating a three-factor model. However, in­cluding racial issues in the analysis for partisans, or in the single-factor models for independents, does not alter the results shown here.

CONFLICT EXTENSION IN THE U. S. ELECTORATE

797

Table 4 Factor Analysis of the Same Eight Social Welfare and Cultural Issues for Partisans and Independents in the 1992-1994-1996 Panel

Partisan Group and Issue 1992 1994 1996

Partisans^

1.00	(.61)	1.00	(.69)	1.00	(.70)
1.14	(.59)	1.32	(.80)	1.09	(.70)
.89	(.62)	.86	(.63)	.88	(.72)
1.08	(.55)	.86	(.54)	.80	(.49)
.70	(.39)	.53	(.35)	.53	(.35)
.42	(.20)	.48	(.25)	.49	(.27)
.31	(.18)	.44	(.30)	.50	(.34)
.09	(.05)*	.16	(.12)*	.07	(.07)*
(258)		(258)		(258)
	.40		.46		.46
	.14		.23		.23
	.22		.40		.41
1.00	(.52)	1.00	(.55)	1.00	(.61)
.98	(.65)	1.26	(.75)	.88	(.55)
1.12	(.62)	1.23	(-64)	1.02	(.58)
.88	(.41)	.65	(.32)	1.08	(.47)
.66	(.35)	.70	(.39)	1.06	(.54)
.22	(.09)*	.24	(.11)*	.13	(.06)*
.39	(.25)*	.32	(.18)*	.43	(.22)*
-.111	;-.O7)*	.15	(.09)*	-.09 (-.06)*
(110)		(110)		(110)
	.35		.37		.37
	.09		.12		.07
	.09*		.17*		.05*

Government ensure jobs

Government services/spending

Government health insurance

Spending for food stamps

Spending for social security

Abortion

Women's rights

School prayer

(N)

Average standardized loading

Average loading of cultural issues

2-factor: r_socia| _we|_{fare & CU}|_tura|

Independent^

Government ensure jobs

Government services/spending

Government health insurance

Spending for food stamps

Spending for social security

Abortion

Women's rights

School prayer

(N)

Average standardized loading

Average loading of cultural issues

2-factor: r_socj_a| welfare & cultural

Source: 1992-1994-1996 National Election Studies Panel

Note: Entries are unstandardized factor loadings. Standardized loadings are in parentheses.

^aPanel respondents who identified themselves as Democrats (strong or weak) in 1992,1994, and 1996 and respondents who identified themselves as

Republicans (strong or weak) in 1992, 1994, and 1996

^bPanel respondents who identified themselves as independents (leaning or non-leaning) in 1992,1994, and 1996

'Not significant at p<.05. All other factor loadings and correlations are significant at p<.05.

We contend that the catalyst for growing attitude constraint among party identifiers is increased awareness of party elite differences on various issue dimensions. If that is true, then the relationship between attitudes to­ward distinct issue dimensions such as social welfare and culture should be stronger among partisans who are aware of party differences on both dimensions than among partisans who are not aware of these differences. To test this, we use data pooled from the 1992,1996, and 2000 NES, and measure awareness of party issue differ­ences using the three issues on which all three studies asked respondents to place the parties and/or the presi­dential candidates.¹⁶ We combined the indicators of

¹⁶Because this part of the analysis divides the sample by both strength of partisanship and awareness of party differences, the sample size of some categories is very small. We pooled the 1992, 1996, and 2000 NES to increase the number of observations in these categories. We could not include the 1988 NES here because

awareness of party/candidate differences on government guarantee of jobs and government services and spending to create a measure of awareness of party differences on social welfare issues.¹⁷ Awareness of party differences on cultural issues is defined as identifying the Republican party/candidate as more pro-life on abortion than the Democratic party/candidate. For each partisan group, we conducted factor analyses of the eight social welfare and cultural issues examined in Table 3 for individuals who were aware that the Republicans were more conservative than the Democrats on neither issue agenda, on only one

it did not ask about party/candidate issue differences on abortion, which is the only cultural issue on which 1992 respondents were asked to place the parties or candidates.

¹⁷Awareness of party differences on social welfare issues is defined simply as being aware that the Republican party/candidate is more conservative than the Democratic party/candidate on both of these issues.

798

GEOFFREY С. LAYMAN AND THOMAS M. CARSEY

Table 5 Results of Factor Analysis of the Same Eight Social Welfare and Cultural Issues By Strength of Party Identification and Awareness of Partisan Differences on Social Welfare and Cultural Issues

Awareness of Party Differences on Social Welfare and Cultural Issues

	Aware on Neither
Partisan Group and Issue	Agenda	Aware on One Only	Aware on Both
Strong Partisans
Abortion	-.42 (-.25)	-.36 (-.18)	.88 (.55)
Women's rights	.17 (.12)*	-.03 (-.02)*	.46 (.43)
Homosexual discrimination laws	.34 (.19)*	.55 (.27)	1.13 (.63)
Spending for social security	.27 (.25)	.68 (.49)	.53 (.41)
Government health insurance	.58 (.39)	.90 (.55)	1.00 (.72)
Government services/spending	.12 (.10)*	.70 (.66)	.99 (.82)
Government ensure jobs	1.00 (.72)	1.00 (.66)	1.00 (.79)
Spending for food stamps	.38 (.25)	.89 (.52)	.88 (.60)
(N)	(217)	(366)	(635)
Average standardized loading	.22	.34	.63
Average loading of cultural issues	.02	.02	.54
2-factor model: rsocia| weifare anC| cultural	-.18	-.11	.77
Weak and Leaning Partisans
Abortion	-.06 (-.02)*	-.14 (-.04)*	.67 (.35)
Women's rights	.10 (.06)*	.08 (.04)*	.51 (.39)
Homosexual discrimination laws	.51 (.20)	.68 (.20)	1.07 (.50)
Spending for social security	.60 (.37)	1.04 (.42)	.54 (.34)
Government health insurance	.83 (.42)	1.16 (.44)	1.00 (.63)
Government services/spending	.60 (.40)	1.07 (.51)	1.01 (.79)
Government ensure jobs	1.00 (.55)	1.00 (.43)	1.00 (.70)
Spending for food stamps	.80 (.38)	.82 (.30)	.87 (.47)
(N)	(603)	(791)	(894)
Average standardized loading	.29	.29	.52
Average loading of cultural issues	.07	.07	.41
2-factor model: rsocia| weifare anCj cultural	.09*	.10*	.58
Pure Independents
Abortion	.14 (.06)*	-.03 (-.01)*	.02 (.01)*
Women's rights	-.06 (-.04)*	.08 (.04)*	.07 (.05)*
Homosexual discrimination laws	.21 (.09)*	.87 (.30)	.19 (.10)*
Spending for social security	.59 (.36)	1.12 (.49)	.10 (.07)*
Government health insurance	1.07 (.55)	1.09 (.52)	.17 (.11)*
Government services/spending	.62 (.43)	1.37 (.73)	.60 (.57)
Government ensure jobs	1.00 (.56)	1.00 (.46)	1.00 (.68)
Spending for food stamps	.74 (.37)	.60 (.25)*	.82 (.45)
(N)	(152)	(107)	(83)
Average standardized loading	.30	.34	.26
Average loading of cultural issues	.04	.11	.05
2-factor model: rsocia| we|fare and cultural	-.02*	.05*	.01*

Source: 1992, 1996, and 2000 National Election Studies (pooled)

Note: Entries are unstandardized factor loadings. Standardized loadings are in parentheses. In both the one-factor and two-factor models, each ob­served indicator is a function of a latent variable, a random measurement error, and dummy variables for 1996 and 2000 respondents. The effect of the year dummy variables is not shown. 'Not significant at p<.05. All other factor loadings and correlations are significant at p<.05.

of the agendas, and on both agendas.¹⁸ For each level of partisan strength and awareness, Table 5 shows the esti-

¹⁸Racial issues are excluded from this analysis because there is no measure of awareness of party differences on racial issues in the 1992 study.

mates of a single-factor model and the correlations be­tween latent social welfare and cultural attitudes in a two-factor model.¹⁹

¹⁹ The chi-square difference tests indicate that the two-factor solu­tion is superior to the one-factor solution for each group. To ac-

CONFLICT EXTENSION IN THE U. S. ELECTORATE

799

The impact of awareness is quite marked for strong partisans. As expected, it is only when strong partisans are aware of party polarization on both social welfare and cultural issues that their attitudes toward these di­mensions come closely together. As we move from strong partisans who are not aware of party differences on ei­ther social welfare or cultural issues to strong partisans who are aware of party differences on just one agenda, overall constraint increases slightly (the average loading of all issues on a single factor increases from .22 to .34). However, the loadings of cultural attitudes on a single factor and the correlation between the factors in a two-factor model reveal no increase in the relationship be­tween social welfare and cultural attitudes. In contrast, when we move to strong partisans who are aware of party differences on both social welfare and cultural con­cerns, issue attitudes become nearly unidimensional. The average loading of all issues increases markedly, the aver­age loading of cultural issues increases enormously, and the formerly weakly negative correlation between the so­cial welfare and cultural factors is now a positive .77.

A similar pattern exists among weak and leaning partisans. The relationship between social welfare and cultural attitudes within the groups that are aware of party differences on neither issue agenda or on only one agenda is very weak. It is only among those weak and leaning partisans who are aware of party differences on both agendas that attitudes toward social welfare and cultural issues really come together.

These findings suggest that it is not simply political sophistication or general political awareness that leads party identifiers to respond in kind to the growing unidi-mensionality and polarization of party elites. Individuals who are aware of party differences on one agenda are more aware of the political environment than individuals who are aware of differences on neither agenda, but they are no more likely to merge their social welfare and cul­tural attitudes together. We argued that the most appar­ent reason why partisans would bring their own views on seemingly cross-cutting issue dimensions like culture and social welfare together is an awareness that the par­ties have taken polarized stands on both agendas, and the results show that it is only when that condition holds that attitudes toward the two agendas converge.

As we expected, awareness that the parties are polar­ized on social welfare and cultural issues produces no in­crease in attitudinal constraint among pure independents. The average loading of both all issues and cultural issues

count for the possibility that the intercept (mean value) for each observed indicator may vary across the three years, we included dummy variables for 1996 and 2000 respondents in our model. Each observed indicator is a function of a latent variable, a random measurement error, and the dummies for 1996 and 2000.

is no greater for independents who are aware of partisan differences on both social welfare and cultural issues than for independents who are aware of party differences on neither issue agenda. The correlation between social wel­fare and cultural attitudes in the two-factor model is not statistically significant for any group of independents.