Bartels, Larry. "Partisanship and Voting Behavior, 1952-1996". American Journal of Political Science, Vol.44, No.1 (2000): 35-50.

Bartels, Larry. "Partisanship and Voting Behavior, 1952-1996". American Journal of Political Science, Vol.44, No.1 (2000): 35-50.

• Contemporary scholarly opinion on American politics has emphasized the dramatic decline of political parties as a major force in the mobilization of voters and the rise of independents as a majority of the electorate in the past two decades. The author disagrees with these conclusions and argues that partisanship is still important and has been a growing influence since the 1970s, because the people who actual vote are still very partisan (35-36).
• An analysis of electoral data from the period following the early 1970s, when most of the pieces proclaiming the decline of party politics were written, shows that these reports were written at the nadir of party identification, a trend which did not continue following the publication of these articles (36).
• The decline in partisanship has mainly been among non-voter populations, with partisanship among voters in the 1990s matching that of the 1950s, following the observed decline in the 1970s. This has not affected electoral outcomes, but it is a contributing factor in the significant decline in voter turnout during this period (37).
• The author outlines the basic premise of the statistical model and test used in the paper to determine the effect of different levels of partisanship on voting outcomes in Presidential elections (38). This model should control for the different levels of party loyalty as well as the effects by electoral year (39).
• The analysis provided by Dr. Bartels shows a substantial decrease in the importance of partisanship in the elections of 1964 and 1972, as partisan voters abandoned the unpopular Barry Goldwater and George McGovern tickets, but an increase in the importance of partisanship every following year (40).
• The reassertion of party identity in the 1980s and 1990s may be due to the establishment of republican identity among White Southern voters. Following the upheaval in the Democratic Party during the Johnson Presidency, Southern Whites crossed over to the Republican camp, but did not change their voter identity for decades afterwards (41).
• However, a closer examination of data demonstrates that the changes in partisanship were a national phenomenon not restricted to segregated states. A broader explanation is therefore required (41).
• The author provides an identical statistical model and test of the effects of different levels of partisanship on voting outcomes in congressional elections. It shows a decline during the same period as the Presidential elections until 1978, when the trends both reverse and partisanship increases (42-43).
• This trend of growing partisanship in Congressional elections is emphasized among younger and better educated demographics, with that group becoming much more partisan than older voters (42).
• The dramatic increase in the importance of partisanship from the late 1970s onwards has a number of possible causes, such as an increase in the perceived importance of parties in politics resulting from the election of highly partisan Republican leaders like Ronald Reagan beginning in the 1980s and the creation of a non-Southern Democratic Party (44).
• The author considers a counter-claim by those scholars who insist that real levels of party loyalty have declined that the data presented above simply reflects short-term party affiliations, which may be strengthening but do not qualify as real partisanship. A through examination of the data shows, however, that short-term affiliation does not undermine increased partisanship in American politics (47-49).