Traditionally, party identification has been viewed as the central organizing principle of political beliefs.

➡️ Alternative Viewpoint

➡️ Core values concerning equality and government intervention versus individualism shape partisanship itself.

➡️ Methodology

➡️ Using ordered latent class models on panel data from the British Household Panel Study (1991–2007).

➡️ The study finds core political values are significantly more stable than partisan identity across different age groups, education levels, and income brackets.

➡️ Key Findings:

➡️ Core values exert far stronger cross-lagged influence on partisanship than the reverse.

➡️ This holds true in both polarized and depolarized contexts.

➡️ Thus demonstrating their utility as decision-making heuristics.