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.
