TY - JOUR
T1 - The social and ideological bases of middle-class political realignment in the United States, 1972 to 1992
AU - Brooks, Clem
AU - Manza, Jeff
PY - 1997/4
Y1 - 1997/4
N2 - Research on the nature and bases of the political alignments of the middle class in the United States has produced extensive disagreements but little resolution of fundamental controversies. We address unresolved questions about the political alignments of the middle class through an investigation of change in voting behavior among two of its principal segments: managers and professionals. Among professionals, but not among managers, there has been a long-term shift away from support for Republican presidential candidates to support for Democratic candidates. Competing hypotheses about the sources of these trends are tested using data from the National Election Studies. Increasingly liberal attitudes toward social issues, not changes in economic evaluations or sociodemographic composition, explain the growing tendency of professionals to vote Democratic and their increasing divergence from managers. Party identification and partisan affect substantially mediate the effects of social group membership, views of the welfare state, and attitudes towards social issues. The relevance of these findings to understanding the Democratic realignment of professionals and the stable Republican alignment of managers is discussed.
AB - Research on the nature and bases of the political alignments of the middle class in the United States has produced extensive disagreements but little resolution of fundamental controversies. We address unresolved questions about the political alignments of the middle class through an investigation of change in voting behavior among two of its principal segments: managers and professionals. Among professionals, but not among managers, there has been a long-term shift away from support for Republican presidential candidates to support for Democratic candidates. Competing hypotheses about the sources of these trends are tested using data from the National Election Studies. Increasingly liberal attitudes toward social issues, not changes in economic evaluations or sociodemographic composition, explain the growing tendency of professionals to vote Democratic and their increasing divergence from managers. Party identification and partisan affect substantially mediate the effects of social group membership, views of the welfare state, and attitudes towards social issues. The relevance of these findings to understanding the Democratic realignment of professionals and the stable Republican alignment of managers is discussed.
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U2 - 10.2307/2657299
DO - 10.2307/2657299
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0031466128
SN - 0003-1224
VL - 62
SP - 191
EP - 208
JO - American sociological review
JF - American sociological review
IS - 2
ER -