Parties, Issues and Values: the Adjustment of Political Preferences (Public Opinion, Racial).

Models of political behavior have often assumed that political preferences are not very responsive to contemporaneous events. Party identification and symbolic values are often taken as fixed and exogenous, for example. Likewise, issue preferences are often assumed to either change r and omly or not to change at all. Such models present an unnecessarily static view of political preferences. This thesis develops a simultaneous equation model of the dynamics of political preferences. Models are specified for party identification, racial feelings and issue preferences. The estimated equations demonstrate that issue preferences can lead to the adjustment of party identification. Similarly, preferences on racial issues can produce change in symbolic racial values. Issue preferences themselves are structured in part by partisanship and racial feelings, but are also influenced by social characteristics of the individual. Finally, it is shown that issue preferences are responsive to Presidential performance, leading to greater issue agreement with successful administrations, and greater disagreement in response to poor performance.PhDPolitical scienceUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/160791/1/8600445.pd