Presents a theory of party identification, the central concept in the study of voting. Challenging the traditional idea that voters identify with a political party out of blind emotional attachment, this book explains why party identification in contemporary American politics and enables voters to make coherent policy choices.

Preface ix Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Our Story 3 Chapter 2: A Reputational Theory of Party Identification and Policy Reasoning 12 Premises 12 The Institutional Basis of Party- Centered Voting 13 Characteristics of Choice Sets in Politics 16 Reputational Reasoning and Candidate Positioning 23 Chapter 3: Lessons from a Sterile Downsian Environment 34 Issues of Identity 34 A Thought Experiment: Policy Reasoning in a Sterilized Downsian Space 36 The Downsian Experiment 37 Party and Partisanship in the Absence of Party 42 Lessons from a Sterile Downsian Environment 62 Chapter 4: The Electoral Logic of Party Reputations 64 The Errors- and- Bias Interpretation of Party Identifi cation 64 The Canonical Theory of Party Identifi cation 71 Programmatic Partisans and Reputational Premiums in Policy Reasoning 77 Candidate Positioning and the Reputational Premium: The Order Rule 79 Alternative Hypotheses on Candidate Positioning 82 Replication: The Order Rule 89 When Candidate Positions and Party Reputations Conflict 92 Caveat Lector 93 Chapter 5: The Democratic Experiment: A Supply- Side Theory of Political Ideas and Institutions 95 A Reputational Theory of Party Identifi cation and Policy Reasoning 96 A Party- Centered Supply- Side Approach to the Question of Citizen Competence 100 A Paradox: Citizen Competence and Partisan Reputation 104 Coda 109 Appendix A: A Limit on the Influence of the Policy Reputations of Parties 110 Introduction 110 Reputations as Encoded Information 114 The Stickiness of Preferences 116 Can Parties Induce Polarization Spikes? 119 Replication 125 Precis 130 Appendix B Study Descriptions: General Description of Methodology 133 References 137 Index 143

"The Reputational Premium dramatically advances the study of political parties and vote choice. Sniderman and Stiglitz provide a powerful new theory of party identification that helps make sense of a central puzzle in contemporary American politics: how polarized political parties can thrive alongside a far more moderate electorate."—Eric Schickler, University of California, Berkeley

"The Reputational Premium offers a new theory of partisanship in the United States. The premium of the title is that party identification carries meaning in a polarized era, giving it a substantive, ideological base, as well as an emotional identity. As a piece of serious science, the book provides not only a clear, original theory but striking and convincing tests of its implications. This will change the terms of the debate."—John Aldrich, Duke University

In this long-overdue rethinking of one of the discipline's oldest and most cherished concepts, Sniderman and Stiglitz set forth a new theory of party identification that explains how and why the reputations of political parties matter. They contend that parties are a source of policy information for voters rather than strictly an engine of habitual or attachment-driven political decision making. This book will become the landmark statement of a new theory of partisanship in political science."—Diana C. Mutz, University of Pennsylvania

"This is the most important book on parties and policy opinions in decades. It should be required reading for anyone interested in how democracies function and the role of citizens in that process."—Jamie Druckman, Northwestern University

"The Reputational Premium is a major substantive breakthrough. Sniderman and Stiglitz escape the chronic dispute about the comparative role of party identification and issue preference by taking it somewhere much more productive. My bet is that this book will quickly become a must-read for those who work at the center of the American politics syllabus."—Byron E. Shafer, coauthor of The American Public Mind: The Issues Structure of Mass Politics in the Postwar United States

"The Reputational Premium demonstrates that most partisans know and agree with their party's overall position on issues, and that they are loyal to their party when the party's candidate takes a position on the issues that the voter expects. This book will generate a strong tremor in studies of party identification and provoke new lines of research."—Dean Lacy, Dartmouth College