Partisanship and Participation in Political Campaign Activities, 1952-1996

Abstract

In 1972, Verba and Nie identified a “puzzle” of Republican “hyperactivity” in political participation over the 1952-1968 period. Verba and Nie argue that higher levels of Republican participation (after controlling for socioeconomic variables) result from the differential motivating influence of policy preferences for identifiers of the two parties. Using National Election Studies (NES) surveys from 1952 to 1996, I examine the possibility that Verba and Nie's findings are time-bound and/or contextbound. I find that the partisanship-participation relationship is variable. Republican hyperactivity has not continued since 1968, and among weak and leaning partisans no “puzzle” exists even in the 1952-1968 period. I also show that while opinion extremity did provide greater motivation for strong Republicans than for strong Democrats up to 1968, this difference does not extend to the weak and leaning partisan ranks. In addition, since 1972 opinion extremity appears to be more important to Democrats than to Republicans as an impetus to participate in campaigns. I conclude by suggesting that future research should examine more closely the role of contextual variables as determinants of participation.