Since the 1970s, party identification has been one of the most used and distinguished key concepts in empirical election studies. It is a vital factor for explaining individual voting behavior as well as voting turn out. Unfortunately, it is usually measured with a single item that shows serious flaws. Firstly, this measure does not distinguish between the social psychological clear concepts of attitudes and social identity. Secondly, negative and multiple party identifications are part of the theoretical concept and crucial especially to multi-party settings but cannot be measured by the standard item. I argue that large parts of the theoretical concept as well as various scientific questions cannot be (properly) analyzed with the current operationalization.
In this paper, I aim at taking a more thoroughly view on party identification and its underlying dimensions. Starting from the point that party identification is a perceptual screen which shapes the voters’ views of the political world, I will take a look at the effects of party identification on the evaluations of and beliefs about other parties and political candidates. I add an innovative facet by not using the standard single item for measuring party identification but current German survey data that includes measures for the social identity dimension (a modified version of the IDPG-scale by Mael and Tetrick, 1982) and the attitudes dimension (modified version of the scales from Crites, Fabrigar and Petty, 1994). These surveys were conducted in January (1,900 German students) and May 2013 (1,000 German respondents). Indeed, I will actually be able to take multiple identifications into account and explore their impact on the shape of the political landscape in the voters’ imagination.
