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Group Identity and Political Participation in the American Public

J. Matthew WilsonSouthern Methodist University

[email protected]

Abstract: This study considers the impact of group identity on participation in American electoral politics. In contrast to much previous work, I argue that membership in a group or even strong identification with the group are insufficient to spur political activity in response to leadership mobilization efforts. Instead, identification with the social group interacts with the individual’s own candidate preference to shape his or her likelihood of political participation. This pattern holds true in empirical tests among three very different groups (women, evangelical Christians, and African Americans), and for both voting and non-voting forms of electoral participation. In virtually all cases, support for the group’s preferred candidate combines with strong group identification to increase significantly an individual’s likelihood of participation in politics. The findings have clear implications for our understanding both of political mobilization and of the role that group identification plays in shaping political behavior.

In a competitive electoral system like that in the contemporary United

States, differential group mobilization rates often hold the key to large

swings in the balance of political power. In groups with strong preferences

for one candidate or party over the other, relatively small shifts in group

members’ political participation rates can be a decisive advantage (or

critical blow) to the electoral prospects of the group’s preferred candidate.

For groups ranging from African Americans to Christian fundamentalists to

union loyalists, the key question on election day is not so much “For whom

will they vote?” as “How many of them will vote?”. A surge in black voter

turnout is often cited as a central factor in Jimmy Carter’s 1976 election

victory. More recently, heavier-than-usual political participation by certain

social groups has dramatically influenced the outcomes of congressional

mid-term elections, with evangelical Christians contributing to the

Republican tidal wave of 1994 (Rozell and Wilcox 1995; McSweeney and

Owens 1998) and high black turnout carrying many Democrats over the top

in 1998 (Abramson et al. 1999; Busch 1999).1 In every electoral cycle,

leaders of major American social groups make strenuous efforts to mobilize

their base and deliver bodies to the polls in support of chosen candidates,

often appealing to individuals’ sense of identity and solidarity with the

group. Yet these efforts do not meet with uniform success across all

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members of the target groups; some people are clearly more responsive to

group-based mobilization efforts than others. Why do some members

respond to these appeals while others do not? How does an individual’s

identification with a major social group affect his likelihood of participating

politically? This study seeks to answer these questions, arguing that

existing scholarly accounts have overlooked critical interactions in the

relationship between group identity and political participation.

A number of previous studies have explored the role of membership

and/or identification with various social groups in promoting political

participation. The great majority of these analyses, particularly since the

late 1960s, have focused on racial and ethnic identity as sources of

increased political activity. Beginning with Parenti (1967), many scholars

advanced an “ethnic community” theory to explain why members of major

ethnic groups in American cities (particularly the Irish, Italians, and Jews)

participated politically at rates much higher than their levels of education

and income would predict. According to the ethnic community theory,

these socially marginalized groups developed strong communal norms of

participation to which there is considerable pressure within the group to

conform (Verba and Nie 1972; Nelson 1979). In essence, “political and

social participation asserts the importance of the group within the larger

society” (Welch, Comer, and Steinman 1975), and is thus expected of all

members in the interest of the group as a whole. When, after several

elections under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, it was observed that African

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Americans participated politically at appreciably higher rates than whites

after controlling for education and income (Verba and Nie 1972; Antunes

and Gaitz 1975)2, the ethnic community theory was readily extended to

them as well (Olsen 1970; McPherson 1977).

Related work in the field of psychology has served to reinforce many

of these basic premises of the more sociological ethnic community theory.

Social identity theory, initially advanced by Tajfel and Turner (Tajfel and

Turner 1979; Tajfel 1981; Turner 1987), holds that individuals define

themselves socially primarily with reference to salient groups of which they

are members. In this process of self-categorization, the individual

“maximizes between-group differences and minimizes within-group

differences” (Fiske and Taylor 1991, p. 166). In other words, people seek

solidarity with fellow group members in opposition to non-members, a

process which, in the political realm, translates into group norms of thought

and behavior (much as predicted by the ethnic community theory). For

subordinate groups particularly, these norms tend to center on common

ways of viewing controversial social and political issues, common candidate

and partisan preferences, and, most important for this analysis, a strong

imperative to participate in electoral politics, thereby maximizing the

group’s influence in the larger society (Wilson 1999). Dawson (1994), in his

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? It is worth noting that some later researchers, particularly Wolfinger and Rosenstone (1980), find no independent effect of race on turnout. These findings cast some doubt on the applicability of the Ethnic Community theory in the African American context. Other work, however, has continued to affirm unexpectedly high rates of participation among American blacks, given their levels of education and income (Walton 1985; Tate 1994).

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landmark study of contemporary African American political behavior, makes

use of social identity theory to explain precisely these patterns in the black

community. Clearly, both sociological and psychological models predict

widespread and powerful group-based participatory norms.

Yet while the ethnic community and social identity approaches yield

valuable insights into the group-based dynamics motivating political

participation, they have a few major shortcomings. To begin with, they tend

to treat groups as monolithic, focusing as they do on pervasive, universal or

near-universal norms about group participation. The theories can clearly

explain why, on average, African Americans or Italian Americans

participate, after the appropriate controls, more than Anglos. They cannot,

however, account very well for variations in participation levels within an

ethnic group. There is little provision, in particular, for differential levels of

psychological identification with the social group.3 Additionally, as its name

indicates, the ethnic community model tends to restrict the study of group

identification and political participation to a discussion of racially and

ethnically-based social groups (though this is less a problem for social

identity theory). While much of the logic underlying the ethnic community

theory would appear applicable in a variety of settings, its proponents seem

curiously disinclined to extend the analysis to other types of social groups.

Finally, the ethnic community and social identity approaches focus primarily

on individuals’ internal motivations to participate and on their interactions

with peers, giving little attention to the crucial interactions between elites

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and masses designed to mobilize group members politically. Thus, many

aspects of the relationship between group identity and political

participation remain largely outside the purview of these models.

More recent work on groups and political participation has sought to

address some of these shortcomings. To begin with, scholars have begun to

study the internal mobilization dynamics of a broader range of groups,

particularly religious ones (see, for example, Leege and Kellstedt 1993).

Additionally, some studies have explicitly recognized, and attempted to

explain, the effects of differing levels of group identification on individual

political activity (Miller et al. 1981; Shingles 1981). The most important

shift, however, has been a dramatically increased focus on mass-elite

interactions as the source of group-based political mobilization. Rosenstone

and Hansen (1993), in their general study of political participation, identify

elite mobilization as a central element driving mass political participation.

Pollock (1982) offers a similar explanation in the specific context of social

groups. Likewise, Jackson (1987) argues that race-based political

mobilization, even on behalf of black candidates, is largely contingent on

consensus among black elites, and on accompanying messages encouraging

turnout and support for the chosen candidate directed at the black mass

public. Miller et al. (1981) offer as the primary explanation for the absence

of a link between age identification and political participation among the

elderly the fact that “they have no visible activist wing to motivate them to

engage in activities on the group’s behalf” (p. 501). Finally, Uhlaner (1989)

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offers a formal theoretic model—discussed in more detail below—of how

group leaders might interact with candidates and with group members to

mobilize participation.

This study draws on insights both from the ethnic community and

social identity literatures and from the studies emphasizing mobilization to

build a more comprehensive model of the relationship between group

identification and political participation in the United States. Both the

internal psychological dynamics of group loyalty and efficacy and the

activities of group leaders in selecting and mobilizing for a candidate are

crucial to understanding the role of group identity in an individual’s

decision to participate in or abstain from electoral politics. This study, by

examining empirically the complex interaction of individual candidate

preference, group candidate preference, and group identification across

several different social groups and types of participation, seeks to explain

more thoroughly and accurately than previous work the individual

psychological dynamics of this decision.

Theory and Hypotheses

In her important formal treatment of the phenomenon, Uhlaner (1989)

offers a fully articulated and logically compelling account of how group

elites act to spur voter turnout among the masses. Group leaders, she

argues, can increase the consumption benefits of voting for group members,

often by raising the normative stakes of voting. “Leaders can use the

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group’s communication resources,” she writes, “to mobilize members to

vote by enhancing their sense of citizen duty by an appeal to group loyalty”

(p. 392). Scholarly accounts (e.g. Rosenstone and Hansen 1993) and

anecdotal evidence suggest that such mobilization efforts on the part of

group leaders are ubiquitous in modern American elections; as one

example, the advertisements on black radio stations featuring appeals by

Jesse Jackson to turn out in support of Democratic candidates are held by

many pundits to have been an important motivator of black voting in the

1998 midterm elections. Such efforts, Uhlaner demonstrates formally, are

almost certain to increase the aggregate turnout of group members in

support of the group’s preferred candidate(s). Thus, in the formal theoretic

context, the importance of group identification for political participation (at

least when activated by leadership appeals) seems clear.

That being said, however, there are a couple of important omissions in

this analysis. Despite criticizing previous work on groups and politics for its

“reification of the group and discussion of group aims as though the group

were a unitary actor” (p. 420), she engages in exactly this sort of

simplification by assuming in the model that all members of the group share

a common candidate preference, consistent with that of the group

leadership. Clearly, as most would admit, this is not an accurate reflection

of reality.4 More importantly, there is no provision in Uhlaner’s model for

differential levels of identification with the social group. As a variety of

scholars (Gurin et al. 1980 and Shingles 1981, among others) have

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demonstrated, mere membership in a group is rarely sufficient to spur

alterations in political behavior stemming from group norms or leadership

appeals. Some level of psychological attachment to, or identification with,

the group is generally necessary in order to produce significant results, and

such identification is not universal even in the most seemingly cohesive

social groups (Miller et al. 1981; Conover 1984). Thus, Uhlaner’s account

neglects two important variables central to understanding the relationship

between leadership mobilization efforts and an individual group member’s

decision on whether and how to participate politically.

These omissions are critical because they change significantly the

empirical predictions to be derived from the formal model. In the model as

set forth by Uhlaner, the empirical predictions would be fairly

straightforward. Because group members are assumed to be uniform in

their candidate preference and level of attachment to the group, in the

presence of leadership mobilization efforts, group membership should be

associated with increased likelihood of voting, all else equal. However, if

one accounts for the empirically substantial and theoretically important

intra-group variations in candidate choice and level of identification, the

predictions become more complex. The logic by which leadership

mobilization efforts spur participation should apply only to (or at least much

more strongly to) those individuals with high levels of group identification.

Appeals to group loyalty and solidarity are likely to have little impact on

someone who views his membership in the group as incidental, of little

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meaning or consequence to his social and political self-definition. As

suggested by Zaller (1992) and Sniderman et al. (1991), high-identification

group members are much more likely to receive and accept political

messages (in this case encouraging turnout) from group leadership than are

those with low levels of identification. Moreover, even among those high-

identifiers predisposed to be attentive to leadership cues, appeals to turn

out in support of group-preferred candidates should only be effective with

individuals who themselves support those candidates.5 Strongly identified

evangelical Christians, for example, who have decided that for economic

reasons they support Bill Clinton, are unlikely to be galvanized by Christian

Coalition appeals to turn out on election day, couched as they are in terms

of support for a pro-life, socially conservative agenda. Thus, the basic

relationship between group membership and turnout should be mediated

powerfully by both strength of identification with the group and the

individual’s candidate preference.

These modifications result in the following complementary and related

hypotheses to be tested here:

Group members who are both strong identifiers and who support the

group-preferred candidate should be more likely to turn out to vote than

any other members of the group.

Group members who are both strong identifiers and who support the

group-preferred candidate should also be more likely to engage in time

and resource-intensive forms of participation, such as going to political

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meetings and giving money to candidates, than any other members of the

group.

Controlling for all of the standard predictors of voter turnout in a

multivariate model, the interaction of high group identification and

support for the group-preferred candidate should significantly increase

an individual’s likelihood of voting, while neither strong identification nor

support for the group-preferred candidate alone should have any

discernible mobilizing impact.

Likewise, the interaction of high group identification and support for the

group-preferred candidate should significantly increase the likelihood

that an individual will engage in non-voting forms of political

participation (giving money, persuading others, etc.), while neither

component alone should have this effect.

Data and Method

In examining the question of group identification and political

participation, there is a necessary trade-off between breadth and depth.

One could do a highly detailed and contextual study of a single social group,

or a much less detailed examination across the entire spectrum of possible

groups. The analysis here is based on a middle-ground approach, selecting

three groups for analysis: blacks, women, and evangelical Christians.6 This

number should allow individual discussion and analysis of each group, while

at the same time providing some assurance that the findings are

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generalizable across different group contexts. Significantly, the selected

groups vary in size (from about 12% to over half of the U.S. population),

partisan disposition (from strong Democrat to strong Republican), and

social integration with other groups (from generally segregated in

residence, work, and worship to largely integrated in most social contexts).

Equally important, the recognized national leadership of all three groups

had a clear and publicly expressed candidate preference in the presidential

election of 1992 (with black and feminist leaders strongly supporting

Clinton, and evangelical leaders strongly supporting Bush), and in all three

cases the group leadership worked actively to promote political

participation by the membership (Nelson 1993). Thus, these groups are

amenable to analysis within the theoretical framework outlined here, and an

examination of them should provide a good general discussion of the

relationship between group identity and political participation. Patterns

common to all three may reasonably be considered general political

phenomena, because of the clear diversity of the groups across a host of

dimensions.

This analysis employs data from the 1992 American National Election

Study.7 This survey is based on a national sample of about 2500

respondents, and contains measures of both objective group membership

and group identification for all three groups of interest (discussed in greater

detail below). The 1992 NES data set contains over 1300 women, over 600

evangelicals, and over 300 blacks. Thus, while the sample of African

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Americans is smaller than ideal, there are enough respondents in each of

the three groups to permit useful within-group analysis.8

Before proceeding with a discussion of specific models, a few notes on

how respondents were classified into these three groups are in order. To

begin with, only people who are objectively members of the groups in

question are considered in the analyses. While other people may in some

sense “identify” with blacks, women, or evangelicals, this is a much

different psychological phenomenon than the one examined here. This

exclusion of non-members is consistent with previous work in the field, as

Gurin et al. (1980) and Conover (1984) among others maintain that

objective membership is a prerequisite for group identification or

consciousness. By this criterion, blacks and women are easily classified

based simply on the race and gender questions in the NES, but evangelicals

pose a bit more of a problem. While there are several possible methods for

identifying evangelicals using survey data, the strategy outlined in Green et

al. (1996), classifying respondents primarily according to their religious

denomination, is employed here.9 This method identifies those respondents

who attend evangelical churches, allowing additional sub-division,

comparison, and analysis based on professed identification with the

evangelical movement.

Another important methodological issue is the question of how to

operationalize group identification. The most common practice when using

NES data is to rely on the “closeness” measures in the study (Conover 1984,

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1988; Conover and Feldman 1984).10 In these items, respondents are

presented with a list of groups, and asked which of the groups are “most

like you in their ideas and interests and feelings about things.” Blacks and

women who identify these respective groups as being close to them are

classified as high identifiers; those who do not select the group are

considered low identifiers.11 For evangelicals, the process is somewhat

more complicated, because no religious groups are on the list presented to

respondents in the “closeness” battery. There is, however, a question

asking Christian respondents to classify their type of Christianity as either

“moderate to liberal” (the option selected by the majority of respondents) or

“evangelical,” “fundamentalist,” or “charismatic or Spirit-filled.” Those

respondents identified (by the process described above) as objectively

members of evangelical churches are classified as high identifiers if they

self-select one of the labels associated with the broader evangelical

movement (that is, a description other then “moderate to liberal). Those

who do not select one of these labels are classified as low identifiers. This

method of division yields approximately the same two-to-one ratio of high-

to low-identifiers as the closeness battery does for blacks and women,

lending some support to the contention that the two methods are at least

roughly comparable.

There are admittedly some drawbacks to using the closeness items as

a measure of the strength of group identification. To begin with, they are

dichotomous, forcing a simple high-low division of identifiers instead of the

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more realistic continuum along which group identification almost certainly

ranges. One possible remedy for this defect would be to use group feeling

thermometer ratings instead, but feeling thermometers capture a slightly

different theoretical concept—affect as opposed to identification. As Turner

(1982) argues, “The first question determining group-belongingness is not

‘Do I like these individuals?’ but ‘Who am I?’.”12 A more practical difficulty

is that there is no feeling thermometer measure available in the NES for

evangelical Christians, so this proxy for group identification would only be

possible in the analyses of women and African Americans. Another

potential problem with the closeness items is that not all respondents

necessarily understand “closeness” in the same way, making these items

somewhat “noisy” measures of the underlying concept of group

identification. However, the closeness measures do seem to be the best

approximation available for group identification, and, importantly, using

them provides the clearest basis for comparison with previous work

(Conover 1984, 1988; Conover and Feldman 1984; Turner 1987).

Ultimately, if strong results emerge using this fairly blunt instrument, we

may have considerable confidence that a more finely honed one would

produce even sharper findings.

A final word ought to be said about the measures of political

participation employed here. For voter turnout, the measure is quite

simple. Respondents are asked in the post-election survey whether or not

they cast a ballot for president in the recent national election. As is well

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known, however, survey respondents tend to over-report voting, largely

because of social desirability factors stemming from general democratic

participatory norms. Additionally, some scholars have speculated that the

mere act of participating in the National Election Study might increase an

individual’s likelihood of voting in the election. Reported turnout in the

1992 NES sample is over 70%, while actual voter turnout in that year’s

presidential election was just under 60%. Thus, one can safely assume that

all reported marginal turnout frequencies are artificially inflated. The only

recourse in this instance is to assume, as do virtually all scholars studying

voter turnout, that false reports of participation are spread more or less

evenly through the sample, and thus do not bias significantly empirical

analyses.13

Examining electoral participation beyond voting presents more

options and challenges. The NES contains questions measuring five

different forms of non-voting political participation: writing a letter to a

representative, persuading others to vote for a certain candidate, displaying

a campaign sign, button, or bumper sticker, going to a political meeting or

campaign rally, and giving money to a candidate. In analyzing these data,

two major decisions must be made: which of these five potential dependent

variables to include in the models, and how to combine them if more than

one is to be used. To begin with, it seems logical to exclude contacting

one’s representative from the analysis, as it is the one form of participation

measured that is clearly not electoral. The theory of leadership mobilization

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and group identification outlined above has little relevance for someone

writing a representative to inquire about a late social security check or an

annoying pothole. Thus, one is left with four different types of campaign-

related political activity. For purposes of this analysis, respondents are

classified as having engaged in “other” (non-voting) participation if they

report having done any of these four things (persuaded others, displayed a

sign, gone to a rally, or given money).14 This method results in 40% of the

sample being classified as participators, a clearly smaller subset of the 73%

who report having voted in the election. Thus, it is hoped that this variable

will capture a level of political engagement greater than that implied by

turnout alone, and provide a more comprehensive view of the relationship

between group identification and political participation.

Analysis

Tables 1 and 2 report marginal frequencies of political participation

by strength of group identification and candidate preference for women,

evangelicals, and African Americans. Table 1 presents frequencies for

reported voter turnout, while Table 2 tallies reported engagement in non-

voting electoral activities, as discussed above. In keeping with the

hypotheses previously outlined, rates of participation (voting and otherwise)

should be greater among those respondents who are both strong identifiers

and who support the group’s preferred candidate than among those who

possess only one of these attributes. While the theory presented here has

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less to say about those respondents who are neither close identifiers with

the group nor supporters of the group’s preferred candidate, the general

expectation would be that their levels of participation should also fall short

of those observed among the highly identified supporters of the group-

preferred candidate. The most important comparisons in these tables,

though, are between the numbers in the top right cell and those in the top

left and bottom right cells.

In this initial cross-tabulation, clear patterns consistent with the

hypotheses offered emerge. Looking first at the voter turnout numbers

reported in Table 1, it is clear that the combination of strong group

identification and support for the group’s preferred candidate combine to

increase political participation. Among women, these individuals are at

least 7% more likely to vote than those in any other cell, and the differences

among evangelicals and blacks are larger still (8% and 18%, respectively).15

In all three cases, differences in reported turnout between those who are

both strong identifiers and supporters of the group-preferred candidate and

those who possess only one of these attributes are statistically significant.

Moreover, in a competitive electoral system where group leaders can

decisively influence an election by elevating their group’s turnout by a few

percentage points, these differences are substantively quite important.

Discarding the unreliable figure for low-identity blacks who do not support

Clinton (based as it is on a tiny number of respondents), these strongly-

identified supporters are clearly the most likely to vote in all three groups

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examined. Additionally, those individuals who only support the group’s

preferred candidate or who only exhibit strong group identification are

indistinguishable in turnout rates from those respondents who do neither.

Thus, in this initial look at voter turnout, the numbers strongly suggest that

the interaction of individual candidate preference and strength of group

identification is critical to understanding group-based mobilization.

[INSERT TABLES 1 AND 2 HERE]

Turning to Table 2, which reports frequencies of non-voting electoral

participation, one finds a similar (though somewhat less clear) pattern. As

with voter turnout, respondents who combine strong group identification

with support for the group’s preferred candidate are the most likely to

participate in all three group contexts (again discarding the questionable

small-sample cell of African Americans), with particularly dramatic effects

among evangelicals. Evangelicals who are both strong religious identifiers

and supporters of George Bush are fully 13% more likely than any other

evangelicals to engage in non-voting political participation. The effects

among women and African Americans, while consistent with the

hypotheses, appear somewhat more modest. Nonetheless, the basic pattern

predicted by the theory and reflected in the turnout numbers is present

here as well—the interaction of strong group identity and support for the

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“right” candidate acts to promote political activity on the part of group

members.

While these results strongly suggest that group identity and candidate

choice together play a significant role in motivating political participation,

they clearly do not take into account all of the important factors influencing

turnout. To assert with confidence that this interaction effect is indeed

significant in individuals’ participation decisions requires multivariate

modeling with appropriate controls. Such models of voter turnout are

presented in Tables 3, 4, and 5. Each is a probit model of reported turnout,

among women, evangelicals, and blacks, respectively. All three models are

identical, and seek to capture the central factors known to influence an

individual’s likelihood of voting. To begin with, the models control for

education, income, and age, the three demographic factors known to most

powerfully influence participation rates (Glenn and Grimes 1968; Bennett

and Klecka 1970; Verba and Nie 1972; Milbrath and Goel 1977; Wolfinger

and Rosenstone 1980). Additionally, there are variables measuring marital

status, region of residence, urban residence, and length of residence16,

reflecting Wolfinger and Rosenstone’s (1980) observation that single

people, Southerners, rural dwellers, and people who move frequently are

less likely to vote than are other citizens. As control variables, each model

contains terms for membership in the other groups examined in this study.17

There is also in each model a dummy variable for the presence of a U.S.

Senate race in the respondent’s state during the 1992 electoral cycle, on

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the assumption that participation might be higher among those who had

more high-profile races to potentially engage their attention and interest.

Finally, the models contain a measure of the respondent’s strength of

partisanship, based on the well-documented fact that strong adherents of

either party are more likely to vote than less attached individuals (Campbell

et al. 1960; Teixeira 1987). All in all, the turnout models are very much in

keeping with the work of both Wolfinger and Rosenstone (1980) and

Teixeira (1987, 1992), incorporating the standard factors of demographics,

social structure, and partisanship and adding to them the key variables of

interest for my hypotheses.

The critical variables from a theoretical standpoint are the last three

presented in each table. These are measures of the respondent’s strength

of identification with the group, his candidate preference, and the

interaction of the two.18 The presence of these three terms allows for a test

of a variety of competing hypotheses about groups and turnout. If

Uhlaner’s (1989) model is essentially correct, then none of the three terms

should be significant; the mobilizing effects of leadership appeals should be

spread relatively evenly through the group population, and not contingent

on strength of identification or candidate preference. If only the strength of

group identification term is significant, this would tend to support the

approach outlined by Gurin et al. (1980) and Shingles (1981), who argue

that psychological attachment to the social group is the prime motivator of

participation. By contrast, if only the term measuring support for the

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group-dominant candidate is significant, none of the theoretical approaches

discussed here would be able to account fully for the result. Finally,

however, if the interaction term is the sole or prime motivator of turnout in

the models, this would lend considerable support to the modified, more

nuanced theoretical approach that I have outlined above.

6 One could argue that women are too large and heterogeneous a group, with too diffuse a national “leadership,” to be analyzed in the same way as African Americans and evangelical Christians. While it is certainly the case that women exhibit more diversity in partisanship and ideology than either of the other two groups, it is also true that they have in the aggregate differed substantially from men in issue positions and vote choice for at least two decades now, and that the set of organizations conventionally referred to as “women’s groups” are fairly cohesive in their ideology and candidate preference. If anything, including a group as heterogeneous as women in the analysis provides a more difficult test for my hypotheses. If the participation effects that I postulate are found among women (as well as among the other two groups in the analysis), then one can infer with a high degree of confidence that they exist among smaller, more tightly-knit groups as well.

7 While more recent NES presidential election-year data (from 1996) are available, the 1992 data are preferable for two important reasons. First, the sample is considerably larger, including 2500 respondents (vs. 1700 in 1996). This is particularly valuable in increasing the size of the African American sub-sample. Additionally, the 1992 study has much better items on gender issues, including various measures of feminist identification that are absent in the 1996 study. Running the same basic models using the 1996 data confirms all of the major findings presented here, and results are available from the author.

8 The relatively small sample size of African Americans, while common to nearly all major national surveys, is nonetheless troublesome. One solution to this problem is to use the 1996 National Black Election Study, with a sample of over 1000 African Americans, for analyses of black racial identity. However, because the questions, interview contexts, and sample frames in the NES and NBES are not directly comparable, only NES data analysis is presented here. Thus, results presented for blacks must be seen as somewhat tentative, with large standard errors possibly attenuating significant results.

9 The Green et al. classification scheme that I have employed here relies primarily on respondents’ self-professed identification with specific religious denominations, and is almost identical to that followed by Leege and Kellstedt (1993). Among the most common denominational affiliations of evangelicals are Southern Baptist, Assemblies of God, Missouri Synod Lutheran, and Church of Christ. For the complete list of which denominations are coded as evangelical, see Green et al. (1996). It should be noted that this classification method essentially excludes blacks from being classified as evangelicals. This is consistent with the general practice among scholars of religion and politics, who maintain that the black church, despite some similarities in worship style with white evangelicals, is really sui generis, deserving its own classification (see Lincoln and Mamiya 1990).

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Tables 3, 4, and 5 report both probit coefficients and maximum effects

for all variables.19 As expected, income, education and age emerge as very

powerful predictors of voter turnout (though income is not statistically

significant among African Americans). Likewise, southern members of all

three groups are less likely to vote than their counterparts living elsewhere

10 Additionally, Verba et al. (1995) employ similar “closeness” measures in their large-scale civic participation survey in an attempt to capture group consciousness.

11 The exact question wording is as follows: “Here is a list of groups. Please read over the list and tell me the letter for those groups you feel particularly close to—people who are most like you in their ideas and interests and feelings about things.” Respondents could select as many (or as few) groups as they wished from the following list: poor people, Asian-Americans, liberals, the elderly, blacks, labor unions, feminists, southerners, business people, young people, conservatives, Hispanic-Americans, women, working-class people, whites, and middle-class people. Women and blacks who selected their own group as one to which they felt close are coded as high identifiers; those who did not are coded as low identifiers. In both cases, the proportion of high to low identifiers is around two to one, a bit lower for women and a bit higher for blacks.

12 In reality, however, the two concepts are closely linked. In practice, when both closeness measures and feeling thermometer ratings are available, they can generally be used interchangeably without substantially altering the empirical results. For the two groups in this study for which feeling thermometers are available, one can construct continuous measures of group affect. Substituting these measures for the dichotomous closeness items in the analyses to follow does not in any way change the central findings of this research. Given that results under the two specifications are quite similar, and that the feeling thermometer measure taps affect more than identity, is unavailable for evangelicals, and would depart from previous research, I have chosen to stay with the admittedly imperfect closeness items as measures of group identification.

13 Another complementary solution, employed here, is to conduct accompanying analysis of non-voting forms of electoral participation, for which there is much less normative social pressure (giving money, going to meetings, etc.). If the same patterns emerge in both sets of analyses, one can have more confidence in the validity of the turnout models.

14 An alternative strategy would be to construct an additive scale, ranging from 0 to 4, measuring the number of forms of non-voting participation that an individual reports having engaged in. However, since 85% of respondents report 1 or fewer forms, and 93% report 2 or fewer, the simpler (and, it is argued, more analytically appropriate) dichotomous specification is employed instead.

15 Given that the turnout numbers for all groups are somewhat inflated, there is good reason to believe that the actual marginal increase in voting produced by the interaction of strong group identification and support for the group-preferred candidate is in fact greater than the figure reported here, as effects can be attenuated when the purported turnout for almost all groups in the sample is close to 75% or higher. Thus, the figures presented here represent conservative estimates of the key variables’ impact on turnout.

22

in the United States. Somewhat surprisingly, none of the other

demographic measures (marital status, length of residence, gender, etc.) is

significant in more than one of the models. Also, the presence of a Senate

race in the respondent’s state does not seem to exert a mobilizing force; in

fact, in the one model where it is significant (for evangelicals), it is actually

16 Length of residence is logged in these models, to capture the effect of diminishing returns. The marginal effect on likelihood of participation of a person’s 2nd year in a community should be much greater than that of his 32nd year.

17 Because the classification scheme used here results in no overlap between blacks and evangelicals, models for these groups contain only a control for gender.

18 All three measures are dichotomous. As discussed previously, group identification is divided into high and low. Candidate choice is coded 1 if the respondent professes support for the group’s preferred candidate, 0 if he supports any other candidate. Finally, the interaction term is coded 1 for those who are both high identifiers and supporters of the preferred candidate, and 0 for all others.

1Notes? In both of these cases, the increased turnout was spurred by intensive mobilization efforts on the part of group leadership. In 1998, for example, Jesse Jackson and other black leaders ran advertisements on black radio stations and in black newspapers across the country urging group solidarity and heightened participation, emphasizing that blacks as a group could and should make a difference in the outcome of the congressional elections (Abramson et al. 1999). 3 One exception is Shingles (1981), who argues that strongly identified African Americans participate politically more than the weakly identified primarily because of an increased sense of political efficacy. His work, however, represents more a departure from the ethnic community approach than an extension of it.

4 Of course, group members are consistently more likely to favor the chosen candidate of the group leadership than are non-members, and strongly-identified members are more likely to support the preferred candidate than are weakly-identified ones (patterns confirmed among all three groups examined in this study). Indeed, for the same reasons that leadership communications should disproportionately influence strong identifiers in issue attitudes and political participation, they should tend to shape candidate preferences as well (though an examination of the dynamics of this process is beyond the scope of this study). In any event, there is observed diversity in candidate preference even among strongly-identified members of relatively homogeneous groups.

5 This stipulation that strong group identity will only increase political participation among those who support the group’s preferred candidate is critical, because it accounts for an important difference between the theory and findings presented here and those in Verba et al. (1995). Verba et al., in their models of political participation, find that group identity or consciousness has little impact on the likelihood that an individual will participate in

23

negative. Finally, consistent with previous work, higher levels of

partisanship are clearly associated with an increased likelihood of voting

among all three groups examined.

[INSERT TABLES 3, 4, AND 5 HERE]

Turning to the results of theoretical interest, the pattern is clear,

strong, and unmistakable. Among all three groups, strong group

identification and support for the group’s preferred candidate interact to

increase significantly the likelihood that an individual will vote.20 The

magnitude of the effect for all groups is appreciable, ranging from a 9%

increase in turnout probability among women to a 12% increase among

African Americans. Clearly, shifts of this size in group turnout numbers

would have dramatic consequences for American electoral politics. Equally

important, neither strong group identification nor support for the preferred

candidate by themselves have any appreciable mobilizing impact. In other

politics. They themselves term this finding “puzzling,” and are unable to offer a clear explanation. As I argue here, however, the key factor may be the absence from their models of an interaction between group identification and support for the group’s preferred candidate. The theory and results presented here are perfectly consistent with their findings—group identity alone is generally insufficient to increase participation significantly. Only when one considers the crucial interaction term, absent from their analysis, does one get a clear picture of the relationship between group identification and political activity.

19 Maximum effects represent the change in probability of voting produced by shifting the variable from its minimum to its maximum, while holding all other variables equal at their means. For dichotomous variables, this is simply a shift from 0 to 1; for other variables, it reflects the difference between the lowest and highest observed values in the data set.

20 This is clearly not a spurious effect of support for the winning candidate, as the same pattern holds among evangelicals (with support for Bush) as among women and blacks (with support for Clinton).

24

words, possessing one of these attributes without the other does not make

an individual any more likely to vote than someone possessing neither. In

fact, the coefficient for group identification alone is negative in all three

models, significantly so in the case of African Americans (producing a

strong 19% decline in the likelihood of voting). This suggests that those

individuals who feel strongly attached to a social group but who, for

whatever reason, do not support the “right” candidate may in fact be

disinclined to vote (though this effect is only confirmed here among blacks).

In any event, the pattern of results is clear: the positive effects of group

identification on voter turnout are entirely contingent on an individual’s

support for the candidate preferred by the group leadership.

The same analysis is extended to other forms of political participation

with the models reported in Tables 6, 7, and 8. Once again, women,

evangelicals, and blacks are modeled separately. The independent

variables are exactly the same as those in the turnout models, described

above, as the same factors that promote voting have generally been shown

to contribute to other forms of electoral participation as well (Verba and Nie

1972; Rosenstone and Hansen 1993). Here, as previously mentioned, the

dependent variable is a dichotomous measure of whether the respondent

engaged in any form of non-voting campaign activity during the 1992

election (persuading others, putting a sign in the yard, going to a rally,

giving money to a candidate, etc.). Once again, each model contains

measures of strong group identification, support for the group’s preferred

25

candidate, and the interaction of the two, with the same theoretical

expectations as in the turnout models.

[INSERT TABLES 6, 7, AND 8 HERE]

Results from these models of non-voting electoral participation are

less uniform, but still generally consistent with those from the turnout

models. Education is again a major predictor of participation, though

income and especially age play less of a role here than they do in voter

turnout. No other demographic factors show any consistent pattern of

effects. For women and evangelicals, the effects of group identification and

candidate preference are exactly as they are in the turnout models, and of

even greater magnitude. In both cases, strong group attachments and

support for the preferred candidate exert no independent mobilizing force,

but combine to substantially increase the likelihood of participation among

group members. Women who both have strong gender identity and support

Clinton are 12% more likely than other women to engage in some form of

campaign activity. Likewise, evangelicals with strong religious identity who

support Bush are 13% more likely than other evangelicals to participate.

These results strongly reinforce the logic of group-based mobilization

suggested by the turnout models. The results for blacks, however, are less

dramatic. As shown in Table 8, the coefficient on the interaction term is in

the right direction, but not statistically significant; moreover, the maximum

26

effects are more modest than in the turnout model for blacks. One possible

explanation for this anomalous result is the construction of the dependent

variable—blacks are much less likely than whites to give money to

candidates as a form of electoral participation, even after controlling for

income.21 Indeed, an alternative model run among African Americans with a

modified dependent variable (dropping financial contribution, and tallying

only the other, time-based forms of political participation) does produce

significant results, a finding consistent with the claim of Verba et al. that

financial contribution is driven by somewhat different factors than other

forms of non-voting participation. For the sake of consistency and

comparability with the other groups, the model with the full, unmodified

dependent variable is presented here, but one should bear in mind that

there is some evidence of an essentially similar interaction between group

identity and candidate preference at work in spurring non-voting electoral

participation among African Americans as well.

27

Discussion

The findings presented here shed considerable light on how an

individual’s sense of attachment to a social group interacts with his own

candidate preference to influence his likelihood of participation in electoral

politics. Contrary to the logic underlying Uhlaner’s (1989) formal model,

leadership mobilization efforts are not uniformly effective across the whole

spectrum of group members; rather, they influence disproportionately

certain identifiable sub-segments of the group. Likewise, the mediating

variable of group consciousness, highlighted by Gurin et al. (1980), Shingles

(1981), and the proponents of ethnic community and social identity theory,

does not by itself offer any additional insight into intra-group differences in

political mobilization, a finding consistent with the work of Verba et al.

(1995). Instead, a more complex psychological dynamic is at work, in which

individuals respond to group-based mobilization appeals only if they are

both strong identifiers with the group and in agreement with the group

leadership on candidate choice. This is a fuller and more logically plausible

account of group identity and political participation than that offered in

previous work. Moreover, the fact that the same dynamic seems to operate

in three very different groups (women, evangelicals, and blacks) and in both

voting and non-voting forms of electoral participation suggests that it is

indeed a broad-based, generally applicable phenomenon. All three groups

28

were the subjects of intense leadership mobilization efforts in 1992, and all

three responded as predicted by the theory.

The theory and results presented here should be seen as an important

modification, rather than a rejection, of Uhlaner’s model and of the earlier

work on group consciousness and participation. The logic of how leaders

can mobilize group members by increasing the consumption benefits of

voting is still applicable, as is the psychology of loyalty and mobilization

underlying the ethnic community and social identity theories. Indeed, both

are critical components of the theoretical argument presented in this study,

helping to explain why one might expect group identification to be

associated with political participation in the first place. As shown here,

though, neither is a completely satisfactory account of the relationship. The

introduction of individual candidate preferences into the account illustrates

the limited circumstances under which one might expect the logic set forth

in previous work to apply. Clearly, group identification can be a powerful

spur to political participation, but in a much more nuanced way than has

previously been recognized.

29

TABLE 1Turnout Rates by Group ID and Candidate

Preference

Women

Low Gender ID High Gender ID

Support Clinton 79% 86%

Support Other 78% 79%

Evangelicals

Low Religious ID High Religious ID

Support Bush 74% 82%


Blacks

Low Racial ID High Racial ID



30

TABLE 2Other Participation by Group ID and Candidate

Preference

Women

Low Gender ID High Gender ID



Evangelicals

Low Religious ID High Religious ID

Support Bush 45% 60%


Blacks

Low Racial ID High Racial ID


31


TABLE 3Probit Model of Turnout Among Women

Independent Variable Coefficient (S.E.) Max. Effect

Constant -1.828 (0.321) *** ----------

Education 0.288 (0.047) *** 0.424Income 0.043 (0.011) *** 0.273Age 0.016 (0.003) *** 0.291Married 0.071 (0.129) 0.019

Southern Residence -0.288 (0.128) ** -0.081Urban Residence 0.011 (0.040) 0.015Length of Residence 0.088 (0.052) ** 0.111

Black 0.018 (0.184) 0.005Evangelical 0.131 (0.129) 0.035

Senate Race in State -0.018 (0.122) -0.005Strength of Party ID 0.163 (0.070) *** 0.091

High Gender ID -0.141 (0.145) -0.038Clinton Supporter 0.135 (0.134) 0.037High Gender ID * Clinton Supp. 0.325 (0.178) ** 0.081

32

N = 796 *** p < .01, one-tailed test2 = 165.12 ** p < .05, one-tailed test

* p < .10, one-tailed test

TABLE 4Probit Model of Turnout Among Evangelicals


Constant -1.965 (0.459) *** ----------

Education 0.251 (0.061) *** 0.396Income 0.046 (0.014) *** 0.316Age 0.020 (0.005) *** 0.362Married -0.065 (0.169) -0.019

Southern Residence -0.319 (0.156) ** -0.095Urban Residence 0.013 (0.061) 0.016Length of Residence 0.083 (0.071) 0.112

Female 0.265 (0.151) ** 0.080

Senate Race in State -0.283 (0.161) ** -0.081Strength of Party ID 0.231 (0.093) *** 0.139

High Religious ID -0.083 (0.178) -0.024Bush Supporter 0.037 (0.195) 0.009

33

High Religious ID * Bush Supp. 0.444 (0.246) ** 0.107



TABLE 5Probit Model of Turnout Among Blacks


Constant -2.235 (0.818) *** ----------

Education 0.547 (0.121) *** 0.734Income 0.013 (0.023) 0.096Age 0.022 (0.009) *** 0.451Married 0.121 (0.268) 0.039

Southern Residence -0.331 (0.246) * -0.106Urban Residence 0.017 (0.075) 0.028Length of Residence 0.043 (0.120) 0.063

Female 0.081 (0.250) 0.026

34

Senate Race in State 0.015 (0.260) 0.005Strength of Party ID 0.267 (0.155) ** 0.184

High Racial ID -0.844 (0.399) ** -0.187Clinton Supporter -0.276 (0.358) -0.083High Racial ID * Clinton Supp. 1.184 (0.354) *** 0.117



TABLE 6Probit Model of Other Participation Among Women


Constant -0.597 (0.265) ** ----------

Education 0.105 (0.034) *** 0.242Income 0.013 (0.009) * 0.115Age -0.002 (0.002) -0.057Married 0.050 (0.108) 0.019

Southern Residence -0.144 (0.111) * -0.055

35

Urban Residence -0.024 (0.035) -0.046Length of Residence -0.064 (0.044) -0.111

Black -0.312 (0.160) ** -0.116Evangelical 0.178 (0.111) ** 0.069

Senate Race in State 0.140 (0.104) * 0.053Strength of Party ID 0.081 (0.058) * 0.062

High Gender ID -0.121 (0.125) -0.047Clinton Supporter -0.032 (0.119) -0.012High Gender ID * Clinton Supp. 0.296 (0.153) ** 0.116



TABLE 7Probit Model of Other Participation Among

Evangelicals


Constant 0.291 (0.387) * ----------

36

Education 0.013 (0.048) 0.031Income 0.020 (0.013) * 0.182Age -0.004 (0.004) -0.115Married -0.042 (0.151) -0.017

Southern Residence -0.054 (0.135) -0.022Urban Residence 0.071 (0.052) 0.141Length of Residence -0.142 (0.063) ** -0.246

Female -0.277 (0.129) ** -0.110

Senate Race in State -0.032 (0.139) -0.013Strength of Party ID 0.057 (0.080) 0.045

High Religious ID -0.036 (0.166) -0.014Bush Supporter -0.309 (0.183) ** -0.123High Religious ID * Bush Supp. 0.577 (0.225) *** 0.128



TABLE 8Probit Model of Other Participation Among Blacks

37


Constant -1.419 (0.702) ** ----------

Education 0.194 (0.074) *** 0.405Income -0.005 (0.021) -0.039Age 0.005 (0.007) 0.129Married 0.152 (0.235) 0.052

Southern Residence 0.007 (0.224) 0.002Urban Residence 0.148 (0.070) ** 0.237Length of Residence 0.008 (0.103) 0.012

Female -0.190 (0.213) -0.066

Senate Race in State -0.171 (0.233) -0.060Strength of Party ID -0.066 (0.139) -0.046

High Racial ID -0.295 (0.381) -0.106Clinton Supporter 0.253 (0.365) 0.082High Racial ID * Clinton Supp. 0.231 (0.334) 0.054



38

21 The 1992 NES data reveal this difference to be quite striking. Whites are four times as likely as blacks to contribute financially to a political campaign. Indeed, black respondents who report having given money to a candidate in the 1992 election cycle number in the single digits.

39

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