Group Theory Of Parties

An emerging narrative contends that 2016 was significant for bridging identity politics and American party conflict. This narrative misses a fundamental truth: for ordinary Americans, partisan identity has always been grounded in their orientations toward groups in society. The group theory of parties holds that citizens evaluate political parties according to their social stereotypes of Democrats and Republicans, ultimately identifying (or not) with a party that jives with their own self-image. In this essay, I review existing research and summarize several original studies suggesting that citizens' beliefs about party composition affect their feelings toward Democrats and Republicans. Americans tend to hold shockingly erroneous beliefs about the degree to which stereotypical groups compose the parties - for example, that 38% of Republicans belong to the economic "1%" - and correcting social stereotypes about the out-party reduces polarization between rank-and-file party supporters. Most studies discussed in this essay were conducted before Donald Trump became a candidate, suggesting that 2016 was not the year that identity politics hijacked the parties, but rather the year in which the implicit group basis for mass partisanship became baldly explicit.