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Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci. 2015.18:205-216. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
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Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci. 2015. 18:205–16 Keywords

First published online as a Review in Advance on public opinion, polarization, political values, political behavior,
December 17, 2014
measurement
The Annual Review of Political Science is online at
polisci.annualreviews.org Abstract
This article’s doi: Over 50 years of research into American political ideology have left scholars
10.1146/annurev-polisci-060314-115422
with a contested paradigm. One side argues that the mass public is distinctly
Copyright c 2015 by Annual Reviews. nonideological. The other side argues that ideological thinking is not beyond
All rights reserved
the public. The way forward for research in political ideology does not lie
in rehashing this debate but in advancing two new areas of work. The first
considers the role that values and principles play in determining the political
and ideological thinking of individuals. The second questions the current
conception and measurement standards of political ideology. This research
argues that ideology among the American mass public is formed by positions
along two related but separate dimensions. In this article, we summarize the
major arguments of and criticisms of current ideology research. Then we
discuss recent research on principles and values and the measurement of
ideology.
205
INTRODUCTION
The concept of political ideology, the idea that political opinions and attitudes are linked together
in a coherent system, has been theorized as particularly important for a well-functioning democ-
racy. Politically competent and constrained citizens are needed to provide clear inputs to set public
policy. If citizens hold ever-changing and inconsistent attitudes that lack any overall structure,
it becomes difficult for representatives to interpret the demands and wants of constituents. The
importance of ideology is further highlighted in the wide range of empirical research showing
how ideological structures affect individual behavior. This work explores how ideology influences
individual evaluations of candidates (Conover & Feldman 1981, Federico & Schneider 2007) and
issues ( Jacoby 1991, Jost 2006), as well as a person’s general philosophical attitudes (Evans et al.
1996, Federico & Sidanius 2002, Feldman 2003).
Despite ideology’s centrality to traditional versions of textbook democracy and to a large
segment of empirical research, Converse (1964) found that the American public is distinctly
nonideological. Except for political elites and the most politically involved citizens, Converse
claimed that the public is characterized by “ideological innocence,” in the words of Kinder
(1998). During the last several decades, this picture of a nonideological American public has
been contested by others suggesting that ideology may not in fact be beyond the grasp of average
Americans (Layman & Carsey 2002, Jost 2006, Abramowitz & Saunders 2008). But even in the
face of this new evidence, the level of ideological thinking among the public remains contested.
The debate over ideology in its current form is unproductive and misguided. Debates over
the ideological character of the public provide no new insights for scholars. Also, this work often
forces individuals into the liberal–conservative structure prevalent among political elites, contrary
to evidence that ideology among the American public is more complicated (Carmines et al. 2012a).
This conceptual and measurement problem has pervaded the research on the consequences of
ideological thinking. If the basic measurement of ideology is flawed, it is likely that insights from
research into both the ideological character of the public and the consequences of ideological
thinking cannot be trusted. Without reliable measurement, the level of ideological thinking is
likely being underestimated, and the relationships between ideology and individual opinions are
more complicated and contingent than they appear.
We suggest that the most fruitful way forward is not to continue rehashing the current argu-
ments over the strength of ideological thinking, but to reconsider the framing of the debate. Recent
work along these lines suggests two major ideas: (a) that attitudes in the public could be based
on political values and principles rather than ideology and (b) that ideology is being incorrectly
conceptualized and measured because it is treated as unidimensional rather than multidimensional.
In this review article, we briefly discuss the foundations of the concept of political ideology.
We then review the empirical research on the ideological character of the American public and
the behavioral consequences of ideological thinking. Then we discuss recent research considering
alternative conceptions and measures of mass ideology. These include the use of political values
and principles as well as multidimensional ideology. We conclude with our suggestions for how
this latest wave of research can (a) help scholars better understand the actual level of ideological
thinking among the public, (b) specify more contingent theories on how ideology interacts with
individual beliefs and perceptions, and (c) generate new questions that can be answered.
THE BASIC CONCEPT

Political ideology, as laid out by the authors of The American Voter, consists of a set of intercon-
nected and stable beliefs that describe an individual’s general political worldview (Campbell et al.
206 Carmines · D’Amico

1960). Building on the findings of The American Voter, Converse (1964) more generally considered
ideology as a type of belief system, which is any configuration of ideas or attitudes that are bound
together in a form of interdependence. Some scholars additionally emphasize the shared nature of
ideology. That is, ideology communicates a common way a particular group or community views
the world and believes it should be structured (Denzau & North 1994).
The group nature of ideology has often been emphasized in the political science literature, with
most scholars considering ideology not an idiosyncratic belief or set of beliefs but a worldview
shared by many.1 Additionally, political ideology has often been conceived in terms of a single
left–right dimension. Traditionally, the left–right, or liberal–conservative, dimension provided a
measure of an individual’s preferences concerning change versus stability. Other authors, particu-
larly within American politics, have suggested that this single dimension is actually a combination
of two different preferences ( Jost et al. 2003). First is a preference over change versus stability
as related to society. To what extent do current hierarchical structures need to be preserved or
altered? Second is a preference concerning the government’s role in the economy. What is the
appropriate degree of government intervention in the economy? Even though the left–right spec-
trum consists of preferences over these two different domains, research shows that for political
elites and the most politically informed and involved citizens they are highly correlated with one
another (Poole & Rosenthal 2007), such that some argue they collapse to a single dimension.
Thus, political ideology is a set of interconnected beliefs, held by a group of individuals, which
explains their preferences on individual political issues that vary along a single liberal–conservative
dimension.
AN IDEOLOGICAL OR NONIDEOLOGICAL PUBLIC?

In studying ideology of both the mass public and political elites, Converse (1964) examined two
characteristics of attitudes in belief systems, attitude centrality and range. He argued that in
political belief systems some attitudes are held more strongly and the number of political attitudes
held varies. Converse used the concept of constraint to tie these characteristics together and
identify ideological thinking. Constraint is the idea that attitudes are linked and interdependent,
such that holding one belief should be accompanied by holding another belief. For example, an
individual who supports increased spending for education should also favor more spending for
health care because both attitudes indicate a liberal belief in an enhanced role for government.
Thus, ideological individuals hold some centrally important beliefs that are connected to other
attitudes in a wide-ranging system.
Using repeated measures comparing political elites to the mass public, Converse found that
the vast majority of the population is nonideological in its political attitudes. First, he considered
whether the mass public conceptualizes politics in ideological terms. The public fails at this highest
level of ideological thinking, as Converse found that people do not mention ideology in their
political opinions and evaluations, but rather use social groups or political candidates as their
bases of reference. Converse next considered the possibility that even though members of the
mass public do not use ideological terms, they might recognize and understand the concepts.
Here again the public failed, with most unable to recognize the ideological orientation of various
candidates or parties.
With evidence that the public failed to use, recognize, or understand ideological thinking,
Converse next considered whether, at the very least, individuals’ opinions were correlated in a
1
Exceptions of course exist, the most prominent being the work of Lane (1962).
www.annualreviews.org • Political Ideology 207

way that indicated ideological constraint. Again, the public failed the test. Looking at the connec-
tion between related issues, Converse found that the mass public had much smaller correlations
compared to the elite sample. Even more troubling, opinions of the mass public possessed very
low stability over time. Although their partisan affiliations were stable, it appeared as if individuals
were choosing opinions almost at random. Thus, for Converse, no matter how the question was
framed, the consistent and constant answer was that the vast majority of the mass public lacked
any form of ideological belief system or thinking.
CRITIQUES OF “THE NATURE OF BELIEF SYSTEMS

IN MASS PUBLICS”
Although Converse’s view as expressed in “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics” became
the conventional wisdom in political science, over the next few decades three alternative theories
emerged to challenge the idea of an unsophisticated and nonideological public. One theory centers
on the political context in the United States when Converse performed his study. The authors
of The Changing American Voter (Nie et al. 1976) argue that ideological thinking in the public
significantly expanded from an all-time low during the 1950s, when Converse conducted his study.
Using similar measures, they find increased levels of ideological constraint among voters. They
explain this increase as a result of changing political context. Politics in the 1950s, immediately
following World War II, was much more consensual, with a large degree of policy agreement
between the parties. Going into the 1960s, more significant divisions began to emerge between
the parties, bringing with them increased ideological thinking on the part of voters.
This first critique is extended by Abramowitz (2010), who argues that ideological thinking has
seen a rapid increase among the US public in recent years. Due to changes in both the geographic
and demographic makeup of the country, Abramowitz sees evidence that the American public is be-
coming more and more polarized in its voting and attitudes. The growing population of nonwhite
voters has become more consistently liberal, as have younger voters. Abramowitz goes further in
his search for mass ideology by measuring the connectedness of the public’s policy opinions.
According to data from the 2008 election, a majority of voters were found at opposite sides
on issues, rather than in the center. Additionally, opinions on these issues tended to be closely
connected. Using climate change as an example, Abramowitz shows that those with extreme views
outnumbered those with centrist views 41% to 28% (2010, pp. 599–600). Also, those who took a
liberal position on climate change were very likely to take a liberal position on health care, with
a similar pattern emerging for conservatives. This evidence is a strong indication of the type of
ideological constraint Converse sought but did not find in his original study.
Another alternative to Converse came from Lane (1962). Rather than using surveys, Lane
used in-depth interviews with a small number of working-class men in one neighborhood to
probe the deep structure of political thinking. Lane argued, among other things, that scholars
should not make assumptions about what belief systems should look like. For instance, Converse’s
work excluded personality and social structure, two centrally important factors for Lane, from
belief systems. Although ideology in the mass public does not look like ideology employed by
political elites, that evidence does not necessarily mean ideology is absent among the public.
In his interviews, Lane found that many individuals do have a form of ideological thinking but
their ideology is not constrained by the standard liberal–conservative ideological framework that
characterizes elites.
Rather, ideology in the public is constrained by how people think of themselves and society. This
ideology includes ideas about who should rule, moral codes, and fundamental personal values, as
well as attitudes toward equality, freedom, and democracy. For example, individuals who strongly

believe in personal freedoms believe both that same-sex marriage should be allowed and that
citizens should be free to own firearms. Although these attitudes would be seen as incompatible
according to conventional ideological definitions, they are a natural combination when considering
individualized ideological dimensions. Lane’s (1962) findings were criticized as not generalizable
to the wider population due to his small, nonrandom, specialized sample. Chong’s (1993) in-
depth study of how a small number of individuals reason about issues involving civil liberties is
another example of research in this tradition. His findings suggest that ordinary citizens can make
sense of complex problems about civil liberties and constitutional rights but do not do so using
conventional ideological reasoning.
The third alternative theory came from Achen (1975), who approaches Converse’s findings
from a statistical point of view. He argues that individuals hold unstable political opinions and
attitudes that seem to vacillate not because they have no political opinions or because their opin-
ions are only weakly connected to one another but because of the nature of survey questions. To
test this possibility, Achen developed a model designed to partition ideological constraint into
two different sources: the instability of voter’s attitudes and the low reliability of survey questions.
Achen’s purpose was to show that vague and changing survey questions were mainly to blame for
the instability of public attitudes. When this error was corrected for in the analysis, Achen found
stronger levels of stability between individual attitudes. Moreover, once this measurement error
is taken into account, attitude constraint increases as well. Recently, Ansolabehere and coauthors
(2008) have extended Achen’s work by applying well-known reliability estimation procedures to
the observed correlations of respondents’ issue preferences, demonstrating that once the observed
measures are corrected for unreliability, preferences are not only highly stable and tightly con-
strained but affect voting choices to the same degree as party identification.
Zaller (1992) provides a more theoretically grounded account of nonattitudes. Presuming that
most citizens do not hold fixed and reliable political attitudes, Zaller instead offers a top-of-the-
head response model, where individuals often hold opposing and ambivalent political attitudes.
Depending on the wording and order of survey questions, these responses can be altered, with
ambivalent individuals easily being pushed one way or the other based on what considerations the
survey has most immediately brought to mind. Although Zaller provides an explanation of the
finding of nonattitudes, he does not find evidence of ideological thinking, but rather the opposite.
Scholarship on ideology has been shaped by debates not only over the level of ideology that
exists in the American public, but also over the consequences of ideological thinking. Research
has shown that ideology influences individual political behavior and nonpolitical opinions. As
would be expected, ideological individuals give positive evaluations to candidates they recognize
as sharing their ideology. Liberals adopt left-of-center policies and Democratic candidates whereas
conservatives like right-of-center policies and Republican candidates ( Jacoby 1991, Zaller 1992).
Such results are not surprising given the conceptual foundations of ideology. But recent scholarship
complicates this picture by arguing that ideology’s influence on behavior is moderated by two other
important individual-level variables: political expertise and motivation to evaluate political objects.
This research accepts the finding that ideology seems to be beyond the grasp of many citizens. But
it takes a new step in explaining how individuals are able to take the leap to using ideology as an
evaluative tool. It is only when citizens are motivated to evaluate political objects, as a result of either
personality or context (e.g., voting), that scholars will observe the consequences of ideological
thinking (Federico 2004, 2007; Federico & Schneider 2007). This includes ideologically motivated
evaluations of policies and candidates. Interestingly enough, then, scholars should only expect to
consistently find ideological thinking in individuals who have the expertise to think ideologically
and are constantly motivated to do so. Otherwise, ideological thinking will be found only during
times when a need to evaluate political objects is high, such as around elections.

Other scholars have found evidence that ideological thinking predicts a number of nonpolitical
beliefs and values among individuals. Liberals, for example, not only support left-of-center policies
but also tend to hold values of egalitarianism and protection of minority rights (Rokeach 1973,
Feldman 1988, Jost 2006). This research interestingly points to political ideology as a powerful
tool that shapes how individuals think not only about politics but about the world generally. We
will discuss in greater detail these findings and question whether the causal direction that some
describe ( Jost et al. 2009) is the correct interpretation. In addition, the significance of this finding
depends on the continuing debate over just how widespread ideological thinking is among the
mass public.
ENDING THE DEBATE OVER LEVELS OF IDEOLOGICAL THINKING

The increasing ideological polarization between the congressional parties found during the last
four decades has stimulated much research and debate about ideology generally. But whereas
the research on elite ideology has led to a scholarly consensus—indeed, some worry about the
consequences of a rise of ideological extremism among elites—this has not been the case in the
study of mass ideology. On the contrary, the end result of more than 50 years of research into
mass ideology is a still contested paradigm.
Some current research suggests that average Americans are in fact capable of ideological con-
ceptions of politics (Layman & Carsey 2002, Jost 2006, Abramowitz & Saunders 2008). However,
the debate on ideology is not settled. Others continue to present evidence that a nonideological
public is the reality (Feldman 2003, Bishop 2005, Kinder 2006). Some have attributed the recent
polarization in the public to increasingly polarized elites (Fiorina et al. 2010). As political candi-
dates became more and more ideologically distinct, voters sorted themselves into more extreme
positions behind polarized candidates. Thus voter sorting, not ideological polarization, has been
occurring among the American electorate, according to these analysts (Levendusky 2009).
Converse himself has acknowledged that changes in American politics and the public may have
ushered in a more substantial role for ideology in the American electorate, but he argues that the
larger picture remains unchanged (Converse 2006). Many of the above critiques did not directly
refute Converse’s findings but simply tried to reinterpret them. The mass public as portrayed in The
Changing American Voter (Nie et al. 1976), though showing some improvement from Converse’s
portrayal, still has limited ideological capabilities, particularly when compared with elites. Lane’s
(1962) work is unable to show that the public has a firmly structured ideology like elites, but only
that each individual might possess some idiosyncratic ideological thinking.
We agree that ideology is an important topic that requires further scholarship, particularly given
the increasing separation between Democrats and Republicans in Congress. However, there is
little to be gained by rehashing a debate that has still not been resolved after more than 50 years of
political science research. We believe recent research into ideology has suggested two interesting
pathways out of this morass by shifting the terms of the debate. The first agenda suggests an
important role not for the political ideology of the mass public but rather for its political values
and principles. Although some research suggests that ideology plays a role in determining general
values, we question the causal direction of this relationship. We think it is possible that ideology is
actually structured by belief in broad values. Political ideology is thus the downward consequence
of certain personal values.
The second agenda suggests a reconceptualization of what ideology looks like and how it
should be measured. Although this criticism has its origins in previous research, only recently
have scholars found evidence for a public that is ideological in many different ways from the
simple liberal–conservative spectrum discussed above. Rather than the simple, single dimension

that elites map onto, we consider a typology of ideology along two dimensions, which creates four
distinct ideologies rather than the big two.
POLITICAL ATTITUDES AS DETERMINED BY VALUES

AND PRINCIPLES, NOT IDEOLOGY
Values are general beliefs that indicate desirable behaviors but can be applied to many different
situations in guiding specific actions or beliefs (Schwartz 1992). Values are intuitively understood
due to their use in an individual’s daily interactions with others and in viewing the world. Examples
of values include opinions about equality of opportunity, economic individualism, and the free
enterprise system (Feldman 1988). Equality of opportunity is the extent to which an individual
values policies or actions designed to ensure that all people, including racial minorities and women,
are given an equal chance to hold certain positions. Economic individualism is the idea that people
should get ahead through hard work. Support of the free enterprise system is a general distrust of
governmental involvement and preference for free-market solutions to problems.

Feldman’s (1988) research showed that most people hold a variety of political values and that
these values are empirically connected to many political opinions. For example, belief in equality
of opportunity is strongly related to support for welfare or affirmative action policies. Lane (1962)
took a similar approach to understanding the basis of political opinions of the public, but Feldman
investigated the use of values among a large and representative sample with standardized survey
questions, allowing for more generalized conclusions. Feldman’s research has been extended by
other scholars looking at different value dimensions and their consequences for public opinion
(Alvarez & Brehm 1997, Feldman & Steenbergen 2001).
Although this research can explain how individuals reason and form opinions about politics,
fewer scholars have investigated how political values might directly structure adherence to politi-
cal ideology itself. Rokeach (1973) examines how two particular values, attitudes toward equality
and freedom, structure beliefs in four major ideologies of the twentieth century: socialism (high
equality/high freedom), communism (high equality/low freedom), fascism (low equality/low free-
dom), and capitalism (low equality/high freedom). More recently, psychologist Jonathan Haidt
has examined how beliefs in certain dimensions of morality explain adherence to different political
ideologies.
Haidt (2012) has developed five foundations of morality: (a) a care/harm foundation that in-
volves sensitivity to signs of suffering, (b) a fairness/cheating foundation that makes individuals sen-
sitive to cooperation or exploitation, (c) a loyalty/betrayal foundation that involves trust for certain
group members and dislike for those who betray the group, (d ) an authority/subversion foundation
that makes individuals sensitive to signs of rank or status, and finally (e) a sanctity/degradation
foundation that makes individuals wary of a diverse array of symbolic actions that don’t necessarily
directly affect them. Haidt argues that liberal ideologues are notable for their reliance on two of
these dimensions: fairness and care. Conservatives, on the other hand, are sensitive to all five of
these moral dimensions. This diversity explains the emphasis both ideologies place on certain
policies (for example, the importance an individual places on the care foundation would be related
to strong support for social welfare policy) but also gives conservatives a political advantage, says
Haidt. Conservatives will be able to muster greater support for their ideology by supporting poli-
cies that are responsive to a wider range of moral dimensions than liberals, who do not even try
to compete on the other three foundations of morality.
Haidt’s work and the general scholarship relating values to political beliefs show promise in
explaining how individuals who lack any political understanding are able to form responses to
political objects. The paradigm is not without detractors, however. Some recent studies have

shown that values have little additional power in explaining issue opinions when compared to the
effect of ideology ( Jacoby 2006). But this research considers a fairly small number of values, not
the larger number discovered in more recent research.
A related line of recent research focuses on principles rather than values. Goren’s (2013) work
has developed this idea most fully. Goren argues that three key principles, limited government,
traditional morality, and military strength, underlie and structure the specific issue preferences
and choices of voters. Moreover, according to his research, they play a major role in determining
presidential voting decisions and, most surprisingly, are employed as heuristics by the unsophisti-
cated as well as the sophisticated. Finally, and consistent with this last point, Goren finds no deep,
abstract ideological dimension such as the left–right continuum logically or empirically binding
these principles together. Instead, they exist and are employed by voters without regard to such
an underlying dimension and, indeed, largely independent of one another. Principles are less
abstract, narrower, more accessible, and thus make fewer demands on citizens than the ideolog-
ical organization of beliefs. As a consequence, values and principles may be more relevant to the
actual political decision making of ordinary citizens in comparison to the traditional conception
of ideology, which does not represent the political thinking of a large segment of the American
public.
IDEOLOGY ALONG MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS

Since 1972, the American National Elections Study (ANES) has explicitly asked respondents to
place themselves on a seven-point ideological scale ranging from very liberal to very conservative.
Like Converse (1964), who tested whether individuals understood and used these ideological labels,
the ANES intends this question to measure the ideological orientation and strength of individuals.
But some scholars argue that this measure carries implicit problems. Ellis & Stimson (2009, 2012)
argue that ideology has two components, an operational and symbolic aspect. Symbolic ideology
is measured by the ANES question and shows the ideological label individuals prefer to use in
describing themselves. Conover & Feldman (1981) had previously shown that symbolic ideology
had little stability for individuals and was instead an indication of how voters were evaluating
candidates. Operational ideology, by contrast, is the actual array of political attitudes and issue
positions that individuals hold. Ellis & Stimson present evidence that although the public tends
to be symbolically conservative, it is simultaneously operationally liberal.
If individuals can hold simultaneously liberal and conservative beliefs, this indicates not only a
problem with the ANES measure but also that perhaps ideology cannot be simply measured along
a single dimension. Classically, the left–right (liberal–conservative) distinction consisted of two
factors: (a) supporting versus opposing social change and (b) rejecting versus accepting a major role
for government intervention in the economy ( Jost et al. 2003). This single ideological dimension
has been used as a standard to evaluate political thinking across many regions and periods and
American political elites and party activists strongly adhere to it. However, while this dimension
has proven adequate to explain the ideology of our political representatives throughout most of
American history, it falls short for describing the ideological orientations of the wider public. One
of the most prominent arguments is that the liberal–conservative dimension actually consists of
two separate dimensions (Saucier 2000, Layman & Carsey 2002). One is an economic dimension
that relates to governmental intervention in the economy and includes issues such as progressive
taxation, government spending, and redistribution policies. The other is a social dimension that
relates to attitudes toward traditional moral and cultural values and focuses on issues like abortion,
same-sex marriage, and the role of religion in public affairs. Some researchers have gone further
and argued that these dimensions are theoretically distinct and empirically only weakly related

to one another, making it possible to be socially conservative but economically liberal, or vice
versa ( Jost et al. 2009). Carmines et al. (2012a,b) take up this problem, presenting a more detailed
ideological typology. They argue that the current measure of self-identified ideology is really only
a measure of whether individuals are liberal or conservative on both dimensions. This measure
fails to identify individuals who are conservative or liberal on one dimension with the opposite
ideological position on the other. Empirically, these individuals end up clustered as moderates
according to the classic measure. However, individuals with mixed ideological viewpoints are
quite distinct from true moderates and thus should be distinguished from moderates on the one
hand and liberals and conservatives on the other hand.
Using this framework, Carmines et al. discover five different ideological groupings: liberals,
conservatives, moderates, libertarians, and populists. Individuals can be sorted into these categories
according to whether they (a) support or oppose redistribution, social service spending, progressive
taxation, and governmental interference in the economy and (b) defend or oppose traditionally
moralist/religious positions on social and cultural issues. Liberals are those individuals who support
redistribution and governmental spending on social services while opposing traditionally moralist
positions on social and cultural issues. Conservatives are the mirror image of liberals. They oppose
redistribution policies and want to limit governmental size and spending. They tend to be more
religious and supportive of policies that maintain traditional social mores. As would be expected,
liberals tend to identify with and vote for the Democratic Party whereas conservatives identify and
vote with the Republican Party. These two ideological groups conform to the classic definition of
liberal and conservative according to the standard single-dimensional measure.
More interesting are the other ideological varieties. Libertarians are individuals who hold con-
servative views on the economic dimension but liberal views on the social dimension. They favor
limited governmental interference in the lives of individuals across all domains of policy. Liber-
tarians oppose an expansion of governmental spending and interference in the economy. They
also oppose limitations on same-sex marriage and access to abortion. On the whole, libertarians
tend to identify and vote for Republican candidates but not nearly to the extent of conservatives.
Populists have conservative social views but liberal economic views. Although they are proponents
of traditionally moralist policy positions, they also value the increased services that result from a
large, activist government. They support limitations on abortions and same-sex marriage while
also approving of redistribution policies and governmental spending on social services like Social
Security and Medicare. They tend to identify with and vote for Democratic candidates but much
less so than liberals.
Even though libertarians and populists look like moderates according to the single-dimension
measure, they actually hold diametrically opposite policy positions from each other. Moderates
tend to identify as political independents and hold middling, rather than extreme, positions on
both of these policy dimensions. Given these illustrations, it seems clear that the utility of the
classic liberal–conservative ideology measure is limited. It applies readily to political elites and
party activists who conform strongly to classic ideological boundaries, but it falls far short when
describing the mass public.
Miller & Schofield (2008) argue that these labels are not only relevant for the mass public but
also important for political elites. They present evidence that the two major parties have long been
built of coalitions with fractured interests. As these interests wax and wane in their power, the
parties’ positions change as they look to rebuild a stable voting coalition. Such a reality is perfectly
illustrated by the challenges faced by the Republican Party following the 2012 presidential election.
Republicans faced a tension between libertarian-leaning members, who are moderate on social
issues but are extremely conservative on economic issues, and populist-leaning members, who
are moderate on economic policy but are very conservative on social policy. These tensions were

manifested in the many primary challenges to moderate Republican members of Congress, such
as Sen. Richard Lugar, who were defeated by more socially conservative candidates. Shifts in
ideology among the elite are likely to lead to further such alterations, as the parties attempt to
build stable electoral coalitions from an electorate composed not just of liberals and conservatives
but also of moderates, populists, and libertarians (Carmines et al. 2014).
THE TEA PARTY: IDEOLOGY AS VALUE-BASED

AND MULTIDIMENSIONAL
The rise of the Tea Party provides a ready example that demonstrates the value of these new
perspectives on ideology. Research has shown that the Tea Party has played an important and
substantive role in recent electoral politics, especially within the Republican Party. Although Tea
Party candidates have been unable to win in safe Democratic districts and states, the Tea Party has
been able to influence policy, mostly by altering what types of candidates won in safe Republican
districts (Karpowitz et al. 2011).

Conventional views of ideology as a single-dimensional, left–right spectrum experience great
difficulty in understanding or explaining the Tea Party. As other research has shown, the Tea
Party is a loose organization that defies easy categorization. Although typical Tea Party supporters
identify as Republicans or as independents who lean toward the Republican Party, they do not
hold an ideology that is consistently conservative. For example, they are notable opponents of the
Affordable Care Act, seeing it as an unnecessary governmental entitlement program. Yet, they
are strong supporters of other governmental entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Social
Security. Also, many Tea Party supporters do not see social issues such as gay marriage or abortion
as particularly important, particularly when compared to economic issues (Williamson et al. 2011).
The multidimensional view of ideology that we argue for can easily accommodate the Tea
Party, however. Some Tea Party candidates emphasize extremely conservative economic views
while being somewhat moderate on social issues, placing them much closer to libertarians than to
straight-line conservatives. Other members of the Tea Party have very conservative views on social
issues, especially on immigration, but are more moderate on traditional economic issues, which
make them look more like populists. Finally, there are Tea Partiers who are extreme conservatives
across the board, holding exceptionally rightward positions on economic and social issues. Thus,
it takes a multidimensional conception of ideology to capture the diversity of the Tea Party.
Research on values is also helpful in explaining the Tea Party. The little work that has been
done describing the Tea Party has shown an emphasis by Tea Party members on values of hard
work and deservingness. Tea Partiers see some governmental entitlement programs, especially
programs that benefit racial and ethnic minorities and illegal immigrants, as crucial issues because
they perceive these programs as aiding “free loaders,” who have no interest in working for a living,
to the detriment of hard-working, average Americans.
LOOKING FORWARD
Political ideology has regained the attention of political scientists and political psychologists in
recent years. Whereas it once seemed that ideologically oriented belief systems were beyond
the grasp of ordinary citizens because they were too abstract, wide ranging, and interconnected,
new lines of research have led to a reconsideration of the role of ideological thinking in mass
publics. Most importantly, recent research has found that values and principles capture the actual
thinking and reasoning of average citizens better than ideological considerations. Furthermore,
the standard conceptualization and measurement of political ideology as self-identification along

a single dimension have proven of limited use when describing the political views of most citizens
(Carmines et al. 2012a,b).
Yet this does not mean that ideological thinking is impossible for ordinary citizens. On the
contrary, recent research on political values and principles as well as multidimensional conceptions
of ideology suggest that there is an underlying structure to the political thinking of citizens, just
not one that is as simple and elegant as that used by political elites. The political thinking of the
public, this new research suggests, is complex, multidimensional, value-laden, and involves deeply
held principles. It may not be ideological in the traditionally understood sense but it provides an
underlying organization and structure to the political attitudes, evaluations, and preferences held
by millions of American citizens.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
The authors are not aware of any affiliations, memberships, funding, or financial holdings that
might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.
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PL18-FrontMatter ARI 6 April 2015 13:4
Annual Review of
Political Science
Contents Volume 18, 2015
A Conversation with Hanna Pitkin

Hanna Pitkin and Nancy Rosenblum p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 1
Income Inequality and Policy Responsiveness
Robert S. Erikson p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p11

How Do Campaigns Matter?

Gary C. Jacobson p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p31
Electoral Rules, Mobilization, and Turnout
Gary W. Cox p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p49
The Rise and Spread of Suicide Bombing
Michael C. Horowitz p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p69
The Dysfunctional Congress
Sarah Binder p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p85
Political Islam: Theory
Andrew F. March p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 103
Borders, Conflict, and Trade
Kenneth A. Schultz p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 125
From Mass Preferences to Policy
Brandice Canes-Wrone p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 147
Constitutional Courts in Comparative Perspective:
A Theoretical Assessment
Georg Vanberg p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 167
Epistemic Democracy and Its Challenges
Melissa Schwartzberg p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 187
The New Look in Political Ideology Research
Edward G. Carmines and Nicholas J. D’Amico p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 205
The Politics of Central Bank Independence
José Fernández-Albertos p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 217
What Have We Learned about the Resource Curse?
Michael L. Ross p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 239
v
PL18-FrontMatter ARI 6 April 2015 13:4
How Party Polarization Affects Governance

Frances E. Lee p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 261
Migration, Labor, and the International Political Economy
Layna Mosley and David A. Singer p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 283
Law and Politics in Transitional Justice
Leslie Vinjamuri and Jack Snyder p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 303
Campaign Finance and American Democracy
Yasmin Dawood p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 329
Female Candidates and Legislators
Jennifer L. Lawless p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 349
Power Tool or Dull Blade? Selectorate Theory for Autocracies

Mary E. Gallagher and Jonathan K. Hanson p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 367

Realism About Political Corruption
Mark Philp and Elizabeth Dávid-Barrett p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 387
Experiments in International Relations: Lab, Survey, and Field
Susan D. Hyde p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 403
Political Theory as Both Philosophy and History: A Defense Against
Methodological Militancy
Jeffrey Edward Green p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 425
The Empiricists’ Insurgency
Eli Berman and Aila M. Matanock p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 443
The Scope of Comparative Political Theory
Diego von Vacano p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 465
Should We Leave Behind the Subfield of International Relations?
Dan Reiter p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 481
Indexes
Cumulative Index of Contributing Authors, Volumes 14–18 p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 501

Cumulative Index of Article Titles, Volumes 14–18 p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 503
Errata
An online log of corrections to Annual Review of Political Science articles may be found
at http://www.annualreviews.org/errata/polisci
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PL18CH12-Carmines ARI 3 April 2015 9:16

email: carmines@indiana.edu, njdamico@umail.iu.edu

Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci. 2015. 18:205–16 Keywords

THE BASIC CONCEPT

206 Carmines · D’Amico

AN IDEOLOGICAL OR NONIDEOLOGICAL PUBLIC?

www.annualreviews.org • Political Ideology 207

CRITIQUES OF “THE NATURE OF BELIEF SYSTEMS

208 Carmines · D’Amico

www.annualreviews.org • Political Ideology 209

ENDING THE DEBATE OVER LEVELS OF IDEOLOGICAL THINKING

210 Carmines · D’Amico

POLITICAL ATTITUDES AS DETERMINED BY VALUES

governmental involvement and preference for free-market solutions to problems.

www.annualreviews.org • Political Ideology 211

IDEOLOGY ALONG MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS

212 Carmines · D’Amico

www.annualreviews.org • Political Ideology 213

THE TEA PARTY: IDEOLOGY AS VALUE-BASED

districts (Karpowitz et al. 2011).

214 Carmines · D’Amico

might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.

www.annualreviews.org • Political Ideology 215

216 Carmines · D’Amico

A Conversation with Hanna Pitkin

Robert S. Erikson p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p11

How Do Campaigns Matter?

How Party Polarization Affects Governance

Power Tool or Dull Blade? Selectorate Theory for Autocracies

Mary E. Gallagher and Jonathan K. Hanson p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 367

Cumulative Index of Contributing Authors, Volumes 14–18 p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 501

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