Political Partisanship: Its Social and Economic Bases in the United States

Abstract Analysis of the bases of political party choice in the United States reveals that social structural factors are more important than economic factors in determining patterns of partisanship. Among economic factors, moreover, differentiation in the realms of credit and consumption is more important than differences in relation to economic production. The absence of traditional class‐conflict politics, however, does not lead to a state of political consensus, because new modes of economic differentiation have emerged, cleavages based on earlier economic cleavages have persisted after the basic economic issues have been resolved, and non‐economic cleavages, particularly along racial lines, still await resolution.