VALUE PRIORITIES, PARTISANSHIP, AND ELECTORAL CHOICE - THE NEGLECTED CASE OF THE UNITED-STATES

A wealth of comparative scholarship indicates that a transformation in the value priorities of Western publics has been occurring during the last quarter century, and that value-based cleavages are increasingly coming to structure Western political behavior. The United States, ho wever, has been conspicuous by its relative absence from this research enterprise. This paper attempts to partially fill this void in the li terature by examining the impact of materialist-postmaterialist value priorities on American political behavior. Using data from the 1972 th rough 1992 American National Election Studies, we first compare the im pact of the value-based cleavage on partisanship and presidential vote choice to that of other relevant sociodemographic variables. These an alyses show that the effect of postmaterialism on American political b ehavior is not negligible. When the parties take distinct stances on p ostmaterial concerns, value type exerts a noticeable, though not overw helming, influence on partisanship and vote choice. Further analyses s how that the effect of value priorities on electoral behavior is mainl y indirect, as they significantly shape attitudes on defense and racia l issues, which in turn influence vote choice. Surprisingly, however, value type is not related to attitudes on cultural issues such as abor tion and homosexual rights. Thus, although postmaterialism does have s ome relevance for American political attitudes and behavior, it does n ot seem to be pertinent to the cultural conflicts that are increasingl y salient to American political life.