Civil Rights Liberalism and the Suppression of a Republican Political Realignment in the United States,1972 to 1996

Abstract

Arguably the most dramatic trend in U.S. public opinion during the past 30 years has been Americans’ liberalizing attitudes toward the civil rights of African Americans, women, and more recently, gays and lesbians. Do these changing attitudes have any behavioral or organizational effects, or are they of little consequence for understanding social and political changes since the 1960s? While an influential strain of research has questioned the causal significance of trends in civil rights attitudes, past studies have not developed a systematic test of relevant hypotheses. This study presents such a test, analyzing the effects of trends in civil rights attitudes on an important type of behavior (presidential vote choice) and on a major type of organization (political parties). Guided by theories of issue voting and political realignment, results show that changing attitudes have had significant behavioral and organizational effects on vote choice and election outcomes since 1972. In particular, the margins of Republican presidential victories in the 1980s were suppressed by liberal trends in attitudes, while Democratic presidential victories in the 1990s depended upon these trends. These findings lead to a better understanding of the substantial but poorly understood effects of changing attitudes toward civil rights and of the widely debated scenario of a Republican political realignment.