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From an early, incorrect consensus that party identification was free of the short-term influences of political life, its aggregate, macropartisanship, drew little scholary notice. Though macropartisanship, typically seen as a biennial time series, appears essentially constant, our quarterly treatment demonstrates substantial and notably systematic movement of this crucial barometer of the U.S. party system. We demonstrate that it varies systematically with respect to time, has electoral consequences, and can be modeled as a function of economic evaluations and approval of the incumbent presidential administration. Macropartisanship, we argue, is a variable like others, subject to routine ebb and flow as citizens in the aggregate reflect their experiences of politics onto the parties. Its medium-term movements of considerable magnitude are lasting enough to matter but occur without connoting shifts in the underlying party system and can be understood without invoking the crises and convulsions of realignment theory.

Scholarly interest in the role of emotion in accounting for how people react to political figures, events, and messages has escalated over the past two plus decades in political science and psychology. However, research on the validity of the measurement of subjective self-report of emotional responses is rather limited. We introduce here a new measurement approach, a "slider" format and compare it with the long used "radio button" item format. We assess the reliability and validity of these two approaches to the measurement of affect. The study examines self-report measures of emotion to three generated news stories about terrorist threats. We report that both measurement formats are able to extract the expected threefold affect structure from a ten affect word battery. The slider format is, however, modestly more reliable, and more efficient in time to complete, has the ability to limit missing data, and generates continuous data that is less truncated than data derived from the radio button format. Finally, we report on three tests of construct validity. Both approaches exhibit equivalent results on two of those tests. However, the radio button format does poorly on one test of construct validity, that on the anticipated relationship between anxiety and interest in novel information. We present an assessment of two methods for measuring emotional reactions to stimuli such as political issues, political figures, or events. Both methods are suitable for use in online surveys or computer-driven experiments. The traditional method utilizes labeled "radio buttons" that enable a participant in a study to select by clicking on one of an array of typically five response options, ranging from lower to higher of some identified affect term (e.g., how angry one might feel). Second, the slider method offers a participant the ability to move an "arrow" up or down to indicate how much (up) or little (down) they feel. The goal of both measures is to ascertain the level of a targeted emotion, i.e., how little or how much, say anger. The slider method has been specifically developed to be used with participants using a computer. The slider approach falls within the category of visual analog scales. This method for measuring affective responses to stimuli of whatever sort has not hitherto been examined to determine its reliability and validity. The literature on the reliability and validity of these measurement strategies is thin and we found no studies including an explicit comparison.

Why do people practice citizenship in a partisan rather than in a deliberative fashion? We argue that they are not intractably disposed to one type of citizenship, but instead adopt one of two different modes depending on the strategic character of current circumstances. While some situations prompt partisan solidarity, other situations encourage people to engage in open‐minded deliberation. We argue that the type of citizenship practiced depends on the engagement of the emotions of anxiety and aversion. Recurring conflict with familiar foes over familiar issues evokes aversion. These angry reactions prepare people for the defense of convictions, solidarity with allies, and opposition to accommodation. Unfamiliar circumstances generate anxiety. Rather than defend priors, this anxiety promotes the consideration of opposing viewpoints and a willingness to compromise. In this way, emotions help people negotiate politics and regulate the kinds of citizenship they practice.

Passion and emotion run deep in politics, but researchers have only recently begun to study how they influence our political thinking. Contending that the long-standing neglect of such feelings has left unfortunate gaps in our understanding of political behavior, The Affect Effect fills the void by providing a comprehensive overview of current research on emotion in politics and where it is likely to lead.In sixteen seamlessly integrated essays, thirty top scholars approach this topic from a broad array of angles that address four major themes. The first section outlines the philosophical and