Skip to main content

From Social to Political Identity: The Importance of Incorporation and Thinking about Politics

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the impact of Latino panethnic identity and religion on partisanship. While the results support the view that Latino partisanship is driven by identities, the author proposes that this link does not emerge spontaneously and proposes two important moderators—political socialization and cognitive representation of parties. Political socialization refers broadly to the variety of processes that occur while a person experiences US politics over time. Cognitive representation of parties is used to describe the idea about parties that individuals hold in their minds. It is not the objective knowledge about politics or parties that helps Latinos link their identities to parties, but rather the way the individual perceives of the parties. Latino identity is a stronger predictor of partisanship than religious identities.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Bibliography

  • Alvarez, R. Michael, and Lisa García Bedolla. 2003. The Foundations of Latino Voter Partisanship: Evidence from the 2000 Election. The Journal of Politics 65(1): 31–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barreto, Matt A., and José A. Muñoz. 2003. Reexamining the “Politics of In-Between”: Political Participation Among Mexican Immigrants in the United States. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 25: 427–447.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barreto, Matt A., and Francisco I. Pedraza. 2009. The Renewal and Persistence of Group Identification in American Politics. Electoral Studies 28: 595–605.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bobbio, Norberto. 1997. Left and Right. The Significance of a Political Distinction. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Branton, Regina. 2007. Latino Attitudes Toward Various Areas of Public Policy: The Importance of Acculturation. Political Research Quarterly 60: 293–303.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cain, B.E., D.R. Kiewiet, and C.J. Uhlaner. 1991. The Acquisition of Partisanship by Latinos and Asian Americans. American Journal of Political Science 35: 390–422.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chandra, Kanchan. 2011. What is an Ethnic Party? Party Politics 17(2): 151–169.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cheung, B.Y., M. Chudek, and S.J. Heine. 2010. Evidence for a sensitive period for acculturation. Younger immigrants report acculturating at a faster rate. Psychological Science 21: 60–99. Retrieved online on December 28, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dancygier, R., and E.N. Saunders. 2006. A New Electorate? Comparing Preferences and Partisanship Between Immigrants and Natives. American Journal of Political Science 50: 962–981.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Delli Carpini, Michael, and Scott Keeter. 1996. What Americans Know About Politics and Why it Matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fraga, Luis R., John A. Garcia, Rodney Hero, Michael Jones-Correa, Valerie Martinez-Ebers, and Gary M. Segura. 2006b. Latino National Survey (LNS) [Computer file]. ICPSR20862-v4. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2010-05-26. doi:10.3886/ICPSR20862.

  • Garcia, John A. 2010. Understanding Multiple Social Identities among Latinos: Social-Cultural Connections to Latino Pan-ethnic Identity. Paper presented at the Western Political Science Association meeting, San Francisco, CA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Taeku. 2008. Race, Immigration, and the Identity-to-Politics Link. Annual Review of Political Science 11: 457–478.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lodge, Milton, and Ruth Hamill. 1986. A Partisan Schema for Political Information Processing. American Political Science Review 80(2): 505–520.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nicholson, Stephen P., and Gary Segura. 2005. Agenda Change and the Politics of Latino Partisan Identification. In Diversity in Democracy: Minority Representation in the United States, eds. Gary M. Segura and Shaun Bowler. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Portes, Alejandro, and M. Zhou. 1993. The New Second Generation: Segmented-Assimilation and Its Variants. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 530: 74–96.

    Google Scholar 

  • Portes, Alejandro, and Rubén G. Rumbaut. 2001. Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation. Los Angeles: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sanchez, Gabriel R. 2006. The Role of Group Consciousness in Latino Public Opinion. Political Research Quarterly 59: 435–446.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stokes-Brown, Atiya Kai. 2006. Racial Identity and Latino Vote Choice. American Politics Research 34: 627–652.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Subervi-Vélez, Federico A. 2008. The Mass Media and Latino Politics: Studies of U.S. Media Content, Campaign Strategies and Survey Research: 1984–2004. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tam Cho, Wendy K. 1999. Naturalization, Socialization, Participation: Immigrants and (Non-) Voting. The Journal of Politics 61: 1140–1155.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thorisdottir, Hulda, John T. Jost, Ido Liviatan, and Patrice Shrout. 2007. Psychological Needs and Values Underlying Left-Right Political Orientation: Cross-National Evidence from Eastern and Western Europe. Public Opinion Quarterly 71: 175–203.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • White, S., N. Nevitte, A. Blais, E. Gidengil, and P. Fournier. 2008. The Political Resocialization of Immigrants: Resistance or Lifetime Learning? Political Research Quarterly 61: 268–281.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wong, Janelle S. 2000. The Effects of Age and Political Exposure on the Development of Party Identification Among Asian American and Latino Immigrants in the United States. Political Behavior 22: 341–371.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Saavedra Cisneros, A. (2017). From Social to Political Identity: The Importance of Incorporation and Thinking about Politics. In: Latino Identity and Political Attitudes. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33969-6_7

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics