Public Support for the Party System

这项研究是对公众对政党和政党制度态度的纵向研究的延伸和扩展。这项研究探索了公众对政党的三种取向。第一个包括几项党派认同和政治独立的措施，这是PI以前使用的。第二个重点是公众对两党制的反应，以及第三方进入挑战目前的政党双寡头垄断。最后一套公共取向转向衡量对党派之争和政党竞争的认可程度，以及特殊利益集团、社会运动和大众媒体在提供公民代表替代手段方面的作用。这项研究依赖于在全国范围内进行的一项调查中提出的各种态度问题。这项研究建立了另一个数据点，并为PI提供了一个机会来测试当前关于政党的公开合法化随着时间的推移而漂移的说法。

This research is an extension and expansion of a longitudinal study of the general public's attitudes toward political parties and the party system. The study explores three kinds of public orientations toward parties. The first incorporates several measures of partisan identification and political independence previously used by the PI. The second focuses on public reactions to the two-party system and the entry of third parties to challenging the present party duopoly. The final set of public orientations turns to measuring the degree of approval of partisanship and party competition, and the role of special interest groups, social movements and the mass media for providing alternative means of citizen representation. The study relies on a variety of attitudinal questions being asked in a nation-wide survey. The study establishes another data point and provides the PI the opportunity to test current claims that public legitimation of political parties has drifted over time.