Social Positions and Political Cross-Pressures: A Re-Examination

Abstract

A distinction is made between two different theories of political behavior which have been grouped together under the term cross-pressures. Attention is focused on one of these two theories which holds that the existence of socially based partisan differences will have a direct effect on nonvoting and other forms of political escape. It is shown that earlier empirical support for this theory is generated by analyses which are subject to much the same methodological difficulties as in the case of status inconsistency and mobility effects. The theory is tested using a properly specified model for the 1956 national voting data and then for the 1948 Elmira data. In both cases no evidence of the existence of cross-pressure effects is found.