Anchoring the French Voter: Ideology versus Party

In their pivotal 1986 volume, Converse and Pierce rekindle the debate over whether left-right ideological attachment or party identification serves as the psychological anchor of the French electorate. They argue that, much like Americans, French voters use partisanship to orient themselves to the political landscape. Our study, which employs the data used by Converse and Pierce, draws a different conclusion. We find that ideology, in terms of both scope and strength, clearly exceeds party in its importance for vote choice.