The power of perception: An in-depth analysis of how social group attitudes predict political ideology and partisanship in American Jewry

Abstract

Why do Orthodox Jews see themselves as conservative and overwhelmingly vote Republican while most Conservative and Reform Jews see themselves as liberal and mostly vote Democratic? This enigma poses fundamental questions about the foundations of political identity and helps to elucidate the more general factors causing ideological and partisan preference. Finding the main predictor for political ideology and partisanship, which I will interchangeably refer to as political identity, is a concept that has long been discussed by political scientists. Identifying these two political markers is difficult because of the complexity of each group within the general population. Therefore, each subgroup needs to be looked at individually and to have its unique factors considered, including the Jewish population in America. I propose that there are two main explanations for the predictors of political ideology and partisanship of American Jewry: 1) religious and identity differences and 2) divergent attitudes toward various social groups. In this paper, I will demonstrate that social group attitudes are the main predictor of political ideology and partisanship in American Jewry.