The Value-Added by Cultural Theories of Political Values: Comparing Ideology, Partisanship, and Two Cultural Value Explanations

Abstract

Political values are a central motivation for political behavior, prompting significant research programs in political science and public opinion research, but rigorous efforts to compare any two such research programs are rare, which creates barriers to developing theory and improved explanations. Accordingly, we investigate whether two cultural theories incorporating political values – the cultural theory (CT) developed by Mary Douglas, Aaron Wildavsky, and others and the cultural cognition theory (CCT) developed by Dan Kahan and colleagues – explain variation in political behavior beyond ideology and partisanship and if so which of these cultural theories explains more. We find that while ideology and partisanship explain significant variation in political behavior (here attitudes called risk perceptions regarding abortion, gun control, and the environment, including climate change), cultural political values explain still more, with CT measures explaining more than CCT. We discuss these findings and offer guidance on the further use of these cultural theories in studying political behavior.