Taken together, this analysis has advanced our knowledge of the causes and the consequences of partisanship considerably. Party identification is certainly a less stable and enduring phenomenon than it was originally conceived. Not only does it respond to political and economic stimuli, it also reacts strongly to the style of electoral competition as defined by the electoral system in use. Its effects on vote choices, by contrast, seem to be mostly a function of the politicisation of social divisions and react only indirectly to the style and intensity of electoral competition.