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Chapter 11: Political Parties
Chapter Summary
Introduction
Despite George Washington's warning Americans against "the baneful effects of the spirit of party" in his Farewell Address, political parties have existed throughout most of American politics helping to perform many essential democratic functions.
1) Why Do Political Parties Form?
What fundamental problems do political parties help politicians and voters overcome?
- Political parties are institutions that seek to control the government through the winning of office; whereas many interest groups are "benefit seekers" looking for policy gains, party politicians tend to be "office-seekers."
- Parties organize to facilitate collective action in the electoral process; indeed, the shape of party organizations itself reflects this electoral motivation as party organizational units mirror district/geographical units where elections are held. For voters, parties lower information costs by providing a "brand name" that conveys important information about the candidates running under the party label.
- Parties form lasting coalitions within government designed to induce cooperation and to resolve the problems associated with collective choice in the policy-making process.
- Parties also regulate the career advancement of ambitious officeholders and help resolve the potential problems of competition between ambitious party members.
2) What Functions Do Parties Perform?
Once formed, what are the essential functions that political parties perform in American democracy and governance?
- Political parties recruit candidates for the thousands of races at the national, state, and local levels.
- Parties also nominate candidates to be their standard bearers for each race; although nominations are sometimes done in party conventions, the dominant means of nominating candidates is by primary elections which can either be closed primaries (that is, restricted only to party members) or open primaries (where voters declare their party affiliation on the day of the primary).
- Parties conduct voter registration drives and mobilization efforts on election day in order to counter the free-rider problem and increase voter participation.
- By promoting party identification in the electorate, parties facilitate mass electoral choice; even when party identification fails to persuade voters, by providing voters with a "brand name," parties lower the information costs potential voters encounter in making electoral choices.
- In addition to their many roles in elections, parties also influence the national government.
- Despite some similarities, the two parties have significant differences in philosophy, core constituencies, and the policies they promote; party leaders often advance policies in efforts to appeal to new constituencies in order to increase their base.
- Congressional organization depends heavily on party; the majority party leads each chamber and dominates the committee system.
- The president is often seen as the leader of his party, but some presidents are better, more engaged party leaders than others.
- Political parties are made up of millions of rank-and-file members who develop psychological ties to, or identifications with, their parties; in addition to these rank-and-file identifiers, parties also rely on a particularly committed group of party activists who contribute time, energy, and effort to support the party and its candidates.
- In the U.S. a variety of characteristics are associated with party identification. These include: race and ethnicity, religion, class, ideology, and region.
- In terms of race and ethnicity, African American voters are overwhelmingly Democratic while Latino voters split (Cuban Americans are generally Republican whereas Mexican Americans favor Democrats by a small margin).
- There exists a gender gap whereby women are more likely to support Democrats and men are more likely to support Republicans.
- Different religious groups have different party identifications: Jews tend toward Democrats; Protestants are more likely to be Republicans; Catholics are a traditional Democratic constituency but have been moving slightly toward Republicans since the 1970s.
- Although class tends to be muted in American politics, upper-income Americans tend to be Republicans whereas lower-income Americans are more likely to identify with Democrats.
- Ideology and party identification are closely linked with liberals identifying with the Democrats and self-described conservatives identifying as Republicans.
- The formerly "solid" Democratic South is now becoming solidly Republican as is much of the West and Southwest; the Democratic base is now in the Northeast.
- By "party system" scholars mean the number of parties that compete for power (that is, the United States has a "two-party system") as well as the organization of the parties, the balance of power between and within party coalitions, the parties' social and institutional bases, and the issues and policies around which party competition is organized.
- Changes in political forces and alignments have produced six party systems in American political history.
- The first party system pitted the Federalists against the Democratic-Republicans, two groups of competing political elites each of which had only loose ties to the electorate; party organization tended to focus on political clubs and party newspapers. After the War of 1812, the Federalist party gave way to the dominance of Democratic-Republicans.
- The second party system represented competition between the Democrats and the Whigs; the Democrats, led by Andrew Jackson, were the popular and dominant political party of the era, though the Whigs came to compete by organizing popular support as well.
- The third party system emerged out of the Civil War wherein Lincoln's newly-founded Republican Party dominated the Democratic Party which had its primary base in the states of the former Confederacy.
- During this era, party machines used the spoils system and control over political nominations to rise to prominence.
- In response to the abuses of party machines, late 19th and early 20th century progressives pushed for reforms of the political system including the Australian ballot, merit systems of civil service, and direct primaries that weakened party organizations.
- The fourth party system lasted from 1896 to 1932 and was largely dominated by Republicans, though repeated internal party differences hampered Republican governance during the era.
- The fifth party system emerged out of the Great Depression as Franklin Roosevelt built a broad-based Democratic coalition that dominated American national politics until the election of Richard Nixon in 1968.
- Though some scholars disagree as to when the sixth party system began, a good case can be made that the current party system emerged with Richard Nixon's 1968 election as the Democrats' "solid south" succumbed to Nixon's "southern strategy" to convert disaffected former Democrats to Republicanism.
- Although America is dominated by two parties, third parties representing social and economic protests have emerged throughout American political history. Although third parties are a somewhat regular occurrence and can be relatively successful at state and local levels, they seldom succeed nationally both because the major parties usually absorb any successful themes and many electoral laws work against successful third parties.
- The progressive reforms that eroded party strength continued to weaken parties in the 20th century, leading 1940's political scientists to bemoan the lack of party discipline and responsibility.
- The erosion of parties' organizational strength sparked the emergence of high-tech politics and a new era of candidate-centered and capital-intensive campaigning. Candidate-centered campaign organizations employ newer tools including polling, the use of the broadcast media, phone banks, direct mail, professional public relations, and the internet to court voter support.
- Making campaigns more expensive, this transformation to high-tech politics shifted campaigning from a labor-intensive to a capital-intensive (money-driven) process.
- Contemporary party organizations have searched for ways to re-assert their relevance in the new candidate-centered era; most notably, national parties provide money, resources, and expertise to their candidates.
- State and local party organizations recruit candidates, conduct voter registration drives, and provide financial assistance to candidates.
- Political parties make democratic governance possible, serving as a partial antidote to the contradiction between democratic participation and republican governance. And, partisanship remains important to voters, providing nominees and informational cues.
3) Parties and the Electorate
How and how well do political parties organize the electorate? What groups tend to identify with Democrats and Republicans respectively?
4) Party Systems
What is a "party system"? What have been the major "party systems" throughout American political history? What is the place of third parties in the American party system?
5) The Role of Parties Today
What roles do contemporary parties play in elections? How have party organizations coped with the impediments posed by Progressive reforms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries?