American Government
Political Parties
Political Parties & the Founders
• Political parties are complicated, important informal institutions
of government that are difficult to evaluate in the American
context
• A. Many of the Founders were profoundly uncomfortable with
the notion of parties
• 1. they wanted some type of government by consensus where
parties would play little in any role
• 2. summarized by George Washington in his 1796 farewell
address: "Let me warn you in the most solemn manner against
the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally."
• B. That general distaste for parties has echoed through
American history
• 1. many Americans equate parties with back room deals, smoke
filled rooms, corruption, etc.
• 2. it is common to hear both Democrats and Republicans wail
against partisanship and to equate following the "party line" with
voting against the best interest of the people
• 3. Tocqueville concurred: “Parties are an evil inherent in free
governments”
Parties in Perspective: PoliSci
• C. Contrast that with the attitude of most
political scientists, who believe that political
parties are essential to democracy
• 1. E. E. Schattschneider: "political parties created
democracy"
• 2. His argument  parties form a critical link
between the public and the institutions of
government
• 3. Parties serve to educate, mobilize, crystallize,
and organize public opinion, and
• 4. to discipline the officials who serve in
government
• 5. Without parties, politics becomes chaos and
democratic politics becomes impossible
Parties Defined
• A political party  is an organization that seeks to
attain political power within a government, usually
by participating in electoral campaigns.
• Political parties  organizations that seek to elect
candidates to public office by supplying them with a
label by which they are known to the public
• Political parties  mechanism through which voter
preferences can be translated into coherent public
policy
• Notice:
• 1. different from interest groups
• 2. parties supply the labels; they contest the elections; they
structure the public debate — they aggregate
Characteristics of Political Parties: 1
Let's place American parties in perspective by considering SIX
characteristics that distinguish them.
First, there are only two major parties
• 1. primarily a function of moderate, unimodal electorate and
single member district electoral structure (also electoral
college)
• 2. structure provides incentive for parties to be large,
inclusive, and for composite groups to make deals under the
party umbrella, before an election
• -contrast with PR systems, where deals are made between parties
after an election
• -results in coalition governments
• 3. one of the results is that "3rd parties" are small and
relatively unimportant in U.S.
Types of Third Parties
Types of 3rd Parties:
• -ideological — e.g., Socialists (last longest)
• -single issue — e.g., Prohibition (fade with
their single issue)
• -economic protest — e.g., Populists (fade as
economy improves)
• -factional — Bull Moose, Dixiecrats (usually
single election phenomena)
• Generally, minor parties are subsumed by
the two major parties, who adopt their ideas
Characteristics of Political Parties: 2
Second, parties are decentralized organizations
1. For most purposes, parties are organized at the
state level
2. National party HQ provides little coordination
3. Principal purpose of national party is to nominate
presidential and VP candidates — only every four
years
4. Generally speaking GOP is more centrally organized
than the Democrats
Characteristics of Political Parties: 3 & 4
Third, leadership is diffused
1. power is split between organizational leaders and
public office holders
2. incumbent president names national party leaders
Fourth, American parties are less ideological than
parties in most other developed countries
1. Parties are more pragmatic than ideological — seek
to win elections first and foremost
2. a function of our system — both parties seek to
appeal to moderate voters in the middle
3. Less true of party out of power
Smaller parties tend to be more homogenous and hence
more ideological parties
Prominent Theories of Party Competition
• One of the most important theories of party
competition is the Median Voter Theorem (MVT).
• The theorem was first articulated in Duncan Black's
1948 article, "On the Rationale of Group Decisionmaking" and popularized by Anthony Downs's 1957
book, An Economic Theory of Democracy.
• Simply put, the MVT suggests that parties will
gravitate towards the center of a unimodal
electorate, because victory can only be found in the
middle (where the median voter is located).
• Parties that locate elsewhere (say, at the extremes)
will lose, as voters choose the party closest to them.
Parties Gravitate to the Center
One possible model; here, if parties A and B want to
catch the median voters, they should move to the
centre. The red and blue areas represent the voters that
A and B expect they have already caught.
Characteristics of Political Parties: 5
Fifth, American parties are less responsible than parties in most
western democracies
• Responsible parties are parties whose elected officials are
disciplined, vote a straight party line, and can collectively be
held responsible by the public.
Characteristics of Political Parties: 6
Sixth, Americans are not committed to party
politics
• 1. Generally, politics is not as passionate as
in other places (see Tocqueville: Americans
would rather make money)
• 2. Specifically, not as committed to parties
• a. social mobility undermines
• b. we value independence
• c. parties require nothing in exchange for
membership
What Parties Do
What do parties do?
• Generally speaking, primary purpose is to
facilitate government
• 1. party in power — staffs government, controls
policy
• 2. party out of power — loyal opposition, offers
an alternative
• Fulfill this purpose at three levels
• 1. party in the electorate
• 2. party as organization
• 3. party in government
Party in the Electorate
Party in the electorate performs three functions:
• 1. provide an identification
• 2. socializes the population
• a. educates voters about issues and candidates
• b. motivates and mobilizes participants to turn out and vote
• 3. channels the political energies of the population
• a. parties help guide and focus a messy, multi-faceted
political process
• b. parties help people make sense of politics by
• -serving as an economizing device — vote on the basis of
party ID, less need to collect other information (people are
“cognitive misers”)
• -serving as a perceptual screen — they screen out some
information, lower cognitive dissonance, makes action easier
• In sum, help the people articulate their core
interests
Party as Organization
Party as organization helps with the
nomination and election of candidates
• 1. recruit potential candidates
• 2. serve as a cue giver to the public
• A label to rally around
• A signal-giver on important issues of the
day
• 3. provide resources
Party in Government
Party in government performs two basic
functions
• 1. Organize governmental machinery when
in the majority
• a. staff the leadership of Congress
• b. fill posts in the executive branch
• c. fill vacancies in the judicial branch
• 2. Serves as loyal opposition when in the
minority
• a. watches the majority to keep it honest
• b. provides the public with an alternative ready to
take power
Parties in American History
The history of political progress in the U.S. is
largely the history of partisan change
A. The "mainsprings" of political development
are realignments
B. Loosely defined as events that result in the
emergence of a new majority party, or in
the reshuffling of coalitions with-in parties
to change the nature of the majority party
C. There have been five in American history
D. Each has been associated with major
changes in policy
Realignments: What & Why
Party realignments
• 1. Definition: sharp, lasting shift in the popular coalition
supporting one or both parties
• 2. Occurrences: change in issues that distinguish the parties,
so supporting voters change
• Often characterized by a “critical election” where majority
party looses a substantial number of seats and control of
government
• There have been 5 major “party systems”…each precipitated
by a realignment (though not necessarily a critical election).
Types:
• 1. Major party disappears and new party emerges (1800,1860)
• 2. Voters shift from one party to another (1896, 1932)