Political Participation (Part II)
0 In large scale society, direct democracy seems impossible
0 In U.S., “the people” are divided into groups with unequal access to
resources and power
0 Joseph Schumpeter criticized classical conception of democracy (citizen
participation, “rule by the people”)
0 Political elites more competent than ordinary citizens to make decisions
0 Democracy should be thought of as a market; voters are political consumers
who choose among competing elites
0 Authors stress importance of active citizenship and robust political
participation
0 Should not be reserved for election day; should be broader and fuller
0 Chapter 4 = political parties and elections
0 Chapter 5 = interest groups and social movements
0 The most privileged (more time, money, and organization) tend to be
most politically active; politicians tend to be more responsive to their
demands
0 Political inequality not a foregone conclusion
0 When large numbers are mobilized at the polls, in interest groups, and
through social movements, they can make their demands heard; when people
go beyond procedural democracy to richer and fuller direct democracy
Origins of Two-Party System
0 Schattschneider: “political parties created modern democracy
and modern democracy unthinkable save in terms of political
parties.”
0 Political parties organize and transmit will of majority to
government – the heart of any democracy
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Organizations committed to winning elections
Educate and mobilize voters
Recruit and nominate candidates
Advocate policies that link voters to candidates and connect
elected officials from same party to each other
0 Parties emerged quickly in U.S. history
0 Proved to be a democratizing force
0 Expanded participation, mobilized voters, broke down
deferential system where only socially privileged and wealthy
could participate
0 Throughout 19th century, parties developed solid organizational
bases and mass following
American Parties in Comparative Perspective
0 Causes of two-party system (not natural nor inevitable)
0 Plurality system of voting – whoever gets the most votes wins (“winnertakes-all”)
0 Voters fear wasting vote on candidates from small parties; tend to choose candidate
from two major parties; reinforced by socialization (young people adopting their
parents’ party identification)
0 Major alternative is proportional representation (PR) where legislative seats are
allotted to parties based on percentage of vote they receive in multimember districts
(used in most democracies)
0 Winner-take-all procedure for electing the president
0 Parties have strong incentive to forge broad coalitions
0 Third parties must contend with strong media bias
0 Democratic and Republican parties form a tacit cartel to marginalize splinter
parties (e.g., public finance difficult for third parties to get; presidential
debates limited to major party candidates)
0 Multiparty systems encourage parties to highlight separate identities
and appeal to distinctive segments of population; more ideologically
sharp-edged
0 In two-party systems, tendency for each party to assemble a plurality by
melding votes of centrist elements with those of its core supporters
0 Tend to foster moderation, stability, and predictability (while limiting innovation)
0 Tend to preference governance over representation
Critical Elections and Party Decay
0 Two-party systems limit voter choices and encourage broad
coalitions of diverse and sometimes conflicting groups
0 American parties tend to contain conflicts by being evasive on issues
0 They blur issues, ignore new demands, fail to adapt to new conditions
0 Result = demands build up, pressure increases, and dissatisfaction with
lack of alternatives grows
0 Citizens seek answers outside existing party system through
protests and social movements
0 Eventually, one party (usually the minority party) capitalizes on
dissatisfaction by seeking to recruit those whose concerns are not
adequately represented and champion issues they favor
0 Minority party may be rewarded by winning
0 The tidal shift is often referred to as a critical or realigning election
0 Critical or realigning elections are rare
0 Characterized by unusually high turnout and more intense ideological
conflict
0 Winning party reshapes ideological agenda; party conflict reorganized
around new set of issues
0 Voters are realigned and party coalitions shift
Change in American Party System
0 High point late 19th century
0 Parties powerful organizations, reached down into grass roots, communicated through
partisan popular press, controlled nomination process and platforms, turnout was high,
integrated immigrant waves
0 Depended on patronage and spoils to motivate activists and voters; urban political
machines integrated workers and immigrants in way that insulated business from
democratic challenge
0 High levels of turnout among low-income voters; little class bias evident in turnout
patterns today (SES predictor)
0 Decline set in following 1896 election, pro-business Republican party took over
0 Turnout declined, class bias emerged in turnout
0 Demobilization caused by: party competition declined; business groups and middle class
reformers weakened parties (feared machines and potential radicalism), cut off
patronage by instituting merit-based civil service and nonpartisan local races, and
erecting legal barriers to voting (in South poll taxes, literacy tests, “good character” tests,
etc.) disenfranchising ¾ of all citizens in the south (especially blacks, and poor,
uneducated whites), in the North, residency requirements, early registration deadlines,
complicated voting and depressed turnout
0 Resulted in more candidate-centered, professionalized campaigns
0 Candidates today raise their own money; hire polling organizations and political
consultants (focus groups; market research) to fine-tune message; reach voters through
television and internet (relying less on party)
0 Party organizations have become consulting firms at service of candidates; shadows of
the past
0 Primaries have undermined party control of nomination process; candidates raise their
own money; personal ties drive appointments rather than party loyalty
0 Parties haven’t always been weak, but have been decentralized and fragmented
(function of separation of powers and federalism)
0 Role of primaries = turnout is low; primary electorate less representative than general
electorate (more ideological, educated, affluent)
0 Wealthy candidates and those with close ties to interest groups have clear advantage
Turnout and American Voters
0 U.S. ranks fourth lowest in turnout among over 34 democratic countries. Why?
0 Widespread popular cynicism
0 Generational replacement (younger generation less in the habit of voting; older
generation developed habit of voting and confidence in electoral process because parties
responded effectively to Depression and WWII); as parties become less effective,
younger generation becomes skeptical and cynical
0 Casting a ballot is especially difficult: register in advance; voter identification
requirements; restrictions on convicted felons
0 Elections on Tuesday (not a national holiday or weekend)
0 According to Burnham, this creates a hole in the American electorate where working-
class, less educated, and low-income Americans should be
0 Wayne: “those who are most disadvantaged, who have the least education, and who
need a change in conditions the most actually participate the least. Those who are the
most advantaged, who benefit from existing conditions and presumably from public
policy as it stands, vote more often”
0 Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy (APSA) (105-6)
0 Today, however, the voices of American citizens are raised and heard unequally. The
privileged participate more than others and are increasingly well organized to press
their demands on government. Public officials, in turn, are much more responsive to the
privileged than to average citizens and the less affluent. The voices of citizens with lower
or moderate incomes are lost on the ears of inattentive government officials, while the
advantaged roar with a clarity and consistency that policymakers readily hear and
routinely follow. [The result is a] growing concentration of the country’s wealth, income,
and political influence in the hands of the few…We find that our governing institutions
are much more responsive to the privileged and well-organized narrow interests than to
other Americans.
0 Fraud and corruption
0 Extensive evidence that parties have engaged in dishonest means of rigging elections
0 E.g., hacking electronic voting machines (Diebold), voter suppression (id laws), etc.
Money and Elections
0 Increase in importance of money a major trends in current American politics; political campaign
spending has skyrocketed (each cycle eclipsing the previous record)
0 Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission (2010)
0 Overturned limit on corporate and labor spending
0 Supreme Court ruled government cannot prevent corporations from spending their own funds to
endorse and promote candidates
0 Previously, could run issue ads and contribute to political parties and political action groups, but could
not directly endorse candidates and spending funds directly to help elect them
0 Business firms and wealthy individuals provide most contributions
0 Contributions as investments (rather than donations)
0 Campaigns last longer, cost more, are less regulated, and are financed by a higher proportion of
private (rather than public ) funds than in any other Western democracy
0 (1971) Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) limited political contributions, controlled spending, and
required public disclosure
0 Evaded through Political Action Committees (PACs) who can solicit from individuals and channel to
candidates
0 Eliminated by Citizen’s United (2010)
0 Soft money (unregulated and unlimited) vs. hard money (contributed directly to campaigns, which is
limited and subject to disclosure rules)
0 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) (McCain-Feingold) (2002) aimed to close soft money loophole
in FECA; increased hard money limits
0 One major effect of political money is to increase chances of better-financed candidates
0 A second is increasing public cynicism about politics (taints entire political system)
0 Those at top of income pyramid provide bulk of political contributions
0 Political finance connected to increasing economic inequalities
0 Increases in economic inequality and political spending go hand in hand; increase in one contributes to
the increase in the other
0 Party system is not engine of democracy
0 Way parties are financed skews political system toward interests and preferences of affluent Americans
and business interests
Rise and Fall of New Deal and Reagan
Coalitions
0 Two durable coalitions dominated American politics and
policy
0 New Deal coalition
0 Led by Democratic party (1932-1968)
0 Reagan Coalition
0 Led by Republican party (1980-2008)
0 Dominant party won presidential elections
0 Shaped political agenda: defined most pressing issues and
policy responses
0 Policies designed to reward social base, cement power, and
ensure reelection
0 Obama (2008): will this produce durable realignment?
New Deal Coalition
0 1932 election (FDR) ushered in decades of Democratic Party rule
0 New Deal coalition
0 Blacks (beneficiaries of programs for poor and unemployed); Southerners; immigrant
Jewish and Catholic workers (from Southern and Eastern Europe); Irish (supporters of
big city machines); financiers and corporate executives
0 Uneasy partnership (marriage of convenience) between Southern, white,
segregationist wing (hostile to federal policies benefiting blacks and undermining
South’s feudal structure) and Northern, liberal wing based in large urban areas with
millions of first- and second-generation working-class immigrants
0 FDR administration and successors designed programs to distribute benefits to broad
segments of population
0 Johnson’s reliance on Northern democrats and moderate Republicans to pass
legislation outlawing discrimination (Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act
(1965)) caused Southerners to desert Democratic party
0 Southern realignment the single most important factor behind Republican party success
0 Coalition weakened by issues that created political and cultural conflict in Democratic
party (Vietnam War, feminism, gay rights, abortion, crime, etc.)
0 Traditional working –class economically liberal but socially conservative (supported
federal regulation of markets and welfare state programs but opposed gay marriage and
abortion rights)
0 Wealthier, more educated supporters economically conservative but socially liberal
supported challenging gender hierarchies and sexual stereotypes but opposed programs
to redistribute wealth
0 Decline of labor unions further weakened party
0 Victim of policy failure
0 Conservative Keynesianism offered economic growth with little redistribution, fiscal finetuning instead of structural economic change
0 1970s, economic growth faltered, inflation and unemployment increased; without
economic growth, New Deal coalition couldn’t satisfy demands of constituents
Reagan Coalition
0 New Deal faltered, conservatives and Republican Party launched a revolution
0 Nomination of Barry Goldwater in 1964 (marked shift from Eastern Establishment of
moderate conservatives to ultra-right conservatives from the South and West who were
anti-government, anti-taxes, anti-union, anti-communist)
0 Funding PACs, conservative think tanks, and grassroots groups  Reagan elected
(1980)
0 Factors driving Republican Party rise to power
0 White males became more Republican (as candidates played to fears of dismantling
racial and gender hierarchies); built base among religious fundamentalists; business
community united behind Republicans; population growth in suburbs and Sun Belt;
Republican Party rebranded by network of highly conservative organizations working
with Republican strategists (“political moderates and fiscal conservatives replaced by
new generation of hard-line conservatives and radical tax cutters”)
0 Republican revival product of brilliant strategy and patient organizational effort by
“ideological extremists” who moved party to the right
0 Re-centered party ideologically and geographically (secure base in South and Rocky
Mountain states)
0 Traditional base wealthier voters
0 Conservative turn secured by white Protestants (especially evangelicals), Catholics,
regular religious service attendees
0 White men, married couples, rural voters
0 Democratic supporters
0 Northeast and Pacific Coast
0 Low-income voters (especially labor union members)
0 African Americans and ethnic minorities
0 Unmarried people
0 Jews, youth, and less religious
0 Liberal and well-educated voters
2008 Presidential Election and
Challenge to Republican Dominance
0 Table 4.1
0 Obama benefited from shift among women, youth, and unmarried voters
0 Pro-Democratic groups growing in size; pro-Republican groups shrinking as
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proportion of electorate
Strong support among racial and ethnic minorities, an increasingly
significant proportion of the electorate
McCain supporters tended to be white, male, Protestant, religiously
observant, married, from rural areas and small towns, and fairly affluent
Obama supporters tended to be ethnically and racially diverse, young,
female, single, low or high income, and less religiously observant
Obama’s popular vote margin 53%-47%, majorities in 28 states, 2/3
electoral college delegates (365-173)
Regional voting patterns: Obama beat McCain in six traditionally Republican
states (North Carolina, Virginia, Florida; Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada)
and three Midwest states (Iowa, Indiana, and Ohio)
Democratic advances in House and Senate (at least for awhile)
Republicans increasingly split over hard-edged conservatives and pragmatic
conservatives, but united in opposition to most Democratic initiatives
Polarization and American Politics
0 In presidential elections in most states, a majority of voters
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consistently support same party’s candidate (red and blue states)
Only a few change majorities (swing states)
Political polarization tied to ideological polarization
Two parties’ social bases reinforce their distinctive regional bases of
support
Why different regions have developed relatively stable partisan
loyalties
0 South switched to staunchly Republican  race, religious observance
(especially evangelicals), conservative on economic issues
0 Fiorina = what has changed is ideological positions more closely
aligned with partisan preferences; political parties are more
ideologically homogeneous and more distinct from each other
0 Driven by elites and marginalizing moderates
0 Hacker and Pierson = Republican Party has moved further to right
than Democratic Party to the left
0 Taken over by coalition of hard-right conservative groups, including
Christian Right and free-market economic conservatives, organized in
churches, interest groups, voluntary associations, and think tanks
New Media and Public Opinion
0 Milestones in 2008 election
0 election of African American president
0 effective use of new media (internet) by Obama campaign
0 Media (newspapers, radio, and TV) continue to play a role
0 New media (internet, email, blogs, instant messages, social
media) increasingly important in fundraising, voter
registration, mobilization
0 Political significance of new media
0 Some argue it produces more involved, informed public
0 Others that it increases gap between politically connected and
uninterested
0 Hard to differentiate fact from fiction
0 May offset increased importance of money in politics
Conclusion
0 Fundamental idea of democracy = preference of citizens deserve equal
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consideration and citizens should have equal ability to influence outcomes
Political participation is slanted toward the rich in voter turnout, campaign
contributions, and political activism
Participatory input tilted in the direction of more advantaged groups in
society (in terms of economic and education, and race/ethnicity)
Republican dominance has been the result
Obama’s victory a result of weakening link between wealth and proRepublican vote and because his campaign energized millions of voters who
are typically less connected
0 Election demonstrates that despite unequal resources all adult citizens can
potentially raise their political voice
0 When citizens are mobilized, political participation, which often reinforces
privilege and inequality, can counteract advantages of class, race, and gender
0 Ben Franklin = “It’s a Republic if you can keep it.”
0 Political parties and elections potentially enable citizens to keep and deepen
the republican and democratic forms of government
0 Requires citizens to mobilize, participate, and challenge the power of money
and the tendencies for inequalities in political participation to parallel
economic inequalities