Chapter 8: Political Parties
Chapter 8: Political Parties
I. INTRODUCTION
2. Most political parties are products of informal evolution. They are made up of people who are committed to a common set of public policies and programs. Although committed to a common cause, it is composed of very diverse groups that often disagree with each other on key issues, but with a common ideological goal.
3. The Democratic and Republican are the major parties, i.e., the dominant political parties in the United States. The Reform Party is a minor party. None of the parties are either principle — or issue — oriented. They are, instead, election-oriented.
4. Coalitions are unions of many persons of diverse interests. They too are election — rather than issue-oriented. A major political party is a broadly based coalition of diverse groups that attempts to gain control of the government by winning elections, in order to exercise power and reward its members. The diverse groups frequently disagree with one another on significant issues. (p. 286)
5. Four elements
to a political party
b. Party leaders, outside of government, who handle the party apparatus and can use it as a power base.
c. Party activists, who perform the day-to-day, grass-roots work.
d. Party leaders,
in government, who include the president, leaders in Congress, and state
and local leaders.
B. Party leaders often disagree about policy, and between elections the parties are nearly invisible.
C. Political scientists
often view parties as "three-headed political giants" the party-in-the-electorate,
the party as an organization, and the party-in-government.
2. The party as an organization has a national office, a full-time staff, rules and bylaws, and budgets. Party activists keep the party running between elections and make its rules. Although American parties are loosely organized at the national, state, and local levels, the party organization pursues electoral victory.
3. The party-in-government
consists of elected officials who call themselves members of the party
(such as President and Congress). These leaders do not always agree on
policy; but they are the main spokespersons of the party.
2) parties provide nominees with a solid base of support. There are various party groups or units that become involved in the nomination of candidates, i.e., national and state central committees, national and state party conventions; state and local party caucuses; and, the voters themselves in primary elections.
3) A political party's endorsement to officially run for office as the candidate of that party is called a nomination. It is that function that most clearly sets political parties apart from other political groups operating in the United States. Not to be confused with political action committees (the campaign and election organizations created in recent years by many special interest groups to support their political views).
4) Presidential
campaigns now are organized and conducted largely by the candidates own
personal political organization, rather than the national party organization.
2) the function of
informing the public and stimulating political debate is performed by the
news media, interest groups, and the parties themselves.
2) Parties work to
ensure that elected officials perform their duties well.
2) under the system of separation of powers, political parties are usually the agents that prompt cooperation between the legislative and executive branches.
3) broadly based
parties like those in the United States tend to reduce and moderate political
conflict by forcing conflicting groups to agree to compromise solutions.
2) Their watchfulness forces public officials to be more responsive to popular concerns.
3) in the big picture,
not a very important function of the party that is IN power. Important
for the party out of power.
b. There are
four main linkage institutions in the United States: parties, elections,
interest groups, and the media.
b. Parties run campaigns; although parties coordinate the campaigns, recent technology has made it easier for candidates to campaign on their own.
c. Parties give cues to voters; even though party ties have weakened, most voters have a party image of each party; and many voters still rely on a party to give them cues for voting. African American voters tend to have the weakest party ties.
d. Parties articulate policies; within the electorate and in the government, each political party advocates specific policy alternatives.
e. Parties coordinate
policymaking; each office holder is also a member of a party, and the first
place they look for support is to their fellow partisans.
b. The Framers of the Constitution were opposed to political parties. The Constitution has no provision for the function of political parties in our electoral process.
c. In the debate over ratification of the Constitution, Federalists and Anti-Federalists became the country's first two parties. Thus, the two-party system in American goes back to the ratification of the Constitution.
d. Reasons for the
two-party system:
b. Minor parties
have therefore made little headway. The history of such parties would suggest
that they have been short-lived because they are generally formed around
a specific issue or set of issues.
b. Laws governing the establishment and activities of political parties are primarily state, not federal. State election laws are deliberately written to discourage minor parties. They tend to discourage minor parties because people prefer not to "waste" their vote.
c. Elections by plurality, i.e. "winner take all." A plurality is the largest number of votes cast for an office.
d. The lack
of an American ideological consensus
2) America's major political parties tend to take moderate stands in order to attract the largest possible number of voters. Most American voters are moderate.
3) a pluralistic society is a culture composed of many distinct subgroups.
4) ideologically
homogeneous Americans are those that share basic political beliefs and
principles.
2. In America, institutional
and ideological factors make a multiparty system unlikely.
2. Traditionally, many areas of the United States were dominated by a single party. Members of the Jewish faith, union members, Hispanics, and African Americans have tended to support the Democratic Party in recent decades. The wealthy business class tend to support the Republican Party.
3. In recent years, two-party competition has spread.
2. For most people,
the party is a psychological label.
2. Virtually every major social group (except African American voters) has moved toward a position of increased independence.
3. By contrast, African Americans have moved even more solidly into the Democratic party (currently only 5 percent of African Americans identify themselves as Republicans).
4. Traditionally,
much of the Republican support has been the wealthy business class.
2. An increase in party identification usually results in greater interests in elections, higher voter turnout, and more straight-ticket voting.
2. Divided government has frequently been the result (often with Republican control of the White House and Democratic control of Congress).
2. Candidates in
the United States can get elected on their own, and the party organization
is relegated to a relatively limited role.
b. At one time, many urban machines depended heavily on ethnic group support.
c. Richard J. Daley
of Chicago was the last of the urban machine bosses, and there are remnants
of the Chicago machine even today.
b. Ballot reform weakened the hold of the parties on the electorate. The change to a secret ballot made it more difficult for party leaders to pay voters for their vote (and thereby control the results).
c. To remove political
control from corrupt party bosses, the power of the nomination was taken
away. Progressive reformers opened the way for primary elections, in which
citizens would have the power to choose nominees for office — making American
party organizations the first (and still the only) in the world to have
the nominating function removed from them.
2. At one time, the
urban political party was the basis of political party organization in
America.
b. At one time, many
urban machines depended heavily on ethnic group support.
b. Ballot reform weakened the hold of the parties on the electorate. The change to a secret ballot made it more difficult for party leaders to pay voters for their votes (and thereby control the results).
c. To remove
political control from corrupt party bosses, i.e., to diminish the ability
of parties to reward party loyalists with nominations for office, the power
of the nomination was taken away. Progressive reformers opened the way
for primary elections, in which citizens would have the power to choose
nominees for office — making American party organizations the first (and
still the only) in the world to have the nominating function removed from
them.
2. There are fifty
state party systems, no two exactly alike. Parties in some states (such
as Pennsylvania) are well organized, have sizable staffs, and spend a lot
of money, while parties in other states (such as California) are very weak.
2. State legislation
regarding the parties has sometimes conflicted with national policy.
b. More recently,
the Supreme Court ruled that the national party convention's rules took
precedence over state law governing how delegates to the convention were
to be selected.
2. The national committee, composed of representatives from the states and territories, keeps the party's official national operations going between national conventions.
3. Day-to-day
activities of the national party are the responsibility of the national
chairperson.
b. The chairperson of the party that controls the White House is selected by the president. The party out of office may engage in intense internal rivalry over the position.
B. Since candidates are now much less dependent upon parties to get nominated and elected, party control has weakened. In addition, presidents are now less likely to play the role of party leader, and members of Congress are less amenable to being led.
C. Voters and coalitions of voters are attracted to different parties largely (though not entirely) by their performance and policies.
D. The parties have done a fairly good job over the years of translating their platform promises into public policy — the impression that politicians and parties never produce policy out of promises is largely erroneous.
E. It is easy to forget how often parties and presidents do exactly what they say they will do — for every broken promise, many more are kept.
B. Throughout
American history, one party has been the dominant majority party for long
periods of time (referred to as party eras).
2. A party realignment are rare events in the United States, usually associated with a major national crisis or trauma, in which one party's majority domination is replaced with another's. It is typically associated with a major crisis or trauma in the nation's history (such as the Civil War and the great Depression, both of which led to realignments). Party realignment describes the process whereby a significant proportion of the electorate changes its party affiliation.
3. A new coalition (a set of individuals or groups supporting the party) is formed for each party, and the coalition endures for many years.
4. A critical election
period may require more than one election before change is apparent, but
the party system will be transformed in such a period.
2. Hamilton needed congressional support for policies he favored (particularly a national bank), and the foundation of the Federalist party came from his politicking and coalition building.
3. The Federalists were Americans shortest-lived major party: they were poorly organized, they faded after John Adams was defeated in his reelection bid of 1800, and they no longer even had a candidate for president after 1820.
4. The Democratic-Republicans
(also known as Jeffersonians) replaced the Federalists. The Democratic-Republican
coalition was derived from agrarian interests — which made the party popular
in the rural South — but the coalition was torn apart by factionalism.
2. Jackson was originally a Democratic-Republican, but soon after his election his party became known simply as the Democratic party (which continues to this day).
3. Jackson's successor, Martin Van Buren, was a realist who argued that a governing party needed a loyal opposition to represent other parts of society. This opposition was provided by the Whigs, but the Whig party was only able to win the presidency when it nominated popular military heroes such as William Henry Harrison (1840) and Zachary Taylor (1848).
4. The Whigs had
two distinct wings — northern industrialists and southern planters — who
were brought together more by the Democratic policies they opposed than
by issues on which they agreed.
2. The Republican Party rose in the late 1850s as the anti-slavery party. It was a new party and not just a new version of the Whigs.
3. The Republicans forged a coalition out of the remnants of several minor parties and elected Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860. The Civil War brought a party realignment, and the Republican party
4. The Civil War brought a party realignment, and the Republican party was in ascendancy for more than sixty years (though the Democrats controlled the South).
5. The election of 1896 was a watershed during this era — a period when party coalitions shifted and the Republicans were entrenched for another generation.
6. The Republicans
continued as the nation's majority party until the stock market crash of
1929 and the ensuing Great Depression.
2. Franklin D. Roosevelt brought together the original New Deal coalition and easily defeated Hoover in 1932. The New Deal coalition was responsible for electing and re-electing Democrats.
3. Congress passed scores of Roosevelt's anti-Depression measures during his first hundred days in office.
4. Party realignment began in earnest after the Roosevelt administration got the country moving again, and Roosevelt forged the New Deal coalition from such diverse groups as union members, southerners, intellectuals, liberals, the poor, and African Americans.
5. During the
New Deal, Blacks largely changed its allegiance from the Republican Party
to the Democratic Party.
2. An unprecedented period of divided government (when the executive and legislative branches are controlled by different parties) has existed since 1968.
3. It is likely that divided party government will be a regular phenomenon at both the federal and state levels.
2. Many scholars fear that the parties are becoming useless and ineffective through the pattern of divided government and dealignment.
3. Conversely, there
are also some signs of party renewal, such as the increase in the regular
Washington staff of the national party organizations.
2. Those who do identify with a party are more likely to belong to the party that matches their ideology — the parties have become ideologically differentiated, and the wealthy business class or people who call themselves conservatives are more likely to be in the Republican party while liberals are concentrated in the Democratic party.
3. The advent of "split-ticket" voting. "Split-ticket" voting is the practice of voting for candidates of more than one party in the same election. For example, a split-ticket voter may vote for a Republican candidate for president and a Democrat for governor. (p. 295)
4. Candidate-based campaign organizations have taken hold, even though party loyalty has lagged. Party organizations have become more energetic and effective — the parties learned the secrets of high-tech fund-raising; the parties' national, congressional, and senatorial campaign committees are now wealthier, more stable, better organized, and better staffed. Moreover, the role of the media in election has contributed toward the weakening of political parties in the United States.
5. Candidate-based
campaign organizations. As mentioned earlier, in recent years, presidential
campaigns have been organized and conducted largely by a candidate's own
personal campaign organization.
b. The rules were in effect by 1972, but the party has since replaced most of its quota requirements with affirmation action guidelines. Delegations to the National Democratic Convention must be half male and half female.
c. The party also tried to restore state slots for party leaders and setting aside a portion of delegate slots for party leaders and elected officials (known as super-delegates).
d. The Democratic Party is marked by the philosophy that they are generally more willing than Republicans to appropriate federal funds for social programs.
e. One goal
however, was to minimize the influence of party leaders in the presidential
selection of candidates.
b. The Republicans
were more concerned with winning elections than being balanced by race,
sex, age, and ethnicity.
b. Brock pushed for
more effective fund-raising through the use of computer technology and
more polling technology. He made the Republican organization more effective
and efficient, and the advantage over the Republicans still retain an organizational
advantage over the Democrats.
b. Single-issue oriented parties are those concentrating on a single public policy matter. Other parties, like the "Know-Nothings" of the 1850s and the Right-to-Life party today, focus on single issues.
c. The economic protest or economically motivated parties were those parties rooted in periods of economic discontent, for example, the Greenback and Populist parties of the late 1800s.
d. The splinter or
personality driven parties were those that broke off from one of the two
major parties. For example, the "Bull Moose" party of 1912, the Dixiecrats"
of 1948, and George Wallace's American Independents (1968). Amazing as
it may seem, most of the important minor parties in the nation's history
have been splinter parties.
b. They have brought new groups into the electorate and have served as "safety valves" for popular discontent.
c. The modern minor party impact has revolved around a political leader who could not get the nomination from his party, i.e., Theodore Roosevelt and his Bull Moose Party, George Wallace's American Independent party.
d. Third parties have introduced useful innovations in American politics. Unlike major parties, minor parties tend to take clear-cut stands on controversial issues. Third parties, or minor parties, generally are formed around a specific issue or a particular set of issues.
e. A strong third-party candidacy can play a "spoiler role" in an election where the two major parties are evenly matched. Minor parties take enough votes away from one of the two major parties to cost its candidate the election.
f. Minor parties have played important roles as critics and reformers in American political life.
g. When innovations
proposed by minor parties gain popular support, they are usually adopted
by one or both of the major parties.
b. Because virtually anyone can vote in party primaries, parties do not have control over those who run under their labels.
c. In America's loosely
organized party system, there is no mechanism for a party to discipline
officeholders and ensure cohesion in policymaking.
b. They have difficulty setting up national and state organization. For example, the Reform Party, with the departure of Ross Perot, could not agree on a site for their national convention.
c. Single-member districts and winner-take-all elections automatically favor the major parties.
d. Issues advanced
by minor parties are often absorbed by one of the major parties, especially
if the American public seem to adhere to that issue.
b. America's decentralized
parties are appropriate for the type of limited government the founders
sought to create and most Americans wish to maintain.
b. The result is
often political ambiguity — parties will not want to risk taking a strong
stand on a controversial policy if doing so will only antagonize many vote
(as with Goldwater in 1964 and McGovern in 1972).
b. This system discourages
small parties.
b. A small party may use its seat parties to form a coalition government. With just two parties, both will cling to a centrist position to maximize
B. Democracy and
responsible party government
2. Critics of the
American party System complain that this is all too often not the case,
and have called for a more disciplined, responsible party system.
b. Under this model,
a party's officeholders would have firm control of the government, and
they would be collectively (rather than individually) responsible for their
actions.
b. Because virtually anyone can vote in party primaries, parties do not have control over those who run under their labels.
c. In America's loosely
organized party system, there is no mechanism for a party to discipline
officeholders and ensure cohesion in policymaking.
b. America's decentralized
parties are appropriate for the type of limited government the founders
sought to create and most Americans wish to maintain.
2. Weak parties make
it easier for politicians to avoid tough decisions; this creates gridlock.
2. Because no single party can ever be said to have firm control over government, the hard choices necessary to cut back on existing government spending are rarely addressed.
3. Divided government
has meant that neither party is really in charge, and each points the finger
at the other.
b. The technology of campaigning — television, polls, computers, political consultants, media specialists, and the like — can be bought by candidates for themselves, and they therefore do not need to be dependent on the party.
c. With the advent of television, voters no longer need the party to find out what the candidates are like and what they stand for.
d. They have brought
new issues to the political agenda.
b. Although more
people than ever before call themselves Independent and split their tickets,
the majority still identify with a party (and this percentage seems to
have stabilized).
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Chief
Justice Richard Barajas
Advanced Placement U.S.
Government and Politics
Cathedral High School,
El Paso, Texas
Last updated: November
2002