Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-lrblm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-23T13:10:26.373Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The New American Political Party

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 1985

Joseph A. Schlesinger
Joseph A. Schlesinger*
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

To understand changes taking place within political parties we must work from a realistic theory, one that accepts these parties as office-seeking coalitions. On that premise I lay out three interacting sets of variables: 1) The structure of political opportunities, or the rules for office seeking and the ways they are treated, and 2) the party system, or the competitive relations among parties, define the expectations of politicians, and thus lead them to create 3) party organizations, or the collective efforts to gain and retain office. Hypotheses derived from the relations among these variables allow us to examine changes in American parties in the twentieth century. They explain why the Progressive era reforms, in tandem with the post-1896 party system, produced an uneven distribution of party organization and weak linkages among candidates and officeholders. The same theory also explains why changes taking place since the 1950s are producing greater organizational effort and stronger partisan links among candidates and officeholders.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 79 , Issue 4 , December 1985 , pp. 1152 - 1169
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramson, P.R. Political attitudes in America. San Francisco: Freeman, 1983.Google Scholar
Adamany, D. Political parties in the 1980s. In Malbin, M. J. (Ed.). Money and politics in the United States, financing elections in the 1980s. Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1984.Google Scholar
American Political Science Association, Committee on Political Parties. Towards a more responsible two-party system. New York: Rinehart, 1950.Google Scholar
Brady, D.W., Cooper, J., & Hurley, P.A. The decline of party in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1887-1968. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 1979, 4, 381–408.10.2307/439581CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandes, S., & Hibbing, J.R. Congressional reform and party discipline: The effects of changes in the seniority system on party loyalty in the U.S. House of Representatives. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., 1984.Google Scholar
Burnham, W.D. Critical elections and the mainsprings of American politics. New York: Norton, 1970.Google Scholar
Burns, J.M. The deadlock of democracy, four-party politics in America. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963.Google Scholar
Burns, J.M. Presidential government. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965.Google Scholar
Caro, R.A. The path to power. New York: Random House, 1981.Google Scholar
Congressional Quarterly. Guide to U.S. elections. Washington, D.C., Author, 1975.Google Scholar
Congressional Quarterly. Weekly Report, 41(52), Dec. 31, 1983.Google Scholar
Crotty, W. Party reform. New York: Longman, 1983.Google Scholar
Cummings, M.C. Jr. Congressmen and the electorate. New York: The Free Press, 1966.Google Scholar
Eldersveld, S. Political parties: A behavioral analysis. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964.Google Scholar
Fenno, R.R. Jr., The internal distribution of influence: The House. In Truman, D. B. (Ed.). The Congress and America's future. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965.Google Scholar
Fenno, R.R. Jr., Home style, House members in their district. Boston: Little Brown, 1978.Google Scholar
Fiorina, M. The decline of collective responsibility in American politics. Daedalus, 1980, Summer, 25–45.Google Scholar
Fredman, L.E. The Australian ballot. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1968.Google Scholar
Garand, J. C., & Gross, D.A. Changes in vote margins for congressional candidates: A specification of historical trends. American Political Science Review, 1984, 78, 17–30.10.2307/1961246CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, J.L., Cotter, C.P., & Bibby, J.F. Assessing party organizational strength. American Journal of Political Science, 1983, 27, 193–222.10.2307/2111015CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, J.L., Cotter, C.P., Bibby, J.F., & Huckshorn, R.J. Whither the local parties? A cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of the strength of party organizations. American Journal of Political Science, 1985,29, 139–160.10.2307/2111216CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harmel, R., & Janda, K. Parties and their environments. New York: Longmans, 1982.Google Scholar
Heard, A. The costs of democracy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960.Google Scholar
Janda, K. Cross-national measures of party organizations and organizational theory. European Journal of Political Research, 1983,11, 319–332.10.1111/j.1475-6765.1983.tb00065.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jewell, M.E. (Ed.). The politics of reapportionment. New York: Atherton, 1962.Google Scholar
Key, V.O. Jr., Southern politics. New York: Knopf, 1949.Google Scholar
Key, V.O. Jr., A theory of critical elections. Journal of Politics, 1955, 3–18.Google Scholar
Key, V.O. Jr.,, American state politics. New York: Knopf, 1956.Google Scholar
Luce, R. Legislative assemblies. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1924.Google Scholar
Lugar, R. Letter from National Republican Senatorial Committee, August 1984.Google Scholar
Malbin, M. (Ed.). Money and politics in the United States, financing elections in the 1980s. Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1984.Google Scholar
Ornstein, N.J., & Rohde, D.W. Political parties and congressional reform. In Fishel, J. (Ed.). Parties and elections in an anti-party age. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Orren, G.R. The changing styles of American party politics. In Fleishman, J. L. (Ed.). The future of American political parties. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1982.Google Scholar
Patterson, J.T. A conservative coalition forms in Congress, 1933-1939. Journal of American History, 1966, March, 757–772.Google Scholar
Ranney, A. Curing the mischiefs of faction: Party reform in America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.10.1525/9780520320802CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riker, W.H. The Senate and American federalism. American Political Science Review, 1955, 49, 452–469.10.2307/1951814CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ripley, R.B. Power in the Senate. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Rothman, D.J. Politics and power, the United States Senate 1869-1901. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966.10.4159/harvard.9780674864467CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rusk, J.G. The effect of the Australian ballot reform on split ticket voting: 1876-1908. American Political Science Review, 1970, 64, 1220–1238.10.2307/1958367CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scammon, R. America at the polls. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1965.Google Scholar
Schattschneider, E.E. The semi-sovereign people. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, J.A. A scale analysis of presidential party systems. Unpublished. East Lansing: Michigan State University, n.d.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, J.A. A two-dimensional scheme for classifying states according to degree of inter-party competition. American Political Science Review, 1955, 49, 1120–1128.10.2307/1951396CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlesinger, J.A. Stability in the vote for governor. Public Opinion Quarterly, 1960, 24, 85–91. (a)10.1086/266932CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlesinger, J.A. The structure of competition for office in the American states. Behavioral Science, 1960, 5, 197–210. (b)10.1002/bs.3830050302CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlesinger, J.A. Political party organization. In March, J.G. (Ed.). Handbook of organizations. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1965, pp. 764–801.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, J.A. Ambition and politics, political careers in the United States. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, J.A. On the theory of party organization. Journal of Politics, 1984, 45, 369–400.10.2307/2130967CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Truman, D.B. The governmental process. New York: Knopf, 1951.Google Scholar
Wahlke, J. C., Eulau, H., Buchanan, W., & Ferguson, L.C. The legislative system. New York: Wiley, 1962.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.