Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T17:35:33.476Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What Did They Wish For? Party Government, Polarization and the American Political Science Association

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2020

MARK WICKHAM-JONES
MARK WICKHAM-JONES*
Affiliation:
School for Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol. Email: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In tracing the development of increased polarization in the United States, numerous scholars have noted the apparent importance of the American Political Science Association's (APSA's) Committee on Political Parties. The committee's influential (and often criticized) report, Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System, called for a wholesale transformation of political parties in the United States. On its publication in October 1950, political scientists quickly concluded that, taken together, the committee's recommendations represented a reworking of a distinct approach, usually known as “party government” or “responsible party government.” (The origins of responsible parties dated back to Woodrow Wilson's classic 1885 text Congressional Government.) Since then, the notion of party government has become a core issue in the study of American political parties, albeit a contentious one. A recent survey ranked the APSA document at seventh as a canonical text in graduate syllabi concerning parties.

Type
Review Essay
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , May 2020 , E14
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2020

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

1 American Political Science Association, Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System, American Political Science Review, 44, 3 (Sept. 1950), supplement.

2 The classic statement (and critique) was Ranney, Austin, The Doctrine of Responsible Party Government (Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1954)Google Scholar.

3 See Mayhew, David, “Theorizing about Congress,” in Edwards, George III, Lee, Frances and Schickler, Eric, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the American Congress (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 875–93Google Scholar.

4 Diament, Sean, Howat, Adam and Lacombe, Matthew, “What Is the Canon in American Politics? Analyses of Core Graduate Syllabi,” Journal of Political Science Education, 13, 3 (2013), 256–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 264.

5 Hacker, Jacob and Pierson, Paul, Off Center (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 186Google Scholar.

6 Rosenfeld, Sam, The Polarizers: Postwar Architects of Our Partisan Era (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2018)Google Scholar. See David Frum, “How the American Two-Party System Became So Divided,” The Atlantic, 8 April 2018, at www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/the-polarizers-interview/557288; Fred Siegel, “Our Political Chasm,” City Journal, 12 April 2018, at www.city-journal.org/html/our-political-chasm-15810.html; and Barton Swaim, “How Battle Lines Were Drawn,” Wall Street Journal, 16 Feb. 2018, at https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-battle-lines-were-drawn-1518819106.

7 Hacker and Pierson, Off Center, 185–86.

8 Ibid., 187, original emphasis.

9 Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld, “The Hollow Parties” (2017), mimeo at https://static1.squarespace.com/static/540f1546e4b0ca60699c8f73/t/58863924bf629aaf2532decb/1485191461216/DSSR+The+Hollow+Parties+23Jan2017.pdf.

10 Rae, Nicol, “Be Careful What You Wish For,” Annual Review of Political Science, 10 (2007), 169–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Donovan, Todd, “A Goal for Reform: Make Elections Worth Stealing,” PS: Political Science and Politics, 40, 4 (Oct. 2007), 681–86Google Scholar, 683; and Steven Schier, “When More Partisanship Seemed Like a Good Idea,” Legal Ledger, 13 Feb. 2015. See also Abramowitz, Alan, The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization and American Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), ix–xGoogle Scholar; and John Barrow, “Partisan Rules Make Congress Much Weaker Than It Has to Be,” PS: Political Science and Politics, July 2016, 478–80, 478.

12 Lewallen, Jonathan, Theriault, Sean and Jones, Bryan, “Congressional Dysfunction: An Information Processing Perspective,” Regulation and Governance, 16 (2016), 179–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 180, 181.

13 Lawrence Jacobs, “What Health Reform Teaches Us about American Politics,” PS: Political Science and Politics, Oct. 2010, 619–23, 620.

14 James Morone, “Partisanship, Dysfunction and Racial Fears: The New Normal in Health Care Policy?”, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 41, 4 (Aug. 2016), 827–45, 830.

15 David Schleicher, “Things Aren't Going That Well Over There Either: Party Polarization and Election Law in Comparative Perspective,” University of Chicago Legal Forum, 2015, Article 13, 433–75, 442.

16 See, among many others, Barber, Michael and McCarty, Nolan, “Causes and Consequences of Polarization,” in Persily, Nathaniel, ed., Solutions to Political Polarization in America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 15–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 38–41; David Karol, “American Political Parties: Exceptional No More,” in ibid., 208–17, 214; Fiorina, Morris with Abrams, Samuel, Disconnect: The Breakdown of Presentation in American Politics (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009), 149–59Google Scholar; and Brady, David and Han, Hahrie, “Our Politics May Be Polarized but That Is Nothing New,” in Hopkins, Daniel and Sides, John, eds., Political Polarization in American Politics (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 137–43Google Scholar, 142. See also Hetherington, Marc, “Putting Polarization in Perspective,” British Journal of Political Science, 39 (2009), 413–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 427; and Noel, Hans, Political Ideologies and Political Parties in America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 195–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Mann, Thomas and Ornstein, Norman, It's Even Worse than It Looks (New York: Basic Books, 2012), xxiiiGoogle Scholar. See also Mann, Thomas and Ornstein, Norman, The Broken Branch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

18 Mann and Ornstein, xxiv.

19 Mann, Thomas, “Foreword,” in Thurber, James and Yoshinaka, Antoine, eds., American Gridlock: The Sources, Character and Impact of Political Polarization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), xxi–xxviiGoogle Scholar, xxiii.

20 James Thurber and Antoine Yoshinaka, “The Sources and Impact of Political Polarization,” in Thurber and Yoshinaka, American Gridlock, 378–88, 383–85.

21 Skid, Daniel, “Two Pathways for Congressional Reform,” in Connelly, William Jr., Pitney, John Jr., and Schmitt, Gary, eds., Is Congress Broken? (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2017), 11–36Google Scholar, 30.

22 David Shribman, “The Culprits behind Today's Polarized Politics,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 20 Nov. 2011, at www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/11/20/the culprits behind todays polarized politics 112128.html.

23 B. Dan Wood and Soren Jordan, “Critical Dialogue,” Perspectives on Politics, 16, 3 (Sept. 2018), 796–801, 798.

24 Boris Heersink, “Politicians, Interest Groups, and Next Steps in the Study of American Political Parties as Institutions,” Journal of Politics, 80, 4 (2018), e91–e96, e92.

25 Rosenfeld, The Polarizers, 155, 159.

26 Skid, “Two Pathways for Congressional Reform,” 34.

27 Wickham-Jones, Mark, Whatever Happened to Party Government? Controversies in American Political Science (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2018), 7–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 239–44.

28 Ibid., 238, 286.

29 APSA, Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System, 94, 95.

30 TRB (Strout's pseudonym), “Coming Unstuck,” Baltimore Sun, 30 April 1980, A19. See also, for example, Richard Strout, “Congress Could Help Itself,” Christian Science Monitor, 2 Jan. 1953, 22; and Strout, “Fed Up with the Lame-Duck Session? Blame George III,” Christian Science Monitor, 22 Dec. 1982, 3.

31 Congressional Record, 23 Feb. 1959, 2544–50, esp. 2546; and 19 March 1959, 4141–45, esp. 4142.

32 Rosenfeld, 4.

33 Mark Wickham-Jones, “Political Science and Policy Advice: The American Political Science Association and the Truman Administration, 1950–1952” (2018), mimeo.

34 Presidential Commission on Registration and Voting Participation, Report, 1963. See also the archive material on the commission at the Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston.

35 David, Paul T., “The APSA Committee on Political Parties: Some Reconsiderations of Its Work and Significance,” Perspectives on Political Science, 21, 2 (1992), 70–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Wickham-Jones, Whatever Happened to Party Government?, 232, 285.

37 E. E. Schattschneider, “Something Personal,” unpublished paper, undated but c.1960, 3. See Wickham-Jones, Whatever Happened to Party Government?, 285.

38 David, 76.

39 Paul David, interview, Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries, 31 March 1992, 51, and 8 April 1992, 6.

40 David, Paul T., “Political Parties Continue Struggle for Reform,” National Civic Review, 62 (1973), 118–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Rosenfeld, 232.

42 See Donald Spritzer, “New Dealer from Montana: The Senate Career of James E. Murray,” PhD thesis, University of Montana, 1980, 257–58.

43 See Gross, Bertram, “How Congress Saw It,” Bill of Rights Journal., 29 (1996), 22–24Google Scholar, at https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/blorij29&div=8&g_sent=1&casa_token=&collection=journals. See also Bailey, Stephen, Congress Makes a Law (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950), 125CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 Wickham-Jones, Whatever Happened to Party Government?, 82, 271.

45 Schattschneider, 3.

46 Bertram Gross, Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, “Hearings on the Organization and Operation of Congress,” 82nd Congress (June 1951), 271–85, 271.

47 Rosenfeld, 4.

48 Schattschneider, 6.

49 Rosenfeld, 4.

50 Harmel, Robert, Giebert, Matthew and Janda, Kenneth, American Parties in Context (New York: Routledge, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 94–95.

51 Hacker and Pierson, Off Center, 212–14, 218–19.

52 APSA, Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System, 74–77.

53 Bryon E. Shafer, Quiet Revolution: The Struggle for the Democratic Party and the Shaping of Post-reform Politics (New York: Russell Sage, 1983), 165–67.

54 Ranney, Austin, Curing the Mischiefs of Faction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), 190–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rosenfeld, 140.

55 Ranney, Austin, “Discussion of the Ladd Essay,” in Bonomi, Patricia, Burns, James MacGregor and Ranney, Austin, eds., The American Constitutional System under Strong and Weak Parties (New York: Praeger, 1981), 97–98Google Scholar, 97.

56 Austin Ranney, interview with Nelson Polsby, undated, Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries, 72, 82.

57 Ranney, Austin, Pathways to Parliament (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1965), 89Google Scholar.

58 Nicholas Lemann, “The Republicans: A Government Waits in Wings,” Washington Post, 27 May 1980, A1; and Vaisse, Justin, NeoConservatism: The Biography of a Movement (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2016), 134–35Google Scholar.

59 Ranney did not see himself as a neoconservative. Interview with Nelson Polsby, 88.

60 Rosenfeld, 181–82.

61 Pleasants, Julian and Burns, Augustus, Frank Porter Graham and the 1950 Senate Race in North Carolina (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1990), 71–72Google Scholar, 198–99.

62 Dykeman, Wilma and Stokely, James, Seeds of Southern Change: The Life of Will Alexander (New York: Norton, 1976), 299–303Google Scholar.

63 The Stern Fund (New York: Institute for Media Analysis, 1992), 22.