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Localism, Factional Fluidity, and Factionalism: Louisiana and Mississippi Gubernatorial Contests

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

John R. Van Wingen
John R. Van Wingen*
Affiliation:
University of Southern Mississippi
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Extract

In his classic, Southern Politics, Key used the term “one-party factionalism” to describe the electoral politics of the South during the 1930s and 1940s: “one-party” because the Republicans offered, at best, only minimal opposition to the Democrats, and “factional” because several groups tended to vie for control of the top state offices via electoral victories in the Democratic primaries. According to Key, severe consequences accompanied one-party factionalism. In most of the southern states, primary voters could not even vote the “ins” out of office, for the competing factions were so fluid that it was never clear who, if anyone, represented the ins. The haves in southern society normally controlled government; although those in power had their differences, particularly in style, most of them agreed that the status quo needed protection. The less privileged lacked organized avenues for expressing their needs.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , Winter 1984 , pp. 3 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1984 

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Footnotes

fn00

Author’s Note: This article is a substantially revised version of a paper presented at the 1979 Southern Political Science Convention. I wish to thank both the University of Southern Mississippi for granting me a sabbatical leave during which time most of the revisions were made and the editors and anonymous reviewers of this journal for their most helpful suggestions.

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