Political Parties Chapter 8 Pearson Education, Inc., Longman © 2008 Government in America: People,...

Political Parties

Chapter 8

Pearson Education, Inc., Longman © 2008

Government in America: People, Politics, and PolicyThirteenth AP* Edition

Edwards/Wattenberg/Lineberry

What do these symbols represent?


2016 Presidential NominationRepublican candidates Democratic candidates


The Meaning of Party

• Assess the validity of the following statement: • Political Parties are inevitable

and thus essential in democracies.

• (Could America function as a democratic system without political parties?)


Political Parties are inevitable and thus essential in democracies.Agree or disagree? Explain.

• Freedom of expression is a core principle of democracy. People have the freedom to think for themselves and to express their views. Differences of opinion about what the government should do and not do are inevitable.

• Political parties offer voters choices. Parties are “user-friendly;” they help voters select candidates who favor certain public policies.

• Without this competition there would be no choice, and without choice there would be no democracy.

• Parties serve as linkage institutions; they help translate the wishes of the people into policy.

• However,




According to American Government: Power and Purpose (11th Edition) Political parties are “teams of politicians, activists, and voters whose goal is to win control of government.”

According to Magruder’s American Government: A political party is a group of persons

who seek to control government through the winning of elections and the holding of public office. (p.122)

A party is a group of people who tend to share similar views on public policy, and who try to control government by winning elections and holding public office and then make public policy. (Mr. Stockley)

• HOW DO THEY (Parties)WIN CONTROL OF GOV’T?


Political Parties

• How do parties win control of government?


HOW DO THEY (Parties)WIN CONTROL OF GOV’T?

• “by recruiting and nominating candidates to run for office, by accumulating the resources needed to run political campaigns, especially manpower and money; and by creating a policy agenda that can appeal to large numbers of voters and secure electoral majorities.”


Political parties

•What do parties do once they have obtained power?


What do parties do once they have obtained power?

• Once in office, parties organize the legislature (in the national government this is Congress) and attempt to put their stamp on the laws passed by Congress and the president. They do all they can to claim credit, avoid blame, and maintain power.

• (All major offices in both house of Congress are organized by parties, as our committee assignments.)


Parties are “User-Friendly”

• Most voters have a image of each party; and many voters still rely on a party to give them cues for voting. Over many years businesses establish reputations. They establish a “brand.”Parties also over many years establish a reputation, a brand. Parties and businesses work very hard to establish a good reputation/brand/label. Like businesses, parties “sell” a product in order to achieve their goal. Unlike business, however, parties need most people (voters) to “buy” their products (candidates) to achieve their goal (holding gov’t power).


Party “Brands”

Democratic Party• (+) For working people; “the

little guy/gal”• (-)Party of big

government/high taxes

• Favor more social programs to help the poor and minorities

• Support gay rights and abortion rights

• Liberal/progressive

Republican Party• (+) For low taxes; get gov’t

off your back• (-) For the rich/uncaring

• Favor cutting social programs; less government

• Favor “traditional” views on marriage and favor restricting abortion

• conservative /libertarian


User-friendly

• Voters associate the Democratic Party with a liberal view of government and Republicans with a conservative view of government.

• What do these terms mean?


Political Ideologies: The Left

• Liberals believe government can and must advance the cause of liberty and justice in America. They believe government can be a positive force for change and in rectifying problems in society. They tend to view problems such as poverty as largely caused by larger social forces.

• Government must be a part of the solution.• “Hamiltonian means to achieve Jeffersonian

ends.”Pearson Education, Inc., Longman © 2008

Political Ideologies: The Right• Conservatives view government more as an impediment to

liberty. They tend to see problems such as poverty as largely caused by individual choices. Therefore, government actions on behalf of the poor punish the successful (who are taxed) to pay for those who have made poor choices. Conservatives see taxes and business regulations as punitive and favor the barest minimum of each while Liberals view both as necessary to meeting public needs.

• Government is not the solution; government is the problem. (Ronald Reagan)



Party competition is the battle between Democrats and Republicans for control of public office.

• Without this competition there would be no choice, and without choice there would be no democracy.

• The Founding Fathers frowned upon parties.• Political Party:– A “team of men [and women] seeking to control the

governing apparatus by gaining office in a duly constituted election” In the USA, political parties are election-oriented, not issue-oriented. However,…



Parties can be thought of in three parts, or as political scientists often call them - “three-headed political giants.”

Party in the electorate: the individuals who perceive themselves as party members; many members have a party identification that guides and influences their votes. Unlike many European political parties, American parties do NOT require dues or membership cards to distinguish members from non-members.



– Party as an organization: This includes the people who keep the party running between elections and make its rules. Included in this would be the national chairmen and national committee.

– Party in government: This consists of elected officials who call themselves members of that party (such as the President and Congress).



• In a large democratic system, linkage institutions translate inputs from the public into outputs from policymakers. Parties are linkage institutions.– Linkage Institution: the channels through which

people’s concerns become political issues on the government’s policy agenda



– WHAT TASKS DO PARTIES PERFORM?

– Parties Pick Candidates: a nomination is the party’s official endorsement of a candidate.

– Parties Run Campaigns: (although recent developments have often led candidates to run on their own.)



– Parties Give Cues to Voters: even though party ties have weakened, most voters have an image of each party; and many voters still rely on a party to give them cues for voting. Like businesses, parties “sell” a product in order to achieve their goal. Although parties stand for certain principles, in effect, have a “brand”, they will alter some of these principles if no one is “buying” what they’re selling – candidates – in order to win elections.


The Party Images/Brands

Democratic Party

• For working people (1930s – 1980)

• 1980s-present• favor more social programs to

help minorities and the poor/support “big government”

• Believe rich should pay higher taxes/”want to raise your taxes”

• Pro-choice and gay rights• liberal

Republican Party

• For the rich and big business (1930s-1980)

• 1980s -present• Party of low taxes• Favors limited government• Wants to reduce the poor’s and

minorities reliance on government/ “anti-minority”

• Pro-Life/ “anti-choice”• conservative



– Parties Articulate Policies:; within the electorate and in the gov’t, each political party advocates specific policy alternatives.

– *** Policies are secondary to winning elections and holding power. In the U.S., the parties are primarily election-oriented, not principle-oriented.

– Parties Coordinate Policymaking: each officeholder is also a member of a party, and the first place they look for support is their fellow partisans.



– Downs Model/Rational-choice theory– Rational-choice theory

• Assumes that parties and political actors have goals (such as winning elections) that are more important to the party than ideology.

• If parties and voters are rational, both will try to select the best way to achieve their goals.

• In order to win office, the wise party pursues policies that have broad public appeal

• The majority of the electorate are in the middle, and successful parties in the U.S. rarely stray far from the midpoint of public opinion



• Although we frequently hear criticism that there is not much difference between the Democrats and Republicans, the two parties have little choice (given the nature of the American political market)

• From a rational-choice perspective, one should expect the parties to differentiate themselves to some extent. The two parties have to forge different identities in order to build voter loyalty (especially among the more ideological voters that form the party’s “base” – for Democrats the base is liberals and African-Americans, for Republicans the base is conservatives and white-evangelical Christians)



• The Downs Model


The Party in the Electorate


• Party image: a voter’s perception of what Republicans or Democrats stand for

• Party identification: a citizen’s self-proclaimed preference for one party or the other– Republican, Democrat, or Independent

• Ticket-splitting: voting with one party for one office and with another party for other offices– Independents are most likely to split tickets.– No state or race is completely safe due to split tickets.

The Party in the Electorate


The Party Organizations: From the Grass Roots to Washington

• These are the people that work for the party.• Local Parties– Party Machines: a type of political party organization that

relies heavily on material inducements to win votes and to govern

– Patronage: a job, promotion or contract given for political reasons rather than merit; used by party machines

– Due to progressive reforms, urban party organizations are generally weak.

– Revitalization of party organization at county level



• The 50 State Party Systems– Closed primaries: Only people who have registered with

the party can vote for that party’s candidates.– Open primaries: Voters decide on Election Day whether

they want to vote in the Democrat or Republican primary.– Blanket primaries: Voters are presented with a list of

candidates from all parties.– State parties are better organized in terms of

headquarters and budgets than they used to be.



• The National Party Organizations– National Convention: the meeting of party

delegates every four years to choose a presidential ticket and the party’s platform

– National Committee: one of the institutions that keeps the party operating between conventions

– National Chairperson: responsible for day-to-day activities of the party


The Party in Government: Promises and Policy

• Party members actually elected to government• Which party controls government has policy

consequences.• Coalition: a group of individuals with a common

interest upon which every political party depends



• Often voters express frustration over what they see as the failure of officeholders running on a party platform, most notably the President and members of Congress, to carry out the promises they made as a candidate. Are parties guilty of failing to follow through on translating their platform promises into public policy? Be sure to provide evidence to support your claim.



Parties and politicians generally act on their campaign promises.

• “Gerald Pomper [a political scientist] has shown that party platforms are excellent predictors of a party’s actual performance in office. He tabulated specific pledges in the major parties’ platforms over a number of years on 3,194 policy pronouncements…Nearly ¾ of all promises resulted in policy actions…Only 10% were ignored all together.” p.257




Party Eras inAmerican History

• Party Eras– Historical periods in which a majority of votes cling to the party

in power (an extended period of time when one party dominates…wins great majority of national elections)

• Critical Election– An electoral “earthquake” where new issues and new coalitions

emerge (examples: 1860, 1896, 1932, 1968) ushers in a new party era or represents end to party era.

• Party Realignment– The displacement of the majority party by the minority party,

usually during a critical election



• 1796-1824: The First Party System– Madison warned of “factions” but parties developed during

Washington’s first term– Federalists vs. (Jeffersonian) Republicans – Federalists: led by Alexander Hamilton first political party– Federalists believed in a strong and activist national government and

loose interpretation of the Constitution as necessary to create and maintain a powerful nation-state with a powerful diversified economy based on manufacturing, commerce and agriculture; they saw national power as necessary to protecting liberty; they also opposed efforts to expand the vote to non-property holders; they drew their support from New England and from the capitalist class (merchants, bankers, entrepreneurs)



(Jeffersonian) Republicans: led by Thomas Jefferson; Republicans saw national power as a threat to liberty and favored very limited national power and a strict interpretation of the Constitution. They favored agrarianism and expanding democracy. Their supporters included southerners, small farmers and newly naturalized immigrants.

1828-1856: Jackson and the Democrats Versus the Whigs Democratic Party founded by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren;

they saw themselves as true inheritors of Jefferson; favored limited national power (except when it came to territorial expansion). They drew their support from southern farmers and northern workers, especially immigrants.



Whigs formed mainly to oppose Jacksonian Democrats; they did not see national power as a threat but rather as necessary to advance opportunity and progress. By the 1850s the Whigs fell apart over the issue of slavery as many of their northern members could no longer tolerate the party’s refusal to address the issue of slavery for fear of alienating southern Whigs

– Anti slavery Whigs and anti-slavery Democrats joined the new Republican Party in droves in the mid-late 1850s



• 1860-1928: The Two Republican Eras

Republicans rose as the antislavery party, as the Union party during the Civil War, and then during Reconstruction as the party defending the rights of the freedmen; By 1877 Republicans moved away from firm commitment to civil rights and became the party of northern business interests. Republicans favored a laissez-faire (leave it alone) approach to business (yet gave support to business in the form of tariffs and subsidies)



– 1896 election a realigning election which centered on economic interests and the future of industrialization; McKinley’s victory entrenched Republican dominance for the next three decades

– Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency put the Republican Party on the side of progressive goals (including the idea of an activist [and regulating] state to promote greater opportunity) and put conservatives on the defense; TR’s successor moved the Republicans too close to conservative views for TR and his supporters’ liking and as a result in 1912 a third party challenge gave the White House to Democrat Woodrow Wilson



– Warren G. Harding’s election in 1920 and his pledge of “normalcy” put the Republican Party firmly in the hands of conservatives; Coolidge and Hoover pursued pro-business, laissez-faire policies and the stock market and profits soared..Then in October 1929 the Great Stock Market Crash ushered in the Great Depression.



1932-1968: The New Deal Coalition– Voters repudiated Herbert Hoover in 1932 and elected the

Democratic candidate, Franklin D. Roosevelt; FDR’s actions which drew on and expanded the ideas of the progressives gained the support of most average Americans as his New Deal lessened the devastating effects of the Depression; FDR’s re-elections in 1936, ‘40 and ’44 solidified the Democrats as the new majority party; the Democrats became identified with Hamiltonian means to achieve Jeffersonian ends (Strong activist government to balance the interests of big business to protect and advance the liberty of all Americans)


Truman and the Fair Deal

• President Harry S. Truman became President upon FDR’s death in April 1945.

• In 1946 the Republicans took control of Congress for the first time since 1930.


Eisenhower Republicanism

• In 1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first Republican elected President since Hoover in 1928. As President Eisenhower (“Ike”) not only kept the New Deal, but extended Social Security and approved massive government spending to build the interstate highway system. Ike understood the popularity of many New Deal programs which benefited middle class Americans. Most Republicans accepted the political reality that their viability as a major party meant leaving the New Deal alone. Others, however, like Barry Goldwater, called Ike’s Republicanism “dime store New Deal.”



– New Deal coalition: forged by the Democrats; consisted of urban working class, liberals. ethnic groups, Catholics, Jews, the poor, northern African-Americans, Southerners…tensions between northern liberals and southern conservative – and racist Democrats – prevented FDR from moving on civil rights and greatly constrained Truman and JFK..,.when JFK and LBJ finally embraced civil rights their actions led to the defection of southern conservative Democrats (“Dixiecrats”) and some northern white ethnics as well…After trouncing Barry Goldwater in 1964, LBJ enacted many new liberal laws..then came Vietnam, urban riots, the rise of the counter-culture…and the white backlash…


Party Eras in American History



• 1968-Present: The Era of Divided Party Government– Divided government: one party controls Congress

and the other controls White House– Divided government due in party to:• Party dealignment: disengagement of people from

parties as evidenced by shrinking party identification• Party neutrality: people are indifferent towards the two

parties


Nixon’s Southern Strategy

• Richard Nixon employed a “southern strategy” to draw more southern Democrats into the Republican party.






Third Parties: Their Impact on American Politics

• Third parties: electoral contenders other than the two party parties; rarely win elections

• Third parties are important.– Are “safety valves” for popular discontent– Bring new groups and ideas into politics

• Two-party system – Discourages extreme views– Contributes to political ambiguity– Only one third party made it to a major party. Which one

and when?


Third Parties: Their Impact on American Politics

• Multiparty Systems in Other Countries– Winner-take-all system: legislative seats awarded

only to first place finishers– Proportional Representation: legislative seats

awarded based on votes received by the party - more votes, more seats

– Coalition Government: two or more parties join to form a majority in a national legislature


Understanding Political Parties

• Parties are essential elements of democracy• Democracy and Responsible Party Government– Responsible Party Model

1. Parties have distinct comprehensive programs.2. Candidates are committed to the program.3. The majority party must carry out its program.4. The majority party must accept responsibility.

– American political parties fall short of these conditions.– No mechanism for party discipline



• American Political Parties and the Scope of Government– Lack of uniformity keeps government small• Big programs like Health Care (1994) fail

– But also makes cutting government programs difficult• Individuals focus on getting more from government for

their own constituents



• Is the Party Over?– Political parties are no longer main source of

information for voters; media are– Yet parties will play an important but diminished

role in American politics• State and national party organizations have become

more visible and active• Majority of people still identify with a party


Summary

• Parties are a pervasive linkage institution in American politics.– Party in electorate, government, and as

organization• America has a two-party system.• The decentralized nature of political parties

makes major change difficult and encourages individualism in politics.


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Political Parties Chapter 8 Pearson Education, Inc., Longman © 2008 Government in America: People,...

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