The Dilemma of American Political Parties

TheDilemmaofAmerican Political Parties RalphM. Goldman. Search for Consensus: TheStotJ' of the Democratic Party. Philadelphia: TempleUniversityPress, 1979.417+ xi pp. PaulKleppner. The Third Electoral System, 1853-1892: Parties, Voters, and Political Cultures. Chapel Hill: Universityof North Carolina Press, 1979.424 + xxii pp. AllanJ. Lichtman. Prejudice and the Old Politics: ThePresidential Election of 1928.Chapel Hill: Universityof North Carolina Press, 1979.366 + xiii pp. LarrySabata. The Democratic Party Prima,y in Virginia: Tantamount to Election No Longe,: Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1977.169+ xiipp. Harold M. Waller It iswidely agreed that the present state of American political parties is a sorry one indeed. The two party system has persisted, but appears to be very weak. Voter turnout is declining, citizen apathy is on the increase, more and more people are willing to identify themselves as independents, and two of the last four presidential elections involved significant independent candidacies. A venerable party system, determined bysome to be in the fifth (perhaps sixth) phase of an historical process that began nearly two centuries ago, seems to be wallowing in irrelevancy. Single issue interest groups were prominent replacements for the parties in many of the policy battles of the 1970s,while more recently ideological groups with a broader focus have joined the fray, with notable success on the conservative side. Surely it is appropriate to characterize this situation as a "crisis" not only for Republicans and Democrats , but for the American political system as a whole, for the parties have played a vital role in American political development since their founding and still perform valuable functions. Should the process of atrophy persist, the effects are likely to be significant, especially in terms of the stability and continuity of the system. 1 Inthe past, the two parties have shown considerable resiliency and a surprising ability to revitalize themselves by adapting to changing conditions. One may be reluctant to argue that the present situation rivals the aftermath of the Civil War or the Great Depression in terms of the Canadian Review of American Studies, Volume 14,Number 1, Spring 1983,79-88 80 Harold M. Waller challenge faced by the parties; nonetheless there is a great deal at stake and not much reason for optimism. The foregoing observations must be understood in the context of a party system that traditionally had limited objectives, most notably in the realm of policy, at least in the sense of policy consistency as it is used in other countries. The strength of the American parties has been to aggregate the interests that exist in a very diverse country and to organize them for the purpose of governing. This is no small feat and should not be discounted. In fact, the success of the parties in constructing coalitions comprising numerous social, religious, ethnic, economic and interest groups has contributed mightily to shaping the character of American government and politics. And when the party system failed, the result was a fratricidal conflict that left its imprint on the political system for over a century. Consequently, students of the American parties learned to scale down their expectations in comparison with parties in other countries. Yet the two parties are coming up short even when measured against these reduced expectations. The perception that the parties are in a state of decline has stimulated a considerable amount of research in order to produce some explanation for these developments. One group of scholars and pundits has been looking anxiously for evidence that the long-awaited (and in the view of some, long overdue) realignment of the party system is under way.2 The expectation is that a realignment would inject new energy and vitality into existing parties and usher in a new era of purposeful political activity. Whether a realignment is on the way or has even started, and whether it would bring about the desired result, remain open questions. The books under review here do not address the contemporary crisis in direct terms, but each in its own way has some relevance for our understanding of the evolution of the party system. All of the books have a historical focus, with two of them, those b_y Paul Kleppner and Allan Lichtman, highly quantitative. Aside...