The Democratic and Republican Governors Associations and the Nationalization of American Party Politics, 1961–1968

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Anthony Sparacino
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
State Level ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
State Governments ◽  
National Party ◽  
Government Programs ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
Party Building ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
American Party

Abstract This article examines the origins and early activities of the Democratic and Republican Governors Associations (DGA and RGA, respectively) from the RGA's initial founding in 1961 through the 1968 national nominating conventions. I argue that the formations of these organizations were key moments in the transition from a decentralized to a more integrated and nationally programmatic party system. The DGA and RGA represent gubernatorial concern for and engagement in the development of national party programs and the national party organizations. Governors formed these groups because of the increasing importance of national government programs on the affairs of state governments and the recognition on the part of governors that national partisan politics was having critical effects on electoral outcomes at the state level, through the reputations of the national parties. To varying extents, the governors used these organizations to promote the national parties and contributed to national party-building efforts and the development of national party brands.

Economic governance: Does it make or break a dominant party equilibrium? The case of India

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 451-465
Author(s):  
Chanchal Kumar Sharma ◽  
Wilfried Swenden
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Party System ◽  
National Level ◽  
State Level ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Economic Governance ◽  
Dominant Party ◽  
Stable Pattern ◽  
Incumbent Party ◽  
Party Dominance

Why do voters re-elect the same party for prolonged periods of time even when there are reasonable alternatives available? When and why do they stop doing so? Based on a quantitative analysis of elections between 1972 and 2014, we test the significance of ‘economic governance’ for the continuance and fall of one-party dominance. With data from India we show that, under a command economy paradigm, a national incumbent party sustains its dominance by playing politics of patronage, but in a marketized economy, state governments gain considerable scope in managing their economic affairs. This enables different state parties to create a stable pattern of support in states. As state-level effects cease to aggregate at the national level, the party system fragments. However, such an aggregation can re-emerge if a single party consistently delivers in the states which it governs.

scholarly journals The authoritarian origins of well-organized opposition parties: The rise of Chadema in Tanzania

2018 ◽  
Vol 118 (473) ◽  
pp. 692-711 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Paget
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Opposition Party ◽  
Party Building ◽  
Organizational Expansion ◽  
Party System Institutionalization ◽  
Deviant Case ◽  
Opposition Parties

Abstract This article concerns the organizational expansion undertaken by the opposition party, Chadema, in Tanzania between 2003 and 2015. It argues that Chadema’s extensive party-building enabled it to mobilize on the ground. These organizational developments, as much as elite action, underpinned recent changes in the party system and the opposition’s improved showing in recent elections. Chadema established branches even though many of the prerequisite circumstances typically recognized in the literature were absent. This makes Chadema a deviant case and this deviance has implications for the historical institutionalist literature on party-building. This article complicates Rachel Riedl’s account of state substitution. She links the incorporation or substitution of social actors to different paths of party system institutionalization. This article demonstrates that the character and consequences of state substitution depend upon the balance of power between state and social actors. It also builds on accounts by Adrienne LeBas and others that when social actors are strong, they can endow opposition parties with resources which make branch establishment possible, and when they are weak, they can only act as surrogate party branches. This article illustrates that when social actors are absent from partisan politics, parties have no way to organize except by founding green-site branches.

Conclusion

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffery A. Jenkins ◽  
Charles Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Organizational Capacity ◽  
Majority Party ◽  
Party Building ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Party Strength ◽  
American Party ◽  
The U.S

This chapter summarizes the key points raised by the book, with particular emphasis on questions of organizational control, party-building, and party strength in Congress. It begins with a discussion of the role that the party caucus has played in hastening a consistent House organization by the majority party. It then considers the organizational cartel's relationship with the procedural cartel and the applicability of the organizational cartel mechanism in other legislatures, including the U.S. Senate, American state legislatures, and parliaments around the world. The chapter also examines Martin van Buren's legacy, focusing on his role in developing the organizational capacity of the Democratic Party and his efforts in building the American party system, before concluding with some final thoughts on political parties and congressional organization.

What Happened to Post-Partisanship? Barack Obama and the New American Party System

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sidney M. Milkis ◽  
Jesse H. Rhodes ◽  
Emily J. Charnock
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Barack Obama ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Party Building ◽  
Cult Of Personality ◽  
Grassroots Support ◽  
American Party

Ascending to the presidency in the midst of a severe economic crisis and an ongoing war on terrorism, Barack Obama faced numerous political and policy challenges. We examine the responsibilities he faced in assuming the received tasks of modern presidential leadership amid a polarized political system. To a point, Obama has embraced partisan leadership, indeed, even further articulating developments in the relationship between the president and parties that Ronald Reagan had first initiated, and George W. Bush built upon. Thus Obama has advanced an executive-centered party system that relies on presidential candidates and presidents to pronounce party doctrine, raise campaign funds, mobilize grassroots support, and campaign on behalf of their partisan brethren. Just as Reagan and Bush used their powers in ways that bolstered their parties, so Obama's exertions have strengthened the Democratic Party's capacity to mobilize voters and to advance programmatic objectives. At the same time, presidential partisanship threatens to relegate collective responsibility to executive aggrandizement. Seeking to avoid the pitfalls that undermined the Bush presidency, Obama has been more ambivalent about uniting partisanship and executive power. Only time will tell whether this ambiguity proves to be effective statecraft—enshrining his charisma in an enduring record of achievement and a new Democratic majority—or whether it marks a new stage in the development of executive dominion that subordinates party building to the cult of personality.

Democrats and Whigs

2020 ◽  
pp. 61-78
Author(s):  
Harry L. Watson
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Indian Removal ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
American System ◽  
Party Building ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
American Party ◽  
Sectional Conflict

The rivalry between the Whig and Democratic Parties, often called the “Second American Party System,” first emerged in Andrew Jackson’s administration (1829–1837). Democrats organized to secure Jackson’s 1828 election, then united behind his program of Indian removal, no federal funding of internal improvements, opposition to the Bank of the United States, defense of slavery, and the “spoils system” that used patronage for party building. Whigs supported Henry Clay’s pro-development American System, sympathized with evangelical reform, and reluctantly accepted Democratic techniques for popular mobilization and party organization. The mature parties competed closely in most states and briefly eased sectional conflict, before splitting in the 1850s over slavery in the territories. Whigs made no presidential nomination in 1856, and the Second Party System disintegrated. As it did, Northern Whigs and antislavery Democrats merged in the Republican Party, southern Whiggery steeply declined, and Democrats survived as the only national party.

Parties, Partisanship, and Public Policy in the Pennsylvania Legislature

1954 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 450-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Keefe
Keyword(s):  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
State History ◽  
Fruitful Research ◽  
American Party ◽  
The Impact

A significant result of the report “Toward A More Responsible Two-Party System” has been the marked growth of interest in the American party system. It is nevertheless true that our knowledge about the way in which party systems function is far from complete. An area promising fruitful research and presenting many hypotheses susceptible of systematic inquiry is that of the role of party organizations in the legislative process.It is the purpose of this article to examine the legislative role of political parties in the Pennsylvania General Assembly; more precisely, to measure their influence in the formation of the state's public policies in one session of the legislature. The most recent completed session at the time of this study was that of 1951—the longest session in state history.In order to evaluate the impact of party upon legislation, the concept of a “party vote” has been used. This is merely an operating definition by which to measure differences in party attitudes on questions subjected to roll-call votes on the floor. The assumption was made that the interests of the parties can be established best by analyzing the voting behavior of their membership. Questions to which partisan significance is attached will find the parties aligned against each other.

From Circles to Parties. Genesis of Party System in Russia in the Beginning of 20th Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 464-470
Author(s):  
Kirill A. Solovyov
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Party System ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
The Public ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
In The Beginning

The article is devoted to the general patterns of political parties formation in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. They were preceded by proto-party organizations that were far from being ideologically monolithic. Under the conditions of rapid differentiation of political forces, the existing alliances were often accidental and situational. They hung on to the legacy of the pre-revolutionary era, when the public was just “learning” to talk about politics, and the boundaries between different ideological structures were quite rather relative.

Federal and Subnational Elections in Russia: Coherence and Divergence in Electoral Outcomes

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-353
Author(s):  
Rostislav Turovsky ◽  
Marina Sukhova
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Strong Connection ◽  
Regional Parties ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
Electoral Authoritarianism ◽  
Subnational Elections ◽  
Effective Number Of Parties ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
Regional Elections

Abstract This article examines the differences between Russian voting at federal elections and regional legislature elections, both combined and conducted independently. The authors analyse these differences, their character and their dynamics as an important characteristic of the nationalisation of the party system. They also test hypotheses about a higher level of oppositional voting and competitiveness in subnational elections, in accordance with the theory of second-order elections, as well as the strategic nature of voting at federal elections, by contrast with expressive voting during subnational campaigns. The empirical study is based on calculating the differences in votes for leading Russian parties at subnational elections and at federal elections (simultaneous, preceding and following) from 2003, when mandatory voting on party lists was widespread among the regions, to 2019. The level of competitiveness is measured in a similar way, by calculating the effective number of parties. The study indicates a low level of autonomy of regional party systems, in many ways caused by the fact that the law made it impossible to create regional parties, and then also by the 2005 ban on creation of regional blocs. The strong connection between federal and regional elections in Russia clearly underlines the fluid and asynchronic nature of its electoral dynamics, where subnational elections typically predetermine the results of the following federal campaigns. At the same time, the formal success of the nationalisation of the party system, achieved by increasing the homogeneity of voting at the 2016 and 2018 federal elections, is not reflected by the opposing process of desynchronisation between federal and regional elections after Putin’s third-term election. There is also a clear rise in the scale of the differences between the two. At the same time, the study demonstrates the potential presence in Russia of features common to subnational elections in many countries: their greater support for the opposition and presence of affective voting. However, there is a clear exception to this trend during the period of maximum mobilisation of the loyal electorate at the subnational elections immediately following the accession of Crimea in 2014–2015, and such tendencies are generally restrained by the conditions of electoral authoritarianism.

The Legal and Empirical Case for Firearm Purchaser Licensing

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (S4) ◽  
pp. 17-24
Author(s):  
Hannah Abelow ◽  
Cassandra Crifasi ◽  
Daniel Webster
Keyword(s):  
Violence Prevention ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
State Government ◽  
State Level ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Gun Violence ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Legal Frameworks

This article argues that state government actors concerned about gun violence prevention should prioritize enactment of robust firearm purchaser regimes at the state level. First, the article outlines the empirical evidence base for purchaser licensing. Then, the article describes how state governments can design this policy. Next, the article assesses the likelihood that purchaser licensing legislation will continue to be upheld by federal courts. Finally, the article addresses the implications of this policy, aimed at curbing gun deaths, for equally important racial justice priorities. Taken together, these various considerations indicate that purchaser licensing policies are among the most effective firearm-focused laws state governments can enact to reduce gun deaths within the existing federal legislative and legal frameworks.

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