Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 249-258
Author(s):  
Emily J. Charnock
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Party Change ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Specific Policy ◽  
Major Interest ◽  
Ideological Dimension ◽  
Over Time

This conclusion highlights the importance of PACs in twentieth-century American political development. The emergence of partisan PACs, initially formed by major interest groups, played an important and neglected role in fostering the polarization of American politics—a phenomenon that has raised concern in recent decades. Seeking to reconfigure party politics around specific policy issues—more broadly, to realign the party system along an ideological dimension of conflict—these PACs helped make the parties more distinct and more deeply divided over time. They did so via electoral tools and tactics that are now ubiquitous in political life but are rarely probed in scholarship. A focus on PACs thus illuminates the very mechanisms through which party change was brought about, as much as its wider meaning. The book concludes with a consideration of contemporary US politics, in which PACs continue to play a prominent role.

Indicators of Party Change

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gideon Rahat ◽  
Ofer Kenig
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
Party Change ◽  
New Parties ◽  
Electoral Volatility ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Trends Over Time ◽  
Electoral Turnout ◽  
Over Time

The chapter examines nine of the chosen twelve indicators of party change. This group of nine contains widely used indicators and some that have been proposed and examined only by a few scholars. All these indicators examine the direct and the indirect links of parties with society. The indirect, mediated links include relationships between the extra-parliamentary organization and the “party in government” (party background of ministers and members of parliament); between the party and its members; and between parties and interest groups. The direct links with voters include voter attitudes toward parties (party identification), patterns of voter behavior (electoral volatility, electoral turnout), and the resulting party system (party system fragmentation, continuity of parties/emergence of new parties). The significance of each indicator is explained, its advantages and limitations are examined, and the trends over time for each one are presented.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Emily J. Charnock
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Group Behavior ◽  
Political Action Committees ◽  
System P ◽  
Major Interest ◽  
American Party

This introduction highlights the controversial nature and limited extent of interest group electioneering in the early twentieth century compared to its pervasiveness today. When early interest groups did engage in elections, they sought to appear nonpartisan, whereas many contemporary interest groups operate in effect as allies of the major parties. While different generations of political scientists have offered theories that explain each approach to elections and partisanship, they do not explain the shift in interest group behavior apparent across the twentieth century. This introduction provides a developmental account, elaborated in later chapters, that explains the intertwined embrace of electioneering and partisanship among major interest groups in the mid-twentieth century. It recounts when and why these groups formed political action committees (PACs) to undertake these electioneering activities and argues that such PACs have been used to transform the American party system.

Trends and Variations in the Two-Party Vote: The Case of Michigan

1958 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 1078-1090 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas A. Masters ◽  
Deil S. Wright
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Major Interest ◽  
Election Results

This study aims to analyze some features of voting behavior in a particular state party system and to illustrate new methods of analysis of election data. In this paper we use the gross election statistics for Michigan counties and cities to relate recent voting trends to the ecological characteristics of counties and to investigate the effect of certain variables on voting in cities.A closer scrutiny of Michigan election results is warranted at this time because major interest groups in this state no longer place a high premium on “keeping out of politics.” Traditionally, interest groups in American state and national politics are supposed to avoid any open and continuing commitments to particular party organizations or factions. Labor and business groups in Michigan, however, skirting the Taft-Hartley and corrupt practices acts (which purport to limit union and corporate political activities), have either modified or abandoned their past policies in this respect. The Michigan CIO fully accepts a partisan role and since 1948 a liberal-CIO coalition has controlled the Democratic party organization.

scholarly journals African Studies Keyword: Democracy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Nic Cheeseman ◽  
Sishuwa Sishuwa
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Political Life ◽  
African Studies ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Democracy is one of the most contested words in the English language. In Africa, these complexities are compounded by the question of whether democracy is a colonial imposition. Cheeseman and Sishuwa provide a historiography of debates around democracy, track how these narratives have developed over time, and argue that there is widespread public support for a form of what they call “consensual democracy.” This is not to say that democracy is universally loved, but despite the controversy it remains one of the most compelling ideals in political life, even in countries in which it is has yet to be realized.

Letters to the Editors

1987 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 337-342
Author(s):  
Eric Monkkonen
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
Local State ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Political News ◽  
Island Communities ◽  
Over Time

Samuel Kernell's article “The Early Nationalization of Political News in America,” in Studies in American Political Development: An Annual (1986), 1: 255–78, raises issues that are at once interesting and puzzling. He measures the number and length of all political articles in leading Cleveland newspapers through the middle decades of the nineteenth century in order to ask about the amount of newspaper attention paid to local, state, and national political issues. He observes that local issues were predominant only very early in the nineteenth century and that they declined quickly over time. Kernell concludes that politics nationalized far earlier than historians like Robert Wiebe had ever thought. Wiebe's “island communities” were gone by 1845. It is a clever piece of research of substantial significance.

“Pure Milk Is Better Than Purified Milk”

2007 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Czaplicki
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Interest ◽  
The Political ◽  
Organizational Practices ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Organizational Processes ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Pure Milk ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Better Than

This article explains how pasteurization—with few outspoken political supporters during this period—first became a primary milk purification strategy in Chicago and why eight years passed between pasteurization’s initial introduction into law and the city’s adoption of full mandatory pasteurization. It expands the current focus on the political agreement to pasteurize to include the organizational processes involved in incorporating pasteurization into both policy and practice. It shows that the decision to pasteurize did not occur at a clearly defined point but instead evolved over time as a consequence of the interplay of political interest groups, state-municipal legal relations, and the merging of different organizational practices. Such an approach considerably complicates and expands existing accounts of how political interests and agreements shaped pasteurization and milk purification policies and practice.

News and Notes

1980 ◽  
Vol 2 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 197-200
Author(s):  
D. Bruce Marshall
Keyword(s):  
International Economic ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
World Economy ◽  
International Studies ◽  
French Politics ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Major Interest ◽  
The World

The Conference Group on French Politics and Society organized two panels on the theme: The International Economic Crisis – The French Response which were held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association in Los Angeles on March 21-22, 1980. Chaired by Peter Gou rev itch (UC San Diego), the panelists considered some of the various solutions which the French Government and major interest groups have developed to cope with the troubles that persist in the world economy.

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