Asymmetry in the Political System: Occasional Activists in the Republican and Democratic Parties, 1956–1964

1971 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 716-730 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Nexon
Keyword(s):  
Survey Research ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
High Participation ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Public Opinion Polls ◽  
Opinion Polls

By means of the Survey Research Center's national public opinion polls of the electorate during the 1956, 1960, and 1964 elections, the opinions of volunteer activists in the Republican and Democratic Parties were compared to those of rank and file members. On issues that divided rank and file Republicans from rank and file Democrats, Republican activists were found to be far more conservative than ordinary Republicans. Democratic activists, however, had about the same distribution of opinion as rank and file members of their party. Moreover, Republicans were proportionately far more active than Democrats. It was inferred from these findings that the two parties were different kinds of organizations. The Republican Party, it was argued, was a high participation party with an amateur base composed of right wing ideologues, while the Democratic Party was a low participation party with a professionalized base not dependent on ideological incentives to activism.

Party Animals of the 2016 Presidential Primaries: Political Cartoon Representations of the Republican and Democratic Parties

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (6) ◽  
pp. 600-610
Author(s):  
Joan L. Conners
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Presidential Primaries ◽  
Animal Representations ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Political Success

This analysis of political cartoon coverage of the 2016 presidential primaries found considerable attention given to the political parties themselves, as well as issues, and controversies the parties were facing. In political cartoons, the Republican and Democratic parties were usually reflected in animal representations of the elephant and donkey. A qualitative textual analysis of cartoon images from U.S. newspapers found a number of themes emerged in 2016 with regard to the party animals: Both parties were portrayed expressing reluctance or hesitancy in their party’s nominee, the Republican Party in particular was represented as helpless to stop the political success that Donald Trump saw in the primaries, and the Democratic Party was portrayed as divided between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. These themes found in political cartoon images suggest how the two dominant political parties operate in electoral politics today.

scholarly journals The crisis of American traditional political establishment and Donald Trump phenomenon

2020 ◽  
pp. 17-34
Author(s):  
Sergii Tolstov ◽  
Alona Godliuk
Keyword(s):  
Social Stratification ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Political System ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The U.S

Over the past decade the political processes in the U.S. and a number of European states have shown ambiguous changes which reflected ideological transformations and regroupings of political elites. Developments within the U.S. political system have witnessed a deep split along ideological lines which was characterized by the revival of various right-wing and conservative currents within the Republican party and the increasing influence of left-liberal groups inside the Democratic party. Taking into account the latest trends, the purpose of this article lays in the structural political analysis of political contradictions and regrouping processes within the U.S. political elites in the 2010s that prevailed during the presidencies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump. The authors emphasise that the crisis of traditional elites has not lead to the destruction of the bipartisan system, which remains the most important political institutional mechanism and ensures election of the executive branch, representative bodies and self-government at all levels. At the same time the recent trends within the political system demonstrated the destruction of such a specific phenomenon as a relative bipartisan consensus, which for a long time ensured the stability of power and the balance of interests among different groups of influence despite the regular change of the Republican and Democratic administrations. As an intermediate result reflecting the transformation of the American traditional political establishment the authors note both the overall polarization of the attitudes of the Republican and Democratic parties, and the strengthening of ‘internal’ pluralism inside the Republicans and the Democrats as a result of growing divergence and exacerbation of contradictions between supporters of various ideological groupings and platforms. This was approved by an obvious increase of influence of center-left groups among the Democrats and the right-wingers among the Republicans. These differences caused a tough political confrontation between different groups of elites in such important areas as social policy, taxes and health care. Similar fundamental discrepancies manifest the vision of international affairs especially on foreign trade and principles of interaction with the traditional allies. The exacerbation of political collisions ultimately led to an imbalance in the American political system and the loss of ability to achieve compromises between the leadership of the Republicans and Democrats. The authors conclude that the atomization of political elites is a projection of social stratification and polarization within the American society. These processes are not directly related to the personality of Donald Trump. Given the severity and critical aggravation of political contradictions, the US Presidential and Congressional elections on November 3, 2020 will not resolve the ongoing inter-elite conflict.

The Internal Stakes of the 2005 Elections: The Struggle for Influence in Egypt's National Democratic Party

2007 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-111
Author(s):  
Virginie Collombier
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
The Future ◽  
External Actors ◽  
First Time

Beyond the relative opening of the political system that characterized 2005 in Egypt — with the President being elected directly for the first time and the increased competition allowed during legislative elections — the 2005 elections also constituted an opportunity to consider and evaluate the internal struggles for influence under way within the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). In a context largely influenced by the perspective of President Husni Mubarak's succession and by calls for reform coming from both internal and external actors, changes currently occurring at the party level may have a decisive impact on the future of the Egyptian regime.

Before Reagan: The Development of Abortion’s Partisan Divide

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 1031-1047
Author(s):  
Neil A. O’Brian
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mass Public ◽  
Pro Life ◽  
Pro Choice

What explains the alignment of antiabortion positions within the Republican party? I explore this development among voters, activists, and elites before 1980. By 1970, antiabortion attitudes among ordinary voters correlated with conservative views on a range of noneconomic issues including civil rights, Vietnam, feminism and, by 1972, with Republican presidential vote choice. These attitudes predated the parties taking divergent abortion positions. I argue that because racial conservatives and military hawks entered the Republican coalition before abortion became politically activated, issue overlap among ordinary voters incentivized Republicans to oppose abortion rights once the issue gained salience. Likewise, because proabortion voters generally supported civil rights, once the GOP adopted a Southern strategy, this predisposed pro-choice groups to align with the Democratic party. A core argument is that preexisting public opinion enabled activist leaders to embed the anti (pro) abortion movement in a web of conservative (liberal) causes. A key finding is that the white evangelical laity’s support for conservative abortion policies preceded the political mobilization of evangelical leaders into the pro-life movement. I contend the pro-life movement’s alignment with conservatism and the Republican party was less contingent on elite bargaining, and more rooted in the mass public, than existing scholarship suggests.

Foreword

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheri Berman
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
National Level ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Western Democracy ◽  
British Labour ◽  
State And Local ◽  
The Government ◽  
Democratic Parties

The decline of the centre-left over the past years is one of the most alarming trends in Western politics. During the latter part of the 20th century such parties either ran the government or led the loyal Opposition in virtually every Western democracy. Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), once the most powerful party of the left in continental Europe, currently polls in high 20s or 30s. The French Socialist Party was eviscerated in the 2017 elections, as was the Dutch Labour Party. Even the vaunted Scandinavian social democratic parties are struggling, reduced to vote shares in the 30 per cent range. The British Labour Party and the US Democrats have been protected from challengers by their country’s first-past-the-post electoral systems, but the former has recently taken a sharp turn to the hard-left under Jeremy Corbyn, while the latter, although still competitive at the national level, is a minority party at the state and local levels, where a hard-right Republican Party dominates the scene....

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Eric Lagenbacher
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Election Outcome ◽  
The Political ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
German Politics ◽  
Left Party ◽  
Public Opinion Polls ◽  
Opinion Polls

Although it has not been that long since the articles of the previous special issue devoted to the 2017 Bundestag election and its aftermath have been published, the political situation in Germany appears to have stabilized. After almost six months without a new government, German politics has sunk back into a kind of late-Merkel era normality. Public opinion polls continue to show that the CDU/CSU is slightly above its election outcome, the SPD is still down in the 17–18 percent range, the FDP has lost about 2 percent of its support, while the AfD, Greens and Left Party are up 1–2 percent.

Uncertain Combinations

2018 ◽  
pp. 73-101
Author(s):  
David A. Bateman ◽  
Ira Katznelson ◽  
John S. Lapinski
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
The Core ◽  
National Representation ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Democrats And Republicans

This chapter visits the internal tensions within the various southern Democratic parties, which successfully united competing factions around the cause of white supremacy but whose unity was always tense and insecure. It begins by detailing the process of “redemption,” in which the Democratic Party across the South wrested control of state legislatures and national representation from biracial coalitions organized primarily within the Republican Party. It then examines the structure of political conflict in Congress, the site where southern diversity was transformed into regional solidarity, to show that the familiar story of the Black Belt as the core of southern solidarity must be revised. Turning to the substantive bases for southern unity and diversity, the chapter identifies the issue areas that implicated distinctively southern priorities and arrayed the region's members in diverse coalitions with northern Democrats and Republicans. From this set, it selects for detailed examination legislation that reflected competing intraregional priorities.

"Agenda setting" in de verkiezingscampagne van november 1991 in Vlaanderen

Res Publica ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-207
Author(s):  
Bart Maddens
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Issue Salience ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Nationalist Party ◽  
System Issue ◽  
The Moment

Voters probably do not take a series of relevant issues into consideration but rather vote on the basis of the few issues that happen to be on their minds at the moment of the decision. Issue salience, i.e. the availability of issue-schema's, is to a certain extent determined by the political communication during the election campaign. A content analysis of the debates during the 1991 campaign shows that the socio-economic issues, the ethnic issue and the immigrant issue were on top of the agenda. A similar analysis of the party political broadcasts and the ads in the national newspapers indicates that the parties tried to focus the campaign on the socio-economie issues (christian-democrats, socialists), the functioning of the political system (socialists, liberals) and to a much lesser extent on the environmental issue (greens) and the communal issue (left-wing and right-wing Flemish nationalists). Only the latter nationalist party attempted to prime the immigrant issue. Survey data show that this issue was exceptionally salient in the electorate, as were the ethnic issue and the political system issue.

The Paradox of Partisanship

2020 ◽  
pp. 35-57
Author(s):  
Lee Drutman
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
The Political ◽  
American Political Thought ◽  
The Right ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Science Association

This chapter examines the paradox of partisanship. In 1950, the American Political Science Association put out a major report arguing for a “more responsible two-party system.” The two parties—the Democratic Party and the Republican Party—were then largely indistinguishable coalitions of parochial local parties, and the political scientists argued that too little, rather than too much polarization, was the problem. This sets up a paradox: Some party division is necessary, but too much can be deadly. Various traditions in American political thought have tried to resolve this paradox. Antipartisans have urged consensus above all. Responsible partisans have urged competition above all. Meanwhile, bipartisans have urged compromise above all. Consensus is impossible. However, both compromise and competition are essential to democracy. Only the neglected multiparty tradition can solve the paradox with the right balance of competition and compromise.

DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN, THE 1976 NEW YORK SENATE RACE, AND THE STRUGGLE TO DEFINE AMERICAN LIBERALISM

2014 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 1111-1133 ◽  
Author(s):  
PATRICK ANDELIC
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
New Right ◽  
The Political ◽  
New Politics ◽  
Existential Crisis ◽  
American Liberalism ◽  
The Right

ABSTRACTThe 1970s was a decade of acute existential crisis for the Democratic party, as ‘New Politics’ insurgents challenged the old guard for control of both the party apparatus and the right to define who a true ‘liberal’ was. Those Democrats who opposed New Politics reformism often found themselves dubbed ‘neoconservatives’. The fact that so many ‘neoconservatives’ eventually made their home in the Grand Old Party (GOP) has led historians to view them as a Republican bloc in embryo. The apostasy of the neoconservatives fits neatly into the political historiography of the 1970s, which is dominated by the rise of the New Right and its takeover of the Republican party. Yet this narrative, though seductive, overlooks the essentially protean character of politics in that decade. This article uses the 1976 Senate campaign mounted by Daniel Patrick Moynihan – the dandyish Harvard academic, official in four presidential administrations, and twice US ambassador – to demonstrate that many ‘neoconservatives’ were advancing a recognizably liberal agenda and seeking to define a new ‘vital center’ against the twin poles of the New Politics and the New Right. A microcosm of a wider struggle to define liberalism, Moynihan's candidacy complicates our understanding of the 1970s as an era of rightward drift.

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