Types of Primary and Party Responsibility

1965 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ira Ralph Telford
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Government School ◽  
Party Government ◽  
Party Members ◽  
American Party ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Responsible Party

A chief criticism of the American party system is the lack of party responsibility. In the view of some students, one characteristic of our political system that contributes to this irresponsibility is the practice in some states of allowing individuals to vote in primaries without regard to their partisan allegiances. In such an open primary Republicans may, if they wish, vote in the Democratic primary, and vice versa. The contrasting, and more common, practice is the closed primary, in which participation is restricted to party “members.” Some political scientists think that the closed primary, by subjecting legislators to the presumed discipline of periodic scrutiny by their party's members, induces a greater measure of party regularity than the open primary, in which the official has to satisfy a more motley clientele. This position was taken in the best-known statement of the “party government” school, the 1950 report of the APS A Committee on Political Parties:The closed primary deserves preference because it is more readily compatible with the development of a responsible party system…. on the other hand, the open primary tends to destroy the concept of membership as the basis of party organization.Other political scientists have expressed doubts about this presumed relationship between primaries and party responsibility, but there has been no systematic empirical evidence on the point. This paper will examine the relationship between primaries and party responsibility by comparing the party regularity of senators from open primary and closed primary states.

New Perspectives on British Local Government

1973 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-138
Author(s):  
Howard A. Scarrow
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Pressure Group ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Pressure Groups ◽  
Party Cohesion ◽  
American Party

It is both humbling and encouraging to recall notions that Americans once entertained of the British political system. Critics of F.D.R. looked enviously at the British Parliament for its reputed ability to hold the executive firmly accountable for its actions. Somewhat later, observers on both sides of the Atlantic supposed that Britain was blessed with an absence of pressure groups. Would-be reformers of the American party system further implied that British voters cast their ballots according to the content of party programs, and that party cohesion was the result of discipline imposed by a centralized party organization able to deny renomination to recalcitrant M.P.'s. Careful analyses of intra-party workings, pressure-group activity, and voting behavior have now dispelled these and other mistaken impressions, and it seems likely that the contours of our understanding of these subjects have now been established. However, additional frontiers of knowledge of the British political system remain to be charted; one of these is government at the local level.

What Did They Wish For? Party Government, Polarization and the American Political Science Association

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK WICKHAM-JONES
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Party System ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
Party Government ◽  
Core Issue ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Responsible Party

In tracing the development of increased polarization in the United States, numerous scholars have noted the apparent importance of the American Political Science Association's (APSA's) Committee on Political Parties. The committee's influential (and often criticized) report, Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System, called for a wholesale transformation of political parties in the United States. On its publication in October 1950, political scientists quickly concluded that, taken together, the committee's recommendations represented a reworking of a distinct approach, usually known as “party government” or “responsible party government.” (The origins of responsible parties dated back to Woodrow Wilson's classic 1885 text Congressional Government.) Since then, the notion of party government has become a core issue in the study of American political parties, albeit a contentious one. A recent survey ranked the APSA document at seventh as a canonical text in graduate syllabi concerning parties.

The 1938 Elections and the American Party System

1939 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-211
Author(s):  
F. A. Hermas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
The Past ◽  
Constructive Work ◽  
The Government ◽  
American Party

Political parties have been subjected to more vigorous criticism than any other institution of modern democracy. It is charged that their divisions split a country artificially. It is further contended that the line-up into the two camps of government and opposition makes it impossible for a country to avail itself of all its political talent, since those belonging to the opposition party are, temporarily at least, unavailable for constructive work, and are instead making every effort to obstruct the government in power. In the United States the point has frequently been made that the two major parties are no longer justified because neither of them contains anything which it could consider characteristic of itself. “The party term Republican isn't definitive any more. It isn't even descriptive. No more so is the party term Democrat. They are labels on empty bottles, signs on untenanted houses, cloaks that cover but do not conceal the skeletons beneath them.” More recently a similar charge has been made by Dr. Mortimer Adler, a writer who brilliantly combines his analysis of the present with a knowledge of the past. He directs attention to the fact that parties, instead of responding to issues, tend to create them. According to Dr. Adler, parties would be justified if they served only the purpose for which they have been created and then dissolved; of course, in reality, they perpetuate their existence. On somewhat similar lines the famous biographer of the modern party organization, Ostrogorski, proceeded from theoretical criticism to practical suggestions. His plan was to replace existing parties by “leagues,” which were to respond to one issue only, and be dissolved as soon as that issue should be settled.

Presidential Elections in the American Political System

1971 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-23
Author(s):  
Robert D. Marcus
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political System ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Party System ◽  
Human Life ◽  
American Constitution ◽  
Political Tradition ◽  
American Party

The founders of the American republic did not, by and large, like political parties. Their whole political tradition taught them to identify “faction” and “party” with the irrational and disruptive tendencies in human life, with “passion” and “interest.” Against this they set constitutions, first the British Constitution, then the written American Constitution of 1787 as rational artifices or constructions designed to thwart “the spirit of party and faction.” Yet the very men who left their political testaments against party were also the creators of the first American party system, the heroes whose rites the parties celebrate down to the present.

scholarly journals Policy Preferences Of Political Party Leaders And The Mass Public: A Southern Perspective

1989 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Mark C. Ellickson
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Mass Public ◽  
Vital Functions ◽  
American Party

In recent years there has been a steady stream of literature proclaiming the decline of the American party system (Burnham, 1976; Kirkpatrick, 1978; Ladd, 1982; Crotty, 1984, 1985; Konda and Sigelman, 1987). It is argued that the parties have been losing their “ relevance,” their critical capacity in responding to social needs and problems (Eldersveld, 1982; Miller and Wattenberg, 1983). This allegation entails serious ramifications as political parties have long been viewed as performing many vital functions in the American political system (Leiserson, 1958; Sorauf, 1984).

Party Realignment in the United States and Britain

1985 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Williams
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Party Realignment ◽  
History Of

Realignment theory is a recent but flourishing sub-branch of the study of American political parties. Over the last thirty years, the original suggestions of its inventor, V. O. Key, have been elaborated and refined in several directions and through several phases, gradually being modified to take variations in historical circumstances more carefully into account. Problems of the same kind often occur, and are likely to prove even less manageable, when efforts are made to apply the theory to another political system and culture as authors from both countries (and from neither) have in recent years tried, more or less explicitly, to use it to explain developments in the British party system. Some techniques travel quite well, and some useful insights can be obtained by looking afresh at familiar patterns in the light of similar experiences elsewhere. But the differences between the two nations and states preclude any rigorous attempt to apply a theory derived from the history of one country with a view to explaining the experiences of the other.

The Future of the American Party System

1982 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-50
Author(s):  
C. Edwin Gilmour
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
American Party ◽  
Personal Assessment ◽  
Future Status

A central theme of contemporary literature on American political parties—a theme with a broad consensus that is uncommon in the discipline—is that the party system of the United States is in transition due to significant changes within the past two decades that distinguish the operation of today's party system from what it was before 1960. However, consensus is lacking as to the implications of these changes for the future status of the American party system. This paper has four broad objectives: 1. to review briefly the phenomenon of party re-alignment in American history as a useful perspective on the present party era; 2. to identify and discuss significant alterations in the party system since 1960 ; 3. to note various scenarios in the literature concerning the future of the parly system in ‘the United States and 4. to hazard a personal assessment of the scenarios as to their plausibility and probability.

The Labor Party in Ulster: Opposition by Cartel

1967 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 526-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard F. Rutan
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Socialization ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Society ◽  
Political Beliefs

Almost thirty years ago Nicholas Mansergh concluded that the political parties in Northern Ireland did not fulfill the needs of the political system: that (to put his statement in more contemporary terms) the input functions, particularly that of political socialization, were enfeebled to the extent that one party constituted a permanent government while the other became an equally permanent opposition. What is more, underlying the party system and within the political society itself there existed no consensus on fundamentals: “There is no residue of political beliefs—as in Great Britain and the Free State—acceptable to both parties.”

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document