Political Parties in the Capital Economy of Modern Campaigns

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Krasno
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Fundamental Transformation

This chapter takes up two claims regarding political parties in American politics. First, the chapter contends with the conventional wisdom about the rise of candidate-centered campaigns sometime following 1950. The emphasis on candidate-centered campaigns obscures a much more fundamental transformation, especially for parties, from a campaign economy based mainly on labor to one based mainly on capital. Second, this chapter posits that parties' and candidates' goals, though overlapping, are distinct and separate. This has always been true, but the parties' transition from mobilizing election workers and volunteers to providing money or paid services exposes a fundamental conflict between the interests of parties and of candidates. This conflict has had immediate and serious ramifications for how parties allocate their resources, present themselves to the electorate, and mobilize voters, ultimately calling into question many of scholars' assumptions about parties.

Forging the Franchise

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dawn Langan Teele
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Strategic Alliances ◽  
National Level ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Competitive Environments ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Massive Change ◽  
Political Emancipation ◽  
Women’S Preferences ◽  
Do So

In the 1880s, women were barred from voting in all national-level elections, but by 1920 they were going to the polls in nearly thirty countries. What caused this massive change? Contrary to conventional wisdom, it was not because of progressive ideas about women or suffragists' pluck. In most countries, elected politicians fiercely resisted enfranchising women, preferring to extend such rights only when it seemed electorally prudent and necessary to do so. This book demonstrates that the formation of a broad movement across social divides, and strategic alliances with political parties in competitive electoral conditions, provided the leverage that ultimately transformed women into voters. As the book shows, in competitive environments, politicians had incentives to seek out new sources of electoral influence. A broad-based suffrage movement could reinforce those incentives by providing information about women's preferences, and an infrastructure with which to mobilize future female voters. At the same time that politicians wanted to enfranchise women who were likely to support their party, suffragists also wanted to enfranchise women whose political preferences were similar to theirs. In contexts where political rifts were too deep, suffragists who were in favor of the vote in principle mobilized against their own political emancipation. Exploring tensions between elected leaders and suffragists and the uncertainty surrounding women as an electoral group, the book sheds new light on the strategic reasons behind women's enfranchisement.

scholarly journals When Does Income Inequality Cause Polarization?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Jacob R. Gunderson
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
Economic Elites ◽  
The Right ◽  
Issue Content

Scholars have long been concerned with the implications of income inequality for democracy. Conventional wisdom suggests that high income inequality is associated with political parties taking polarized positions as the left advocates for increased redistribution while the right aims to entrench the position of economic elites. This article argues that the connection between party positions and income inequality depends on how party bases are sorted by income and the issue content of national elections. It uses data from European national elections from 1996 to 2016 to show that income inequality has a positive relationship with party polarization on economic issues when partisans are sorted with respect to income and when economic issues are relatively salient in elections. When these factors are weak, however, the author finds no relationship between income inequality and polarization.

Ingroup Projection in American Politics: An Obstacle to Bipartisanship

2021 ◽  
pp. 194855062110467
Author(s):  
Angela C. Bell ◽  
Collette P. Eccleston ◽  
Leigh A. Bradberry ◽  
William C. Kidd ◽  
Catherine C. Mesick ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Ingroup Bias ◽  
Lower Likelihood

One potential obstacle to cooperation between political parties is ingroup projection, the tendency for members of subgroups to define superordinate groups based on characteristics of their own ingroups. In five studies spanning 11 years and three presidential administrations, we demonstrated that ingroup projection can be an obstacle that prevents bipartisanship between Republicans and Democrats. Study 1 showed that Americans perceived political ingroups as more prototypical of Americans than outgroups and that the degree of mismatch between the outgroup and the superordinate group was associated with ingroup bias. Studies 2–5 demonstrated that perceiving the outgroup as poorly fitting the prototype of the superordinate group predicted opposition to bipartisan cooperation and a lower likelihood of having engaged in bipartisan behavior (Studies 4 and 5). These studies provide evidence for ingroup projection among American political parties and suggest that it contributes to political polarization.

Federalism and the Electoral College

2019 ◽  
pp. 62-92
Author(s):  
Robert M. Alexander
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Electoral College

This chapter examines federalism as it relates to the Electoral College. While the Framers sought to create a system safeguarding federalism, they also wanted a process that yielded a leader who could command supermajorities across the country. The Electoral College process has become increasingly democratized, as have many other features in American politics. The emergence of political parties has emphasized differences based on ideology rather than one’s location. Moreover, the protections afforded to less populated states by the Electoral College are largely exaggerated due to the attention given to swing states. Candidates limit their resources to a handful of states and rarely visit most states, including both the most populated and least populated states. This suggests the failure of the Electoral College to (1) produce campaigns appealing to smaller states and (2) produce candidates with broad national appeal.

Party, Opposition, and Political Development

1978 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-182
Author(s):  
Kenneth Kolson
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Political Sophistication ◽  
The West ◽  
Noxious Weeds ◽  
Vital Functions ◽  
Party Development

It is by now conventional wisdom among political scientists that political parties are not the noxious weeds they were once thought to be. Undeniably, parties have hastened the development of democracy in the West and continue to serve vital functions in modern states. Most political scientists would agree too that the emergence of regular party competition is only possible among those peoples who have acquired a measure of political sophistication. A country with nourishing parties is a country that has matured to the point of being able to tolerate dissent, and a country with inchoate or languishing parties is a country that must be consigned to the ranks of the “underdeveloped” or the perverse. Party development, then, is often regarded as a measure of political development, and both of these as indexes to modernization or democratization.

Turnout and the Vote for Left-of-Centre Parties: A Cross-National Analysis

1995 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Pacek ◽  
Benjamin Radcliff
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Folk Wisdom ◽  
Industrial Democracies ◽  
National Analysis ◽  
Cross National

Political folk wisdom has long suggested that the electoral fortunes of left-of-centre political parties are affected by the rate of turnout. As is so often the case, the conventional wisdom has yet to be subjected to wide empirical scrutiny. In this Note, we attempt such an examination in the context of national elections in industrial democracies.

The Lost World of Gilded Age Politics

2002 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Worth Robert Miller
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Gilded Age ◽  
Common People ◽  
Corporate Influence ◽  
Racial Background ◽  
Sex Scandals

The rambunctious world of Gilded Age politics, with its boisterous partisan rallies and three-hour long declamations on the finer points of tariff schedules and monetary policy, passed from the scene of American politics rather abruptly about a century ago. Despite its superficial similarities with politics today — sex scandals, corporate influence, and partisan gridlock in Washington — the spirit and substance of Gilded Age politics was quite different from political discourse today. Politics was a national obsession to nineteenth century Americans. Partisanship was open and vigorous because common people believed the issues were important and political parties represented divergent viewpoints. Men (and in a few places women) of every ethnic and racial background, and from every walk of life, overwhelmingly participated in America's democratic experiment. This made Gilded Age politicians some of the greatest heroes and villains of the era.

Fighting Elections: Cross-Level Political Party Integration in Ontario

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 871-892 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Lennox Esselment
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
The Other ◽  
Federal System ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Party Activists ◽  
Local Party

Abstract.Conventional wisdom about the structure of political parties in Canada has emphasized their confederal nature. In other words (and the New Democratic party excepted), parties with identical partisan complexions at the federal and provincial levels are thought to operate in “two political worlds.” This paper argues that election campaigns are a key integrating link between parties. How they fight elections reveals extensive cross-level co-operation, particularly through shared activists (local party activists, party staff and party professionals) and technological expertise. This has the effect of shrinking the space between party cousins and forges unity between them. While there are certain obstacles to electoral collaboration, there are also incentives for these parties to work to maintain and strengthen their ties with their partisan cousin at the other level. These findings make an important contribution by directly challenging the notion that Canada's federal system has led to increasingly disentangled political parties.Résumé.L'opinion communément admise au sujet de la structure des partis politiques au Canada a mis l'accent sur leur nature confédérale. En d'autres termes (exception faite du Nouveau Parti démocratique), on considère en général que les partis à caractère partisan identique au palier fédéral et provincial fonctionnent dans «deux mondes politiques à part». Le présent article avance que les campagnes électorales constituent un facteur d'intégration clé entre les différents niveaux d'un parti. La façon dont un parti dispute une élection révèle un haut degré de coopération entre les organisations provinciales et fédérales, surtout du fait qu'ils partagent des militants communs (militants locaux, personnel politique et professionnels du parti) et leur expertise technologique. Ce phénomène tend à rétrécir l'espace entre cousins du même parti et à bâtir l'unité d'organisation entre les deux niveaux. Même s'il y a des obstacles inévitables à la collaboration électorale, les partis cousins ont de bonnes raisons de veiller à maintenir et à renforcer leurs liens réciproques. Ces conclusions apportent une contribution importante à l'étude des partis politiques, en contestant directement l'idée que le système fédéral au Canada a encouragé les partis politiques de même allégeance à mener leurs activités de manière indépendante.

scholarly journals The personal vote, electoral experience, and local connections: Explaining retirement underperformance at UK elections 1987–2010

Politics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alia Middleton
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Aggregate Level ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Local Ties ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Electoral Impact ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Step Down

At each election, some Members of Parliament (MPs) decide to step down. Irrespective of their motivation, retirement has an electoral impact; their party’s constituency vote share experiences a ‘slump’. Conventional wisdom attributes this underperformance to the loss of the retiring MP’s personal vote. This article uses aggregate-level data covering UK general elections between 1987 and 2010 to demonstrate whether this explanation is supported. It also examines whether political parties can mediate such underperformances by considering the electoral experience and local connections of candidates contesting the post-retirement election. The article finds mixed evidence for the link between personal votes and underperformance. However, parties should pay close attention to the candidates selected to fight the post-retirement election. If an inheritor wants to win a national government or opposition seat, experience and local ties can be harmful. Also, schooling and other local ties enable candidates to mount effective challenges to government and opposition inheritors.

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