Transcript: Overview

What are political parties? Why do we have them? Political parties in the United States are almost as
old as the Constitution itself, and they have been a vital part of the American political process. This
is despite the fact that the Founding Fathers were antagonistic toward political parties and they
regarded them as both a cause and an effect of factional strife.
In recent years, observers have noted what they perceive as a decline in the role and the power of
the two major political parties. However, it remains important to understand what factors have
contributed to party decline in order to understand what future role parties will play in the American
political system.
As linkage institutions those institutions that provide a link, a connection, between citizens and
government political parties are crucial.
This tutorial provides insight into the history, structure, and functioning of political parties. To
understand the way the United States' government works, it is important to understand the role of
parties and the ways in which people participate in them.
In the second part of this tutorial, we'll examine some of the factors that have weakened the power of
the political parties in contemporary American politics.
In this tutorial we'll look at three topics. First, we'll look at a brief history of the American political
parties. Second, we'll look at how parties are organized and how they work. And third, we're going to
ask the question, is the party over? We will look at dealignment and the decline of party power.
Transcript: History I
First, let's look at a brief history of American political parties. In this section we'll cover the origin of
American political parties, periods of one-party domination, the current era of divided government,
and finally, the role of third parties in our political system.
In the Federalist No. 10, as you've read, James Madison warned about the "mischiefs of faction."
George Washington, in his presidential Farewell Address, also warned against the baneful effects of
the spirit of party. Nevertheless, political parties formed almost immediately after the ratification of
the Constitution. First, two parties the federalists and the Democratic-Republicans evolved
from the two opposing sides in the debate over ratification. Alexander Hamilton led the federalists,
while Thomas Jefferson led the Democratic-Republicans.
Two groups clearly functioned as political parties in the elections of 1796 the election in which
John Adams, the federalist candidate, defeated Thomas Jefferson in the race for president.
Throughout United States history, there have always been two major political parties. Although there
have always been two political parties, during much of United States history, politics and government
have been dominated by one of these two political parties. Elections that, for various reasons,
established such dominance are referred to as critical elections.
From the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828 to the Civil War, the Democrats were the dominant
party over the Whigs. The Democrats had their support from the South and the West. Their
supporters included small farmers, debtors, and slaveholders.
From the Civil War to the 1930s, the Republicans were the dominant political party. The Republicans
had formed in 1856 when the Whig Party dissolved over the issue of slavery. The Democrats had
also split as a party over issues dividing North from South in the years before the Civil War. Then,
during the war, many former Democrats (those who lived in the South), actively served the
Confederacy. Another group of Democrats (those who were in the North and who were
called Copperheads), opposed Lincoln and they opposed the war itself.
In the years following the Civil War, Republicans successfully used events of the war to discredit the
Democrats. The 1896 presidential election was important in settling issues of economic conflict
between farmers, small business and unions, against railroads, and big business in general. The
1896 election is an example of a sustaining election, one in which voters reaffirm their support for
the party in power and its policies.
About 30 years later, the Great Depression discredited the Republicans and brought Democratic
domination back, which lasted until the 1960s. President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the
Democratic, or New Deal coalition of minorities: Catholics and Jews; union members; Southerners,
who had supported the party since the Civil War; people of lower income; middle-class urban
liberals; and African Americans. For over three decades, this coalition proved to be an almost
unbeatable combination.
Like the elections of Jefferson in 1800, Jackson in 1828, and Lincoln in 1860, Roosevelt's 1932
election was a critical election that produced a new political majority and indicated a long-term shift
in electoral behavior.
Transcript: History II
The New Deal coalition remained intact into the 1960s, when it was weakened and some will
argue even destroyed by issues such as the war in Vietnam and the civil rights movement, which
turned southern white voters away from the Democratic Party.
The 1968 election of Richard Nixon began a period of what is called divided government, consisting
generally of Republican presidents and a Democratic majority in Congress. The election of Ronald
Reagan to the presidency in 1980 marked what many observers saw as a new Republican coalition
the Reagan coalition that had the potential of making the Republican Party the dominant
political party in the United States.
The Reagan coalition included people from the middle-class suburbs, social and religious
conservatives, white southerners, business people and professionals, and previously Democratic
blue-collar workers.
In 1988, George Bush, Reagan's vice president, was elected president with the support of the
Reagan coalition. By 1992, however, Bush had lost much of their support because of the poor
economy, which drove away the blue-collar workers and some of the business people who had
supported Reagan.
Democratic candidate Bill Clinton worked hard to develop a centrist position that would win back the
votes of some of those who had defected to the Republican side during the 1980s. Democratic
congressional candidates also did well and the Democrats maintained control of both the House and
Senate.
The 1994 congressional election, often called the Republican revolution, was a major reversal of the
1992 election. Republicans running for Congress won a stunning victory, gaining 52 seats in the
House and 8 seats in the Senate.
Transcript: History III
In addition to the two major parties, we need to look at the role of third parties in American political
life. Many third parties have formed over the course of the United States' history, but the mainstream
American political system has remained a two-party system. The third parties that have formed have
usually been regional, and the issues around which they've formed have been incorporated by the
major parties.
There have been several kinds and types of third parties. One kind of minor political party is
ideological. This is a party based on a particular set of beliefs. Many of these parties have been
based on Marxist ideas; they include the Socialist, Socialist Labor, Socialist Worker, and the
Communist parties.
A current example of an ideological party is the Libertarian Party, which emphasizes individual
freedom and free-market capitalism and, consequently, seeks to dramatically reduce the size and
power of government.
The second kind of third party is the single-issue party. Single-issue parties concentrate on one
public policy matter. In the 1840s and the 1850s for example, the Free Soil Party opposed the
spread of slavery. Today, in the 1990s, the right-to-life party opposes abortion.
Economic protest parties have arisen in times of major economic problems. The Populist Party in the
1890s demanded such things as government ownership of railroads, lower tariffs, and an income tax
as solutions for economic problems of the time.
A final kind of third party are splinter parties. These parties break away from one of the major
parties. From Republicans came Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party in 1912, and much later
from the Democrats came Henry Wallace's Progressive Party of 1948. And, finally, George
Wallace's American Independent Party in 1968. Most splinter parties form around one person and
then disappear when that person steps aside.
Not fitting in any of the four categories described above is Ross Perot's Reform Party, built on
Perot's views on tax reform, changes in Social Security, and trade policy.
Third parties are important because they serve as safety valves and barometers of evolving political
trends. There have been a number of reasons why third political parties have been unsuccessful,
however. The United States has a system of winner-take-all, single-member electoral districts, in
which a single official represents a particular electoral district.
In contrast, voters in a multimember electoral district choose multiple officials to represent them, and
thus, a third-party candidate has a chance to win at least one position. As you will learn from your
reading on political parties, another factor is that states often make it difficult for third parties to
appear on election ballots.
And finally, Americans do tend to avoid political extremes. When third-party positions do appeal to
the voters, those positions are quickly assumed by one or both of the major parties. For example,
the major parties came to accept the Greenback party's call for the regulation of railroads and an
income tax.
Transcript: Organization
How parties are organized and how they work
There have been a number of attempts to provide a formal definition of political party. One such
definition, for example, is that a political party is a group that seeks to help candidates win office by
providing them with a label. Such a definition, however, ignores the organization and financial help
which parties provide the candidates. It also ignores the important role parties play in the operation
of Congress and of state legislatures. Thus, a better definition might be: A political party is a group
organized to win elections, operate government, and to determine government policy.
Now that we've defined political parties, let's look a little bit at party structure. American political
parties tend to be dominated by a relatively small group of activists, usually more ideologically driven
than the majority of the electorate. And party structure is highly decentralized, with local party
organizations fairly autonomous from the national party leadership.
The organization of the two major political parties is strikingly similar: Both parties have a national
committee headed by a national chairperson. The chairperson is responsible for daily management,
while the national committee oversees party operation. In both houses of Congress, both parties
have congressional campaign committees. These committees certainly seem to be successful, for
on the average, 90 percent of congressional incumbents are returned to office in a given election.
All states have a central committee; they have county committees, and precinct committees. In
addition, there are usually party organizations for congressional districts and legislative districts.
Finally, larger cities are sometimes divided into political wards. The precinct is unique in that unlike
other political divisions, precincts do not elect a public official, but they are used to register voters
and to set up polling places.
Having looked at party structures, we still need to ask: What do parties do? Political parties provide a
vital link between the people and those who represent them. This link is provided in several ways.
Political parties recruit candidates for office and organize elections; that is, the parties select
candidates and then present them to the voters. Political parties recruit campaign workers and
organize campaign activities.
Political parties also develop policies for the candidates to implement once they're elected to office.
These policies are often expressed in statements which are often referred to as party platforms.
Political parties take responsibility for running the government and for providing voters with a means
of holding the government responsible. Congress and the state legislatures are organized and
conduct much of their business along party lines. Most appointments to executive offices follow party
considerations. This develops linkages among officials to gain support for policies and for their
implementation.
The party out of power at the moment provides a watchdog function by criticizing the policies and
behavior of the party in power.
Transcript: Party Power
And finally we need to ask, is the party over? We will look at dealignment and the decline of party
power.
As we observed earlier, the traditional pattern of one-party domination, prevalent throughout much of
United States history, appears to have given way to an extended period of divided government with
Democrats and Republicans sharing power. This development has prompted some political
scientists to argue that we have now entered an era of party dealignment, characterized by the
absence of a dominant political party. In this section, we'll look at some of the changes in the roles of
political parties, which have led to this apparent decline in party power.
Before looking at the 20th century, we need to do a little bit of 19th-century background. In the late
19th century, Republicans and Democrats played major political roles in elections. Party bosses in
major cities ran party machines organizations which, through a variety of techniques, effectively
organized party workers and voters. The techniques used ranged from threats and intimidation (such
as loss of employment) to rewards (such as political appointments). Patronage included not only
jobs, but contracts and other benefits.
Party bosses often lent a helping hand to the poor and the needy with the expectation that they
would be rewarded with their support and votes. One of the most famous examples of the party
machine was Tammany Hall in New York City, named for the building in which the New York county
Democrats met.
At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of reformers called the Progressives made a series of
changes that had the effect of weakening political parties. The Progressive reforms included the
secret or Australian ballot, so that party bosses could no longer determine how people voted.
Two other Progressive reforms included a merit system for political appointments, which greatly
reduced patronage, and nonpartisan local elections. As intended, these reforms greatly reduced the
power of the bosses. This also meant a reduction in the power of the parties themselves, however.
In the 1930s as part of Roosevelt's New Deal, government took on the responsibility of providing
social services and unemployment benefits, supplanting one of the principle functions of local party
machines, and hastening their decline.
More recently, candidates for office have availed themselves of a number of new campaign
techniques. Older campaigning techniques required extensive amounts of labor labor that had
been provided by the political parties. The new techniques require more money.
The new techniques included polling, collections of increasingly accurate surveys of voter opinions
that could be used to, among other things, determine what issues to stress during the campaign.
Use of mass media, which replaced the need for labor and greatly increased the need for money.
Television has made candidates far less dependent on party organization. Once, candidates
depended on political parties to reach the voters; now television and other media allow candidates to
appeal to the voters directly.
Another new technique are phone banks, which are used to directly reach large numbers of voters
and can do so in a very short period of time. There's also direct mail, which is used for solicitation of
campaign contributions, and hiring professional public relations firms and political consultants, who
perform much of the organizational work that was once done by the political parties. The need for
more money has increased the power of interest groups and PACs in the electoral process, again at
the expense of the political parties.
To conclude, we need to think perhaps a little bit about the future of political parties. Although
political parties may have less influence and power than they had a century ago, they do continue to
perform important political functions in the electoral process and in legislative organizations. They
recruit candidates for office, they organize elections, they develop policies, and they take
responsibility for running government.
In recent years, the Democrats have often been more liberal than the electorate, and the
Republicans, influenced by religious and social conservatives, have been more conservative than
the electorate. When the Democrats are too liberal and the Republicans are too conservative, they
tend to lose elections, as was demonstrated in several presidential elections in the 1970s and 80s.
Political scientist Anthony Downs has developed a model which demonstrates that the closer a
candidate is to the average, the more likely he or she is to win. Because voters seek the center,
parties have a strong incentive to avoid the extremes if they wish to win elections and to continue to
play an important role in the U.S. political system.
Transcript: Summary
Let's summarize. Political parties have played an important role in the American political system
since the beginning, although many observers have seen a reduced role for parties in recent years.
Except for brief periods, there have always been two major political parties, and one of the two has
been dominant.
Political parties have undergone a number of changes in the 20th century. As a result of these
changes, many of which were intended as reform, parties have lost much of their power and
influence. Candidates for political office, in carrying out their campaigns, have increasingly ignored
parties. Instead, they rely on a variety of techniques to circumvent the political parties and to reach
the voters directly.
The fortunes of the two major political parties have also changed. Democratic Party dominance, a
result from the New Deal coalition formed by Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression, has
eroded to the point that some observers believe the Republicans will become the new majority party.
Others however contend that we have entered a period of party dealignment, characterized by the
lack of one dominant party.
The upcoming activities in this lesson will give you more insight into the workings of political parties
and the role of other linkage institutions in the political process.