How America’s Political Parties Change (and How They Don’t)
Title | How America’s Political Parties Change (and How They Don’t) PDF eBook |
Author | Michael Barone |
Publisher | Encounter Books |
Pages | 122 |
Release | 2019-10-15 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 1641770791 |
The election of 2016 prompted journalists and political scientists to write obituaries for the Republican Party—or prophecies of a new dominance. But it was all rather familiar. Whenever one of our two great parties has a setback, we’ve heard: “This is the end of the Democratic Party,” or, “The Republican Party is going out of existence.” Yet both survive, and thrive. We have the oldest and third oldest political parties in the world—the Democratic Party founded in 1832 to reelect Andrew Jackson, the Republican Party founded in 1854 to oppose slavery in the territories. They are older than almost every American business, most American colleges, and many American churches. Both have seemed to face extinction in the past, and have rebounded to be competitive again. How have they managed it? Michael Barone, longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, brings a deep understanding of our electoral history to the question and finds a compelling answer. He illuminates how both parties have adapted, swiftly or haltingly, to shifting opinion and emerging issues, to economic change and cultural currents, to demographic flux. At the same time, each has maintained a constant character. The Republican Party appeals to “typical Americans” as understood at a given time, and the Democratic Party represents a coalition of “out-groups.” They are the yin and yang of American political life, together providing vehicles for expressing most citizens’ views in a nation that has always been culturally, religiously, economically, and ethnically diverse. The election that put Donald Trump in the White House may have appeared to signal a dramatic realignment, but in fact it involved less change in political allegiances than many before, and it does not portend doom for either party. How America’s Political Parties Change (and How They Don’t) astutely explains why these two oft-scorned institutions have been so resilient.
Political Parties and Legislative Party Switching
Title | Political Parties and Legislative Party Switching PDF eBook |
Author | W. Heller |
Publisher | Springer |
Pages | 316 |
Release | 2009-06-22 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 0230622550 |
Political parties and democratic politics go hand in hand. Since parties matter, it matters too when elected politicians change party affiliation. This book shows why, when, and to what effect politicians switch parties in pursuit of their goals, as constrained by institutions and in response to their environments.
Changing Parties
Title | Changing Parties PDF eBook |
Author | F. Faucher-King |
Publisher | Springer |
Pages | 326 |
Release | 2005-10-11 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 0230509886 |
Party conferences are central to the life of political parties. They contribute to setting policy agendas, developing policy options, legitimizing policy choices, building party cohesion, motivating activists and publicizing party activities to the wider public. An analysis of their evolution in Britain helps us understand the ways in which political parties change. This book combines anthropological methods with political science to analyze changing power relationships, party organizations and political culture in British political parties: Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrats, The Greens.
Political Parties and Electoral Change
Title | Political Parties and Electoral Change PDF eBook |
Author | Peter Mair |
Publisher | SAGE |
Pages | 293 |
Release | 2004-05-19 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 1412932823 |
How have Europe′s mainstream political parties responded to the long-term decline in voter loyalties? What are the consequences of this change in the electoral markets in which parties now operate? Popular disengagement, disaffection, and withdrawal on the one hand, and increasing popular support for protest parties on the other, have become the hallmarks of modern European politics. This book provides an excellent account of how political parties in Western Europe are perceiving and are responding to these contemporary challenges of electoral dealignment. Each chapter employs a common format to present and compare the changing strategies of established parties and party systems in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, and Ireland. The result is an invaluable portrait of the changing electoral environment and how parties are interacting with each another and voters today. Political Parties and Electoral Change is essential reading for anybody seeking a deeper understanding of contemporary electoral politics and of the challenges facing west European party systems. Peter Mair is Professor of Comparative Politics at Leiden University. Wolfgang C. M ller is Professor of Political Science at the University of Mannheim and previously taught at the University of Vienna. Fritz Plasser is Professor of Political Science at the University of Innsbruck.
The State of the Parties
Title | The State of the Parties PDF eBook |
Author | John Clifford Green |
Publisher | Rowman & Littlefield Publishers |
Pages | 454 |
Release | 1996 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN |
This work illuminates the two realities that currently structure the state of American political organisations. This new edition examines changes in the political landscape, including the impact of the Republican electoral triumph of 1994, the Contract with America, third parties and party elites.
Crossing the Aisle
Title | Crossing the Aisle PDF eBook |
Author | Antoine Yoshinaka |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 283 |
Release | 2015-11-24 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 1316473082 |
Switching parties is arguably the most important decision a politician will ever make. This book is the first-ever systematic study of the causes and consequences of legislative party switching in the United States. The author argues that re-election alone does not explain party switching. He proposes an ambition-based theory that accounts for multiple goals (including higher office aspirations and the desire for influence in the legislature) with a focus on the electoral costs and the institutional benefits of the decision. The book combines the statistical analysis of electoral data and legislative careers in the US Congress and state legislatures with elite interviews of party switchers, non-switchers, and a party leader. The case study of a party switcher's decision in 'real time' documents the complexity of the decision in a politician's own words prior to and following the switch. The book raises important questions regarding the meaning of a party label.
Changing Societies, Changing Party Systems
Title | Changing Societies, Changing Party Systems PDF eBook |
Author | Heather Stoll |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 357 |
Release | 2013-11-25 |
Genre | POLITICAL SCIENCE |
ISBN | 1107030498 |
This book studies how society shapes democratic political competition, with a focus on the number of political parties. This stands in contrast to the prevailing approach of explaining cross-national and longitudinal differences in political competition with political institutions such as the electoral system. The book develops the most general theory about how society shapes the number of parties to date, as well as the most extensive measures of social heterogeneity, which it uses to test its hypotheses.