Political Parties

This is a page for students of PS 240. On 10/1 and 10/3 we discussed the role of political parties in modern elections.

Possible Exam Questions

1. Explain the role of third parties in the American political arena.

Film: Crashing the Parties.

Summary of the film: This film followed around a couple candidates from major third parties in the 2004 election. The green party, the constitution party, and the libertarian party. The film talk about how the parties campaign on such a limited budget, how the candidate for each party is chosen, and so on. also, the 2004 nominee for the green party, david cobb, is crazy

in class we talked about each parties goals, some of them realistic, some of them not. the libertarian party sets goals, such as getting 1% of the vote something along those lines, while the constitutional party thinks they have a shot at winning the election.

Readings

A.I. Abramowitz and Saunders, K. L. (2006). Exploring the Bases of Partisanship in the American Electorate: Social Identity vs. Ideology. Political Research Quarterly, 59, 175-187.

Summary:In this article Abramowitz and Saunders are refuting an article published 4 years earlier by Green, Palmquist, and Schickler. in the Green and co. article they posit that party identification is based on social identification. Abramowitz and Saunders argue that there is much more to party identification that Green and co. talk about, and that ideology is actually very important when voting. Partisanship has become much more ideology-based since the '70s. This has led to an increase in party loyalty as elections become more about party than about candidates. Abramowitz and Saunders also speak of the change in voting trends throughout the nation, whereas green and co. previously said that ,outside of southern whites, voting has remained consistent since the 60s.

J. Adams and Merrill III, S. (2006). Why Small, Centrist Third Parties Motivate Policy Divergence by Major Parties. American Political Science Review, 100, 403-417.

Summary: This study looked at the relationships between the Labour, Liberal Democrat, and Conservative parties in Britain. Adams and Merrill claim that when 3rd parties run it's against their own interest because the two major parties move their positions away from wherever the third party is. They discuss a Party's necessity of balancing its sincere policy positions with its need to appeal to the median voter. A third party influences this balance. If the 3rd party is central, the Left (Labour) party moves farther left to its 'preferred' position while the right (Conservative) party moves farther right. When the central third party moves to the left however, the other two parties respond by shifting their policies right; the Conservative Party to use its increased flexibility by moving towards its preferred position and the Labour Party in order to compensate for the balance change by moderating its position.

L. Keele and Wolak, J. (2006). Value Conflict and Volatility in Party Identification. British Journal of Political Science, 36, 671-690.

Summary: Keele and Wolak find that instabilities in partisan identification may be related not to a lack of information about the parties but to conflicting core values creating ambivalence regarding party. If an individual holds two core values, each of the values represented by one of two parties, they will be conflicted and will be more likely to switch parties. They found a statistically significant effect on party instability among those who value both egalitarianism and moral traditionalism.

J. Stonecash (2006). Political Parties Matter: Realignment and the Return of Partisan Voting. Lynne Reiner: New York.

Summary of Chapter 1: Stonecash introduces the observation that in the latter part of the 20th Century split-ticket voting and 'independent' partisan identification rose. The correlation between a vote for the House and a vote for a presidential candidate in terms of party declined through the '70s and peaked through the '80s, a trend that reversed in the 1990s. Stonecash asks the question of what caused this fluctuation in partisanship, and then goes on to discuss his explanation which is based on the changing identity of the Parties themselves. While in 1900 Republicans were primarily an urban, northern party and Democrats had a rural, southern/western base (structured around attitudes and responses to capitalism) during the Great Depression Democrats began to attract urban votes and a more diverse electoral pool. By the 1960s attitudes towards civil rights and the role of government caused a blurring of party distinctions, when conservative Democrats had more in common with conservative Republicans than they did with liberal Democrats, and vica versa. Ultimately, Stonecash describes how conservatives moved to identify with the Republican Party while liberals moved to identify with the Democratic Party, but this was a process of decades, and, Stonecash says, voters for each party were slow to recognize the changes in their party and realign themselves. Stonecash's theory is that the split-ticket voting from the '60s through the '80s was therefore an effect of the low distinction recognized by voters between the parties.

Summary of Chapter 4:

Summary of Chapter 5:

Summary of Chapter 6:

Summary of Chapter 7: