Jamie Monogan University of Georgia April 16, 2019 Party Systems Jamie Monogan University of Georgia April 16, 2019

Objectives By the end of this meeting, participants should be able to: Describe the role of party in government, party organization, and party in the electorate at the federal and state level. Explain how historical events influenced party institutions.

What are Parties? Political parties are organizations combining activists and potential officeholders, whose purpose is to determine who will hold office Parties are ubiquitous in democracies with strong legislatures Parties organize political conflict Parties are complex political organizations Parties can be distinguished from interest groups in that they seek to hold offices and win elections in order to influence policy, not just influence policy from outside government.

Party in Government In most democracies, parties run the national government Legislation coalitions are often not stable in the absence of parties Unstable coalitions: Policy cycles without parties Parties prevent cycling by agreeing to work together on legislation Parties help create binding coalitions that enact legislation without policy cycles This works because parties are typically composed of members who share some general policy views on the major issues of the day. Activity: It can be difficult for students to understand what policy cycles are and how parties can prevent them. One way to illustrate this is to create a simple table that illustrates the policy payoffs from the various proposals made by the hypothetical John, Lucy, and Karen in the text discussion. Have student volunteers play each legislator and vote on policies. If two of these legislators are allowed to discuss strategy for a brief moment they will typically agree to enact only policies that benefit themselves at the expense of the third legislator.

Party as Organizations Parties as organizations work to elect candidates: Managerial and legal tasks Candidate selection through primaries and caucuses Fundraising Mobilization of voters Scholars have argued that the need to mobilize voters drove the creation of mass parties in the United States. As the population of the country grew, it was much more difficult to win elections by competing for elite opinion. As parties became the key to mobilizing voters, potential candidates for office had to join a party to be able to compete. Fundraising has become an increasingly important role for parties as the costs of campaigns have skyrocketed. Many politically active students have worked on mobilization efforts with one of the two major parties. It can be useful to ask students to discuss their experiences working with parties and potential voters.

Party in the Electorate Both Democrats and Republicans have millions of followers who claim to be party members Stable, psychological attachment to a party Information shortcut for voters "Running Tally" of party leader performance Party is a powerful voting cue: especially straight ticket voting A substantial majority of American identify with one of the two major parties. The psychological attachment implies that voters see policy actions by the two parties in a biased way. Actions by politicians in your party are viewed positively, while actions by the opposing party are regarded with skepticism, even when there are not major differences between policies. This phenomenon is at play in the debate on the Affordable Care Act. Many provisions in it—including the individual mandate to buy insurance—were once Republican ideas, but now Republicans view them skeptically since they are associated with Democratic President Barack Obama. The Information shortcut view of party identification sees party ID as the way for uninformed voters to make political decisions. Parties have an established “name brand” which conveys information to voters. The Running Tally is somewhat similar except that individuals update based on how they view party actions. For discussion: Can discuss with students who have a party identification which if any of these three models fits their view of party.

Highlights of Party Systems First Party System: Federalists vs. Democratic-Republicans Second Party System: Democrats vs. Whigs Subsequently: Democrats vs. Republicans, but matchup strength varied Third Party System: Fairly even division. Polarization. Machine politics developed. Fourth Party System: Post-McKinley GOP dominance. Progressive Party was most persistent third party ever. Fifth Party System: New Deal coalition and Democratic dominance. Sixth Party System: Southern realignment. Closer balance. Polarization. Why do party systems change? Most party systems changes are prompted by issues that split existing arrangements. In the second party system, Northern and Southern Whigs were divided on the issue of slavery and could no longer function as a party. Similarly, Civil rights reforms in the 1960s caused many White Southerners to become Republicans, while large numbers of African Americans became Democrats. Party activists also can exploit new issues or raise salience of existing issues In recent decades the Republican party has excelled at using “wedge” issues like abortion rights to split Democrats over social issues and to gain new members who are socially conservative.

Party Trends in History Increased democratization Primaries Increased central organization Nationalization of parties and elections Two-Party system endures Few small parties persist Parties and states have increasingly switched to more open primaries and away from closed primaries, which allows independents to participate. National themes have come to dominate more congressional and state level campaigns in recent years. The best recent example of how enduring the two-party system remains is that the Tea Party movement has chosen to work within the Republican party, not form its own party.

Assignments For Thursday: Read Maltese, Pika & Shively, pp. 248-256 For Friday: Read Bullock and Gaddie, Chapter 11 The Chapter 10 critical thinking exercise is due April 25 at 11:59pm. Login to TopHat to complete