Abstract
Political parties, although condemned by America’s Founding Fathers, are essential to the proper functioning of its democracy. The two major parties are electoral coalitions of interests and groups appealing to different sections of the US electorate. As the chapter explains, those coalitions have not been static. Rather they have adapted to changes in the wider society. Two major periods of transformation in the composition of the parties have shaped today’s system. The first transformation occurred in the New Deal period when Franklin Roosevelt effectively realigned the Democratic Party around an alliance of labor, the south, the cities, and ethnic minorities behind a broad program of progressive social policy and reform. That Democratic coalition enjoyed political dominance until the late 1960s. The second transformation occurred in the Reagan era as cultural issues became more salient and Republicans added moral and religious conservative voters to fiscal conservatives. The contemporary party system has become increasingly polarized. Although many observers see this trend as unhealthy, it is difficult to reverse.Please check and confirm if the authors and their respective affiliations have been correctly identified. Amend if necessary.All information is correct.
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Further Reading
Readers wishing to delve further into the role and place of political parties in American politics and government would be well served by starting with three works cited in this chapter: E.E. Schattschneider's Party Government (2004 [1942], New Brunswick, NJ: Transactions Publishers); Clinton Rossiter's Parties and Politics in America (1960, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press); and John Aldrich's Why Parties? (2001, Chicago: Chicago University Press). These texts will provide a strong introduction to what parties do in the United States, and a solid foundation for future study.
In terms of the substance and history of partisan divisions in the United States, readers could turn to three additional works: Dynamics of the Party System by James L. Sundquist (1983, Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press); Party Ideologies in America, 1828–1996 by John Gerring (1998, New York: Cambridge University Press); and Dynamics of American Political Parties by Mark Brewer and Jeff Stonecash (2009, New York: Cambridge University Press). These texts will provide readers a clear portrait of the nature and evolution of partisan conflict over time in the United States.
While it is often difficult for academics to fully make sense of current politics as they happen, readers interested in the current state of parties and partisanship in American politics could do worse than starting with Matthew Levendusky's The Partisan Sort (2009, Chicago: University of Chicago Press); Alan Abramowitz's The Great Alignment (2018, New Haven: Yale University Press); James Campbell's Polarized (2018, Princeton: Princeton University Press); and Lilliana Mason's Uncivil Agreement (2018, Chicago: University of Chicago Press). These studies will bring readers up to speed on the current scholarly discussions surrounding American political parties.
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Brewer, M.D. (2022). Political Parties. In: Peele, G., Cain, B.E., Herbert, J., Wroe, A. (eds) Developments in American Politics 9. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89740-6_5
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