The Organizational Roots of Contemporary Polarization

• In Event: New Approaches to American Party Development

Abstract

It has been argued, most famously by E. E. Schattschneider, that programmatic similarity between the Democratic and Republican parties in the mid-twentieth century stemmed from the structure of the party system. At the time of his writing, parties were weak on the national level and relatively strong on the state and local levels, and patronage was the primary currency of politics, leaving little room for issues in electoral competition (Schattschneider 1942; Mayhew 1986). Party competition was not “about” issues, so to speak. Thus, it comes as no surprise that parties were not offering clear, alternative positions on issues to voters.

Over time, however, the structure of the American party system has changed significantly. This paper is part of a larger project documenting these changes and considering their implications for party polarization. The New Deal’s historic expansion of federal government responsibilities disrupted the long-standing balance of power in the party system, temporarily strengthening local parties by offering new sources of patronage, while also sparking gradual, interconnected processes that would ultimately undermine them. As the center of power shifted away from local, patronage-driven parties, there was a rise of “issue competition”; and, as parties increasingly used issues to compete with each other, they became more programmatically distinct. In this paper, I present several measures of issue competition and show how they have changed since the mid-twentieth century. It is important to recognize these changes, I argue, because they illuminate the organizational roots of contemporary party polarization, which is typically treated as an ideological phenomenon.

Author

• Katherine Krimmel, Barnard College, Columbia University