Parties, Activists, and Other Groups in Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

In recent times, developments in the two major political parties amid Tea Party and anti-Trump organizing have raised new questions about party organizations at all levels and their relationships with surrounding movements, advocacy organizations, and civic groups. Political scientists distinguish “parties in the electorate,” “parties in government,” and “parties as organizations.” Standard, quantified data sources have allowed studies in the first two areas, but progress on conceptualizing and measuring U.S. parties as organizations has been sporadic. Because most cumulative work has focused in the first two areas, scholars have largely restricted their explorations of contextual influences on parties to considerations of electoral resources and outcomes and interest group interactions with Congress. Showcasing research that spans the discipline, this panel revives an old literature on American political parties as organizations and sheds light on the development of modern-day parties and adjacently operating activists and advocacy groups.

Matthew Lacombe’s paper tackles the important history of the Republican Party and its relationship to the National Rifle Association, marshaling a wide range of archival and text-based evidence to examine when and why the two became so closely aligned. It argues that the NRA’s transition into the Republican coalition came as a product of entrepreneurial action, mass-level resources, and institutional developments that together altered the incentives of both the NRA and the GOP, solidifying the NRA as a stronghold of the Republican coalition.

On the other side of the aisle, the contribution by Lara Putnam considers the decline and partial rebirth of the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania’s steel and coal country. Here, the local Democratic Party went from a ubiquitous presence in the 1970s to a barely visible handful of office-holders by the first decades of the 21st century. Drawing from archival and oral historical research, this paper shows how local Democratic parties in these areas have transformed over time and played a particularly central role in the post-2016 era through alliance-building between new grassroots activists, revitalized labor councils, and aging Democratic faithfuls.

Building on these over-time studies, the last two papers explore the modern day relationship between local party organizations, advocacy groups, grassroots activists, and the democratic process. As Tea Parties and anti-Trump resistance groups have taken shape outside the Republican and Democratic parties, local parties themselves have often been challenged to open up to new sources of citizen volunteer energy. But if citizens want to volunteer, who do they contact – and what responses, if any, will they get? Theda Skocpol, Vanessa Williamson, and Caroline Tervo consider this question drawing from an audit study of local political parties in 10 states, conducted in the fall of 2018. These findings speak to the responsiveness and accessibility of America’s local parties to new activist energy across the partisan spectrum.

Similarly focused on grassroots activism, Hahrie Han’s paper presents case studies of advocacy groups and activists to explore why some groups of citizens become more influential than others. This paper introduces the concept of civic feedbacks, arguing that the ways organizations engage individuals have feedbacks that shape the strategic position of organizations and the options available to leaders. Analyzing how these feedbacks redound to organizations over time helps to explain civic organizations’ differential rates of political influence and illuminate the relationship between civic organizers and democratic representation.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 35: Political Organizations and Parties

Individual Presentations

• Party-Group Alignment of the Republican Party and the National Rifle Association - Matthew Lacombe, Barnard College, Columbia University

• Local Democratic Parties in Rust Belt and Rural SW Pennsylvania, 1970s-Present - Lara Putnam, University of Pittsburgh

• Citizen Activism and Party Politics from the Tea Party to the Anti-Trump Resistance - Theda Skocpol, Harvard University; Vanessa Williamson, Brookings Institution; Caroline Tervo, Harvard University

• Civic Feedbacks: Organizing Strategy and Groups’ Influence over Public Policy - Hahrie C. Han, Johns Hopkins University; Andrea Louise Campbell, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Chair

• Daniel Schlozman

Discussant

• Katherine Krimmel Barnard College, Columbia University