State and Local Executives Go National: Party Nationalization in the 21st Century

• In Event: Political Parties

Abstract

A sizeable literature in American political development has demonstrated that American politics has nationalized and has become increasingly partisan and polarizied. I argue that party nationalization is not simply a top-down phenomenon in which state-level elected officials take cues from elites in Washington. Instead, state and local executives including lieutenant governors, state attorneys general, secretaries of state and even mayors are entrepreneurial agents who have contributed to the development of a more nationalized party system. Their contributions to party nationalization occur through organization building. I analyze the origins of national party organizations representing state and local elected officials and argue that these organizations have contributed to a more polarized system by structuring how state-level officials engage in national politics.

Author

• Anthony Sparacino, York College/CUNY