political parties - francis marion...
TRANSCRIPT
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Political Parties
Chapter 7
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Nobody Wants to Party
• Fun Fact:
– A lot of Americans don’t really like our political parties
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• What Washington is saying:
– Political “factions” are inevitable, but dangerous.
– Faction = Any group that puts its own interest above the best interest of everybody
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Political Parties are “Teams”
• Our government creates huge coordination problems
1. Elections
a. Candidates for office need to get thousands to millions of votes to compete
b. Again and again and again
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2. In government
• Getting anything done requires building majorities
– Across BOTH chambers of Congress
– And getting the President on board
– AND between the states & federal gov’t
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• As “teams”, Political parties:
1. Mobilize voters
2. Build stable alliances
3. Recruit new members / future elites
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Political Parties are “Brands”
• A lot of politics involves persuasion
– Vote for me!
– Support this legislation!
– Agree with my plan!
• Persuasion = marketing
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• Branding is one of the key ideas
– A brand is an “information shortcut”
• The brand name itself is meant to give informationabout the product
• “Brand identity”
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• Remember from last chapter:
– Part of the cost of voting is the information cost
– Party leaders work to make sure the party’s name (the party label) communicates information to voters
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Features of the American Party System
1. Two-party competition
– How can 305,000,000 Americans fit into just 2 political parties?
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• Our electoral system only supports 2 political parties.
• Single-member districts with plurality elections
– SMDP system
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SMDP
• SMD means that we generally elect one officeholder at a time
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Plurality Elections
• Winning office usually does not require a majority vote
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Duverger’s Law
• SMDP systems lead to two-party competition
– Why?
• SMDP encourages strategic voting
– Def: Voting for someone other than your first choice
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• How it works:
– Assume:
1. District with 100 voters
2. No political parties
3. Each voter chooses the candidate closest in ideology
4. 4 ideologies, 1 candidate from each
5. SMDP system
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• Our population:
Very Conservative 7 voters
Conservative 44 voters
Liberal 45 voters
Very Liberal 4 voters
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• 2 problems:
1. 55% of the population voted against the winner
• BUT the plurality winner gets 100% of the available office– Disproportionate
2. If the “very conservatives” voted for the conservative candidate, she would have been unbeatable – 51% of the vote!
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Consequences
• SMDP systems encourage many voters to vote strategically
– Specifically, those with strongly ideological views
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• Most voters are pretty moderate
– So, we get 2 big parties, 1 “center-left” and 1 “center-right”
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2. “Big Tent” parties
– The 2 parties must try to appeal to a wide range of voters
– Big tent parties are coalitions of different interests, philosophies, and values
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• BUT, these coalitions can be hard to keep together
– Big tent parties are vulnerable to wedge issues
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• Wedge issues are usually “temporary,” but…
• Sometimes, an issue can “permanently” drive out an element of the party coalition
– Realignment
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American Party Coalitions
• Just 40 years ago, the South had:
– 0 Republican governors
– 1 Republican Senator
• Biggest shift in the last 50 years:
– Realignment of white Southerners from strongly Democratic to largely Republican
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• Why?
– Since Reconstruction, the South was the main part of the Democratic coalition
– In the 1930s, joined with northern workers & others in the “New Deal” coalition
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• By the 1960s, the economy had long recovered
– New issues began to emerge
• As Democrats embraced civil rights laws, alienated many Southerners