264 Chapter 8Chapter 8 || Political PartiesPolitical Partiesaffiliation, running instead as loyal servants of district interests. And most Americans
complain about both political parties’ dysfunction and demand the formation of new,
more responsive organizations. Research on American political parties confirms that
they are often beset by internal conflicts and are thus unable to control who runs under
the party banner, what issue positions their candidates take during the campaign,
or how the winners behave in office. Moreover, parties often fail at persuading their
supporters to get out to the polls and support the party’s nominees on Election Day. In
other words, the same organizations that are extremely influential in some situations
are virtually powerless in others.
Our task in this chapter is to explain this variation. While American political parties
are intended to resolve disagreements about what government should do, these
differences can sometimes split politicians and activists within an established party
organization—making it all but impossible for these individuals to work together.
If political parties are so important and powerful, why do they often fail at the very
things they are supposed to do? Why do Americans dislike the parties they are so
strongly attached to? Why—and when—do parties matter?What are political parties
and where did today’s parties
come from?
Political parties are organizations that run candidates for political office and
coordinate the actions of officials elected under the party banner. Looking around
the world, we find many different kinds of parties. In many western European
countries, the major political parties have millions of dues-paying members and party
leaders control what their elected officials do. In contrast, candidates in many new
democracies run as representatives of a party, but party leaders have no control over
what candidates say during the campaign or how they act in office.
America’s major political parties, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, lie
somewhere between these extremes. Rather than being unified organizations with party
leaders at the top, candidates and party workers in the middle, and citizen-members at
the bottom, American political parties are decentralized, each one a loose network of
organizations, groups, and individuals who share a party label but are under no obligation
to work together.^1 The party organization is the structure of national, state, and local
parties, including party leaders and workers. The party in government is made up of the
politicians who are elected as candidates of the party. And the party in the electorate
includes all the citizens who identify with the party. For example, the Republican Party’s
national organization, the RNC, functions independently of Republican leaders in
government like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell; neither one is in charge
of the other. In fact, McConnell waited only until just before the Republican National
Convention to endorse the party’s nominee for president, Donald Trump, and often
avoids criticizing Trump, even when the president takes positions that are contrary to
McConnell’s. Similarly, while McConnell is the leader of Republican senators, he cannot
tell them what to do. Although McConnell’s colleagues may be somewhat sympathetic
to his arguments, there is no political compulsion to do what he asks. For example,
McConnell was unable to prevent Republican defections on several of President Trump’sDEFINE POLITICAL PARTIES
AND SHOW HOW AMERICAN
POLITICAL PARTIES AND
PARTY SYSTEMS HAVE
EVOLVED OVER TIMEparty organization
A specific political party’s leaders and
workers at the national, state, and
local levels.party in government
The group of officeholders who belong
to a specific political party and were
elected as candidates of that party.party in the electorate
The group of citizens who identify
with a specific political party.Full_09_APT_64431_ch08_262-295.indd 264 16/11/18 1:38 PM