46 The two-party system
a multi-party system of the most thoroughgoing and unstable variety, and
yet in fact there is in operation an established two-party system of the most
inclusive sort. How is it that, from the morass of groups and interests, two
parties emerge with a seemingly unchallengeable grip on political power?
The answer lies in the complex relationships between the constitutional
framework of government, the organisational structure of the political par-
ties, and the ideological bases of political behaviour. For the American party
system is a two-party system only in a very special sense. We must not look
at the American party system simply in a two-dimensional way, for it has
many dimensions, and becomes a ‘two-party system’ only if viewed from a
particular standpoint. From another point of view it is an agglomeration of
many parties centred on the governments of the fifty states and their subdivi-
sions, and yet from another point of view it is a loosely articulated four-party
system based upon Congress and the presidency. The names ‘Democrat’ and
‘Republican’ are not meaningless labels, as Lord Bryce suggested they were
at the end of the nineteenth century; nevertheless, they do tend to obscure
the fact that for most purposes America operates under a multi-party system
which coalesces into two great coalitions for strictly limited purposes.
Fifty party systems
The major function of American political parties is to provide candidates
for office and to secure their election. The effective offices for which candi-
dates have to be nominated are very numerous, particularly at state and local
levels. The rewards of office – the spoils, as they are sometimes referred to
- are to be found at all levels of government, and there are important policy
decisions to be taken, involving the expenditure of billions of dollars by fed-
eral, state and local officials. The fact that the Constitution diffuses author-
ity among these levels of government has had a strong disintegrating effect
upon party structure. The constitutional division of authority between the
federal government and the states is reflected in the realities of the distribu-
tion of effective political power. Conceivably, the effects of the constitutional
fragmentation of authority might have been offset by a strongly centralised
party system binding the parts of the government together, but the condi-
tions that might have led to such a centralisation of power have not been
present in the system. As a result, national party organisations have had a
very restricted function to perform in the political system, concerning them-
selves mainly with the nomination and election of presidential candidates.
The national parties have tended to be coalitions of state and local parties,
forming and re-forming every four years for this purpose. Thus, rather than a
single party system, we have fifty state party systems with the national politi-
cal parties related to them in a complex pattern of alliances.
It is by no means fanciful to think of politics in the United States operat-
ing within a framework of fifty party systems rather than one. A great cen-
tralisation of government power undeniably took place during the twentieth