The two-party system 47century, giving to the federal government in Washington an interest, and
an influence, in a large number of fields of action that in earlier times were
almost exclusively the concern of the states, and yet these states are by no
means political dodos. They continue to exercise important governmental
functions. Perhaps the most important single fact about American politics
today is that the centralisation of decision-taking power in the hands of the
federal government has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase
in the power of the national political parties over the state and local organi-
sations. Governmental power has been centralised, but political power has
remained diffuse. This is one of the crucial facts about American politics,
which helps to explain why the most powerful government in the world may,
at certain times, be directed by political forces originating from remote parts
of the country with seemingly little relevance to the problems under con-
sideration. Organisationally, the national parties are weak and sporadic in
operation. The continuously operative and powerful political organisations
are at the state and local level, although their degree of coherence and ef-
fectiveness varies considerably from place to place. The constitutional basis
of this diffusion of power is reinforced by historical events, such as the Civil
War, which have tended to entrench a particular political pattern in a region;
by the regional differences of interest that characterise the subcontinent;
by a general resistance to the idea of ‘big government’; and by the vested
interests of those groups, particularly local politicians, who benefit from the
status quo. Thus there exists a whole network of disintegrating factors that
reinforce each other and prevent the emergence of powerful national parties
that could coerce state and local parties.
There are good reasons for describing politics in, say, Mississippi as con-
stituting a different and distinct political system from that of New York or
Michigan. The very quality and nature of political life differs greatly from
state to state. In a number of states one party maintains a position of domi-
nance such that the opposing party can only fitfully win certain state and
local offices. In the states of the Deep South the Democratic Party was for a
long period the only effective political organisation, establishing one-party
systems in those states, which enabled them to maintain white supremacy by
excluding blacks from the political process. The progressive disillusionment
of Southern whites with the civil rights policies of the national Democratic
Party since the 1960s enabled the Republicans gradually to gain support with
white voters in the South. In 1994 for the first time since the reconstruction
period following the Civil War the Republicans held a majority of governor-
ships in Southern states, and a majority of the Senators and Congressmen
from those states were Republicans. Since then the Republicans have tight-
ened their grip further on the Southern states. In 2004 all the Senate seats
up for election in the southern states were won by Republicans and of the
twenty-two Southern Senators eighteen were Republican after the election.
We will examine the pivotal role of the South in the political system in a later
chapter.