22 The nature of American politics
patterns of politics, in a constantly changing kaleidoscope of sectional, class,
pluralistic and individualistic styles of politics. None of these ‘explanations’
of political behaviour can be written off as insignificant, and, equally, none
of them can be considered to be the dominant pattern of American political
life. The significance of each of these elements differs from time to time,
from issue to issue. At one point, because of economic circumstances, the
class factor may become relatively more important in the understanding of
the political situation. At another, as the result for example of an external
threat, the ‘military-industrial complex’ may exercise considerable influence.
When economic and external crises recede, personal and pluralistic factors
may dominate the political scene. American politics are conducted at several
levels and in many different arenas. The significance of one or other political
style may alter at the level of presidential politics from that of congressional
politics, or differ at state level from that of the federal government, or in the
party system as compared with the structure of pressure groups.
It is in this spirit that we must approach the study of American politics,
seeking out the elements of class, sectional, pluralistic and individualistic
politics, putting them in perspective at the different levels of political life,
and exploring their implications for political organisation. Only in this way
can we hope to make sense of the complexity and diversity of American po-
litical patterns and to see the political system as a whole.
Sectionalism and nationalism
Sectionalism is the tendency of people in a particular geographical area, such
as the South, New England or the Mid-West, to give their primary political
allegiance to that region and its interests. Sectionalism has been a factor in
American politics ever since the differing characteristics of the seventeenth-
century settlements in Virginia and Massachusetts began to interact with the
differing climatic and economic conditions to be found on the southeastern
and northeastern seaboards. The Constitution adopted in 1789 represented
a bargain between the Northern and Southern states that provided the un-
easy basis for American political life until the outbreak of the Civil War. The
Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln, was the party that led the
Northern states to victory in that war; the Democratic Party was associated
with the defeated South. This gave a twist to the distribution of political
power in America that persists to the present day. It was the election of 1896,
however, that set the high-water mark of sectionalism as a political force in
modern politics. The populist supporters of William Jennings Bryan gained
control of the Democratic Party’s Convention in that year, and secured his
nomination as the party’s presidential candidate. Populism represented an
attack upon privilege and upon the power of financiers and industrialists; it
was a movement of the ‘common man’, and as such it would seem to mean
an injection of a strong class element into the American political scene. But
although the Democratic Party platform of 1896 pledged the party to support