The American Party Systems

Abstract

Distributing “raw” data among types or classes is a necessary and illuminating part of the process of research and discovery in any science, particularly in the early stages of the latter's development. But it produces fruitful results only if the types or classes make sense, which they will just to the extent that, inter alia, the variables we fix upon in defining them are the significant ones (for the purpose in view, of course), and that the classes (a) exhaust the phenomena under consideration, and (b) do not overlap.One of the most elementary procedures used in dealing with the raw data of political conflict is that which, taking its departure from the notion of “party systems,” seeks to assign each observed instance to one or another of three types: the “one-party system,” the “two-party system,” and the “multiple-party system.” All party systems, it is assumed, belong as a matter of course to one of the three, so that one of the researcher's first tasks in studying the phenomena of party conflict in a given political situation is to find out with which one of the three types he is dealing. Until he has done this—so runs the tacit premise—he does not have his problem in manageable shape.

Legislatures and Statutory Control of Bureaucracy

“…The Party Control Index is calculated as a function of three variables: (1) the percentage of votes won in gubernatorial elections and sets won in state legislative elections, (2) the duration of partisan control of the state legislature and governorship, and (3) the frequency of divided control. See Ranney and Kendall (1954) and Ranney (1976).…”

Inter‐party Competition, Political Dialogue, and Public Policy: A Critical Review

“…Despite such wamings, it appears those constructing inter-party competition indexes (Ranney and Kendaii, 1954;ScNesinger, 1955;Gdembiewski, 1958; Hoffert)ert, 1964; Ranney, 1965) proceeded on the assumptbn that tfie meaning of nattonai party iabels coukJ be ascribed to sfate parties. These works seemed to confain oniy occasionai references to the reievance of these indicators for Key's concern with eiectorai organization and pditk^i diaiogue.…”

“…This transition in methods generaiiy was viewed as essentiaiiy a shift in anaiytic techniques, and not a movement away from Key's concerns or approach. The argument of this essay is that these eariy anaiyses (Ranney and Kendaii, 1954;Schiesinger, 1955;Dawson and Robinson, 1963;Dye, 1966) and subsequent ones (Lewis-Beck, 1977; Tucker, 1982; King, 1986) do not capture Key's concems about parties. We stiii do not have valid assessments of the impact of pditicai parties on pubiic pdicy.The difficuity stems from the deveiopment of inter-party competition indexes tfiat attempted to capture Key's kJeas of electoral organization.…”

State Legislative Party Competition: A County-Level Measure

“…Key's examination of party competition in the South (1950), researchers of party competition have developed numerous measures of its intensity. In the 1950s, party competition was measured as the percentage of partisan victories from the 1890s to the 1950s for gubernatorial, senatorial, and presidential election contests (Schlesinger 1955;Ranney and Kendall 1954). In the 1960s, the conceptualization of party competition crystallized with the works of Dawson andRobinson (1963), Hofferbert (1964), and Ranney (1965).…”