The Hollow Parties

Schlozman, Daniel; Rosenfeld, Sam

doi:10.1017/9781108667357.006

Cited by 26 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…In so doing, they likely opened a "representation gap" ripe for populist exploitation. Given the radical porousness of party nomination processes in the United States, elite gatekeepers cannot veto party nominations if racist or ethnonationalist appeals successfully activate a majority of primary voters (Schlozman and Rosenfeld 2019).…”

Section: Major Party Convergence In a Racialized Party Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Populism and the American Party System: Opportunities and Constraints

Lee¹

2019

Perspect. polit.

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Does populism threaten American democracy, and if so, what is the nature of that threat? In dialogue with the comparative literature on populism, this article considers the opportunity structure available to populist parties and candidates in the American political system. I argue that compared to most other democracies, the US system offers much less opportunity for organized populist parties but more opportunity for populist candidacies. Today’s major parties may also be more vulnerable to populist insurgency than at other points in US history because of (1) changes in communications technology, (2) the unpopularity of mainstream parties and party leaders, and (3) representation gaps created by an increasingly racialized party system. Although no democratic system is immune to deterioration, the US constitutional system impedes authoritarian populism, just as it obstructs party power generally. But the vulnerability of the major parties to populist insurgency poses a threat to liberal democratic norms in the United States, just as it does elsewhere.

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Section: Major Party Convergence In a Racialized Party Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Populism and the American Party System: Opportunities and Constraints

Lee¹

2019

Perspect. polit.

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“…8 We note that our analysis theoretically accords well with Bartolini and Mair's (2007) work, which emphasizes how cleavages can be forged by structural conditions (e.g., economic and population change); ideational factors (e.g., the development of rural consciousness or differentiation in worldviews by education); and organizational mobilization (e.g., evangelical churches). 9 Meanwhile, organizing on the left has declined, particularly as several factors hastened the demise of labor unions, which as hollowed out Democratic party organizations at the local level and left most workers without a progressive organizing force (Schlozman and Rosenfeld 2019). 10 Specifically, we find that evangelical congregations in urban areas range from 3 per 10,000 people to 5 over time, while they range from 10 to 13 in rural counties.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Sequential Polarization: The Development of the Rural-Urban Political Divide, 1976–2020

Brown,

Mettler

2023

Perspect. polit.

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As recently as the early 1990s, Americans living in rural and urban areas voted similarly in presidential elections, yet in the decades since, they have diverged sharply as rural people in all regions of the country have increasingly supported the Republican Party. We seek to explain the sources of this growing cleavage by examining two interrelated processes of change: political-economic transformation that elevated many urban areas and marginalized rural ones, and the nationalization of policy goals. Our analytical approach is developmental, probing the timing and sequencing of trends across more than four decades. It is also comprehensive, testing theories related to economic decline, the educational gap, organizational mobilization, and racism and racial and ethnic threat. Our analysis reveals that while rural and urban counties resembled each other in several respects in the 1970s, they have since moved apart. We examine how key trends relate to political change in presidential voting. We find that in the 1990s and early 2000s, rural dwellers in places experiencing population loss or economic stagnation began to support Republican candidates. Then from 2008 to 2020, those in areas with higher percentages of less-educated residents, a higher presence of evangelical congregations per capita, and higher levels of anti-Black racism, each more prevalent in rural areas than urban areas, shifted their support to Republicans. Through sequential processes of polarization, with political-economic forces leading the way and activating rural resistance to the nationalization of policy goals subsequently, the rural-urban political divide emerged as a major fault line in the nation’s politics.

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“…Drawing from a large body of research, we view activists as an essential component of credible local factional primary challenges. Since the primary reforms of the 1970s, a para-party apparatus of issue activists and interest groups have increasingly taken on roles that used to fall to the formal party (Grossmann and Dominguez 2009;Koger, Masket, and Noel 2009;Schlozman and Rosenfeld 2019;Tarrow 2021), providing the resources and volunteers necessary to conduct successful campaigns (Enos and Hersh 2015) and mediating between party elites and the voting public (Carmines and Stimson 1989;Carmines and Woods 2002;Layman et al 2010;Layman and Carsey 2002). Activists also played an invaluable role in supporting Tea Party-style candidates in congressional elections (Bailey, Mummolo, and Noel 2012).…”

Section: Party Factions and Local Party Changementioning

confidence: 99%

How Local Factions Pressure Parties: Activist Groups and Primary Contests in the Tea Party Era

Blum

Cowburn

2023

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

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The contemporary Republican Party has been the site of asymmetric partisan entrenchment and factional infighting. We test whether factional pressure from a far-right faction (the Tea Party) exacerbated the party's rightward movement with a granular analysis of Republican factionalism at the congressional district level. We develop a measure of local factionalism using novel datasets of activist presence and primary contests. Then, we conduct a difference-in-differences analysis to assess whether local factionalism in the Tea Party era heightened Republican partisanship and legislative extremism at the district level. We find that districts that experienced factional pressure moved rightward on both measures. These findings help clarify how the Tea Party captured the Republican Party and support a focus on the role of party factions in fomenting partisan conflict.

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The Hollow Parties

Abstract: , and participants in the SSRC Anxieties of Democracy Institutions Working Group Conference for helpful comments.

Cited by 26 publications

References 59 publications

Populism and the American Party System: Opportunities and Constraints

Populism and the American Party System: Opportunities and Constraints

Sequential Polarization: The Development of the Rural-Urban Political Divide, 1976–2020

How Local Factions Pressure Parties: Activist Groups and Primary Contests in the Tea Party Era

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