POLITICAL PARTIES & ELECTIONS, FALL 2009

POLITICAL PARTIES IN AMERICA: AN INTRODUCTION

Questions and discussion points – Hershey chapters 1 & 2

Thursday, September 10

KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS

Hershey chapter 1: concept of parties as intermediaries (p. 2); definition of political parties; the three interacting parts of American political parties: party organization, party in government, party in the electorate; what parties do, how parties differ from other political organizations; Federalist Party; Democratic-Republican Party; Whig Party; how and why the national party system emerged around 1832; why parties had a “golden age”; why a reform era came after the “golden age”; the core differences between the two major parties today; how parties are shaped by the environment of the American political system

Hershey chapter 2: limits on party competitiveness in the states; Duverger’s Law; why the U.S. has a two-party system and not more than 2 major parties on a regular basis; minor parties – what is distinctive about them, what difference do they make

1. In what ways do parties differ/are parties unique from other political organizations? Is it conceivable that other political organizations could replace all the functions that parties perform? Ponder.

2. President Obama speaks to Congress Wednesday night about health care reform. In what ways is his speech intended to appeal to the (Democratic) party organization and party in government, versus appealing to the (Democratic) party in the electorate? What kinds of tension might exist between the party organization/party in government on the one hand, and the party in the electorate on the other hand (consider this subquestion from the point of view of the Democrats AND the Republicans in the context of health care reform)?

3. (chapters 1 and 2) Why did a national 2-party system emerge by the mid 1830s?

4. What reasons are advanced in chapter 2 to explain why the United States has almost always had a 2-party system? Which of these reasons do you find to be the most compelling in explaining the essential 2-party nature of US politics, and why?

5. What are the implications of increased competitiveness between the Republican and Democratic parties in recent years (discussed in chapter 2)? What limits on party competitiveness exist, and why? Consider Figure 2.1 on page 29 – in thinking about competitiveness between the two major parties, is anything in this figure surprising, and would we expect the same chart 10 years from now to look the same or different, and why?

6. Pose a question here about the first 2 chapters, if you have one!