Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Preface
- 1 DEMOCRACY, REPRESENTATION, AND PARTIES
- 2 OVERVIEW: SOCIAL CHANGE AND SHIFTING PARTY BASES
- 3 TAKING SHAPE: PARTY COALITIONS IN THE POST-BELLUM NINETEENTH CENTURY
- 4 REPUBLICAN ASCENDANCY AND DEMOCRATIC EFFORTS TO RESPOND, 1896–1928
- 5 TABLES TURN: THE NEW DEAL ERA AND DEMOCRATIC DOMINANCE, 1932–1948
- 6 THE DEMOCRATIC DRIVE TO THE GREAT SOCIETY
- 7 REPUBLICANS: REASSERTING CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES AND SEEKING A MAJORITY
- 8 THE STRUGGLE OF DEMOCRATS TO INTERPRET CHANGE AND RESPOND
- 9 GEORGE BUSH AND FURTHER POLARIZATION
- 10 THE 2008 ELECTION AND ITS INTERPRETATION
- 11 PARTIES AND THE PURSUIT OF MAJORITIES
- Bibliography
- Index
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Preface
- 1 DEMOCRACY, REPRESENTATION, AND PARTIES
- 2 OVERVIEW: SOCIAL CHANGE AND SHIFTING PARTY BASES
- 3 TAKING SHAPE: PARTY COALITIONS IN THE POST-BELLUM NINETEENTH CENTURY
- 4 REPUBLICAN ASCENDANCY AND DEMOCRATIC EFFORTS TO RESPOND, 1896–1928
- 5 TABLES TURN: THE NEW DEAL ERA AND DEMOCRATIC DOMINANCE, 1932–1948
- 6 THE DEMOCRATIC DRIVE TO THE GREAT SOCIETY
- 7 REPUBLICANS: REASSERTING CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES AND SEEKING A MAJORITY
- 8 THE STRUGGLE OF DEMOCRATS TO INTERPRET CHANGE AND RESPOND
- 9 GEORGE BUSH AND FURTHER POLARIZATION
- 10 THE 2008 ELECTION AND ITS INTERPRETATION
- 11 PARTIES AND THE PURSUIT OF MAJORITIES
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Political parties are an essential and often puzzling element of American politics. They consist of individuals with varying degrees of attachment to a party trying to gain representation of their concerns. Officeholders and prospective officeholders hope to attract enough voters with diverse concerns so they may control government. Although this interaction seems simple, parties are often puzzling. They pursue policies and constituents in ways that often leave us wondering: Why are they trying to advocate for specific groups and win their votes? Why are they supporting a position that we might think does not make sense? Why are they pursuing a particular strategy in a particular election cycle? Then about the time we figure out these various interactions, something changes, leaving us puzzled again.
At various points in our careers, each of us has experienced such puzzlement. We also share the experience of reading James Sundquist's The Dynamics of the American Party System and finding the book enormously helpful in providing a broad overview of parties and their constituencies and why both changed over time. Sundquist wrote the book in the 1970s, a time of enormous change in American political parties. Each party was seeking and incorporating new constituencies and changing its bases of support. He finished that book at a time when it was very difficult to see where that change was headed. It is now clearer.
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- Information
- Dynamics of American Political Parties , pp. xi - xivPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009