Explaining Party Elite Transformation: Institutional Changes and Insurgent Politics

Abstract

T _1H E FATE of the Republican or Democratic party is often said to depend on what the voters want, more than anything else. Even party transformations which are not reducible to electoral alignments are typically explained as reflections of shifting ties between the electorate and the party. Such developments as the rise in incumbency, the insensitivity of congressional elections to all but the most dramatic electoral landslides, the rise of technology-based campaigns, and weakened party leadership in modern legislatures have, at least in part, been attributed to a greater indifference by voters to parties. Over time there are reciprocal influences among these changing features of American politics. But to most observers the transformation begins with the rising popular disaffection toward parties. This widespread disaffection is also presumed to sustain many of the transformations. Such a focus is unavoidable, given the centrality of the electorate in any competitive parliamentary party system. But party systems are more than electoral coalitions more than voting patterns. Party systems also differ in terms of elite practices and organizational arrangements. These too may change. They may change because of electoral shifts. Any substantial reevaluation of the parties by the voters will have consequences for party elites and formal party structures. But changes in the way elites are recruited and in the machinery of party processes are not fully dependent on electoral support patterns. In any case party processes are analytically distinct from electoral patterns, and they are the concern of this paper. Two questions, one thematic and the other historical, provide the parameters of our inquiry. First, is there a relationship between how national convention delegates are chosen and the way those delegates think and act? Second, can recent differences in the character of convention delegates be explained by changes in the way they were chosen?1