Political Parties: The Politics of Aggregation and Disaggregation

Abstract

The United States has the purest two-party system of any large liberal democracy in the world. The system has undergone a number of significant changes during the history of the Republic, but the parties have remained the glue binding together a governmental system divided both vertically (as a result of federalism) and horizontally (as a result of the separation of powers). The US party system differs sharply from European party systems. This chapter traces the development of the party system, and examines how and why the US party system is different, and shows the significance of these differences. In examining the parties, the chapter considers whether, in an era of partisan polarization where moderate elite politicians are few, the parties remain the institutional glue they once were. To examine the parties in detail, this chapter considers the parties from three perspectives: as organizations (party machines that seek to elect candidates to office), as parties within the electorate (who votes for which party, why and how often), and as parties in government (how do elected officials and activists behave, particularly within the elected branches of the federal government. Finally, in trying to understand what has happened to the parties within the federal government, this chapter suggests that the parties have become more polarized in the last three decades but that the ‘party in government’ (‘party elites’) remain more polarized than voters. The consequence of this ‘elite polarization’ is a governmental system that works less well than it might. The party system is a significant contributor to this failure.