State Formation and the Decline of Political Parties: American Parties in the Fiscal State

Abstract

The shifting salience of political parties is a central issue in American political development. From the debates over colonial “parties” to debates over the relevance of realignment theory in the 1980s and 1990s, scholars have attempted to assess the impact of political parties on political development. One topic that has provoked particularly extensive debate is the status of parties since World War II. Scholars point to confidence gaps, realignment, and institutional displacement, among other factors, to explain the postwar decline of political parties. But there are problems: Analytical frameworks explaining decline cannot account for recent signs of party resurgence; frameworks explaining resurgence typically account for little of the decline. Those focused on one aspect of the party system (e.g., parties in Congress) rarely offer insights on other aspects (e.g., parties in the electorate). What is needed is an approach that places parties within their structural settings. If these settings change, parties may change.