Theoretical Implications of Recent Work in the History of American Society and Politics

Abstract

For some three decades now American historians have produced considerable new work in social history. Yet one has difficulty identifying emerging conceptual and theoretical tendencies which arise from it. In a recent review of work over the past decade, much of which concerned social history, the editors found it appropriate to stress the virtues of diversity in that scholarship rather than to identify lines of theoretical development. While they lament the balkanization of American history which has occurred, they find in the articles under review little of an integrative quality which commands attention.' Writing about political history is somewhat better. Studies of popular voting have given rise to a scheme of six periods of party over the past two centuries. Legislative analyses have identified partisanship as the persistent theme of legislative action, which displayed signs of weakening only in the mid-twentieth century. Yet even here one would hope for a more extended set of integrative concepts. Both popular voting and legislative studies are increasingly drawn in upon themselves, undertaking ever finer analyses of voting behavior and the internal workings of institutions. The frequent assertion that legislatures reflect tendencies within the broader society has hardly led to detectable attempts to establish such links.2 In both social and political history the most significant theoretical potential lies in the connection that can be drawn between society and politics, between social change and the larger realms of public choice. But neither brand of history has moved very far in that direction. Social history has remained rather markedly aloof from constructing theory that would link its detailed studies with a larger social and political framework; and political history tends to gravitate toward assertions of the significance of the internal dynamics of formal political institutions, such as parties and administrative systems themselves.3 The potential