Parties In America Research Articles

The Democratic and Republican Parties in America: A Historical Bibliography. [“This bibliography was conceived and compiled from the periodicals database of the American Bibliographical Center by editors at ABC-Clio Information Services; Susan KINNELL, project coordinator”]. Santa Barbara, California/Oxford, England: ABC-Clio Information Services, 1984. Pp. xii, 290 (ABC-Clio Research Guide, 7). US $25.50 (hardbound).

The Democratic and Republican Parties in America: A Historical Bibliography. [“This bibliography was conceived and compiled from the periodicals database of the American Bibliographical Center by editors at ABC-Clio Information Services; Susan KINNELL, project coordinator”]. Santa Barbara, California/Oxford, England: ABC-Clio Information Services, 1984. Pp. xii, 290 (ABC-Clio Research Guide, 7). US $25.50 (hardbound).

The American Election: Towards Constitutional Democracy?

THE AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION JUST HELD APPEARS to have been a momentous event. It was the greatest repudiation of an incumbent president and party in America since that of Hoover and the Republicans in 1931. Predicted by no one — by neither political scientist, pollster nor politician — this was as much a surprise to joyful Republicans as to luckless Democrats. The voters had not discussed the matter much, except in deprecatory terms borrowed from the media, and on the morning after they too looked around among themselves with wonder and satisfaction.It could hardly be believed, as Carter's pollster asserted, that everyone turned to Reagan on the last day when the hostages held in Iran failed to appear. Something so considerable must have been meditated, or at least prepared; and this misfortune for Carter does not explain why the Democratic Senators, who were not involved with Iran, were voted out. Perhaps the large number of ‘undecideds’ were Reagan voters, too embarrassed to confess their decision to callers they suspected were unsympathetic. Or perhaps — a wishful fantasy of mine — the voters deliberately did not disclose their intention to the pollsters since they knew that sovereignty stays alive only with an occasional surprise. The voters may have sensed that they can be exploited if they can be predicted.

Party Formation in the United States Congress, 1789 to 1796: A Quantitative Analysis

44 N every free and deliberating society, there must, from the nature of man, be opposite parties, and violent dissensions and discords.... l Perhaps this party division is necessary to induce each to watch and relate to the people the proceedings of the other.1 Such was Thomas Jefferson's opinion in 1798. In i969 Richard Hofstadter wrote, Free opposition, working through party organization, . . . is regarded today in most of the Western world to be to a representative democracy.' This juxtaposition of the words of two American political thinkers testifies to their nation's continuing preoccupation with its party system. The historian is compelled to study a political institution which is judged essential to a representative The fact that Jefferson and the founding fathers regarded their creation with suspicion is particularly enticing to the historian of ideas, and therefore much of the scholarship concerning early American parties is addressed to this lag between thought and practice. Yet these quotations also express some of the hazards of studying the earliest manifestations of political parties in America. Advocates of the American political system tend to view the political organization of the early Republic teleologically-as the first steps along the way to modern democracy. Political scientists like William Nisbet Chambers seek out the origins of their cause celebre, pluralism, while historians in the Hofstadter tradition look to the 1790s for the

The Spirit of Party in America

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American Socialism's Flood and Ebb: The Rise and Decline of the Socialist Party in America, 1901–1912*

BETWEEN 1901, WHEN the new Socialist Party was established in the United States, and 1912, the tide of socialism seemed to be reaching a swell here and in Europe, and many were predicting that in a short time all industrial nations would be engulfed. From very meager beginnings, the American party grew into an organization with 150,000 affiliated members and with a voting strength of nearly one million. In 1910 Victor Berger became the first socialist ever to win election to Congress, and by 1912, socialists held 56 important city offices, including the mayoralties of Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Butte, Montana; Schenectady, New York; and Berkeley, California. Socialists held 1,039 offices in more than 300 municipalities.' Yet almost in a matter of months this spectacular advance was halted and the Socialist Party was in ruins. Although the successes and failures of the socialist parties have been treated before, the rapid rise and decline of the Socialist Party from 1901-12 remains a major historical mystery. Recently this subject has reappeared in the literature of the social sciences. In Volume III of his A History of Socialist Thought, G.D.H. Cole states, Evidently it is of the greatest importance to discover why these things happened-both why American Socialism appeared to be making such swift headway during the early years of the present century, and why it suffered eclipse.2 This article will have the following objectives: (1) to survey briefly the growth of socialism in America; (2) to present and analyze the Marxian position on the role of the socialists, and (3) to discuss the institutional and economic factors retarding the growth of socialist parties in the United States.

Party Development and Party Action: The American Origins

According to much conventional historiography, modern political parties arose first in Great Britain and later in America. A more accurate view would assert the contrary that parties in the sense appeared first in the United States with the Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans of the 1790s, and in Great Britain only some decades later with the Whig-Liberal and Tory-Conservative formations of the 1830s and 1840s. The dates themselves are not of great moment; it is rather the issue of when, how, or under what conditions modern parties emerged that is significant. It is an argument of this essay that much about the nature and role of party can be learned from an historical analysis of the origins of party in America. A further argument is that even a brief comparison of American and English experience can further clarify such understanding. The American case is at once special and indicative of certain key aspects of party development in general. The term proper sense, of course, suggests some conceptual or theoretical distinction between parties and other formations. The point here is that it is of primary importance for the historian or political scientist who is concerned with party development or action to distinguish in a conscious, analytical manner between pre-party political formations or factions on the one hand, and parties on the other. If this distinction is carefully made, much else follows, including clarification which opens the way to historical explanation of the early development of party in the United States, and ultimately of the origin of parties generally. Thus, party is explored here as a modern political phenomenon and indeed as an aspect of political modernization in general. Finally, party is also understood as being associated with some form of mass politics, whether actively democratic or passively plebiscitarian.1 Democracy is construed summarily as popular representation, popular participation or initiative, and popular choice. The focus of inquiry is on the American experience and literature, against a limited comparison with the English background. Throughout, emphasis

The Roots of American Communism

In this definitive history of the evolution of the Com- munist Party in America--from its early background through its founding in 1919 to its emergence as a legal entity in the 1920s--Theodore Draper traces the native and foreign strains that comprised the party. He emphasizes its shifting policies and secrets as well as its open activities. He makes clear how the party in its infancy transformed from a new expression of American radicalism to the American appendage of a Russian revolutionary power, a fact that Draper develops in his succeeding volume, American Communism and Soviet Russia.In his special, prescient way, Theodore Draper himself had the final words on American Communism: It is like a museum of radical politics. In its various stages, it has virtually been all things to all men... There are many ways of trying to understand such a movement, but the first task is historical. In some respects, there is no other way to understand it, or at least to avoid seriously misunderstanding it. Every other approach tends to be static, one-sided or unbalanced.Draper correctly notes that the formative period of the American Communist movement has remained a largely untold and even unknown story. In part, the reasons for this are that the Communist movement, although a child of the West, grew to power in the Soviet East. But Draper rescues this chapter with deep appreciation for the fact that communism was not something that happened just in Russia, but also in the United States. This is a must read for scholars and laypersons alike.This volume is conceived as an independent and self-contained study of the American Communist movement. Draper correctly notes that the formative period is largely untold and even unknown. In part, the reasons for this are that the Communist movement, although a child of the West, grew to power in the Soviet East. Draper appreciates the fact that communism was not something that happened only in Russia, but also took place in the United States. That experience is the focus of this volume.

The Canadian Party System in Transition

The Canadian Political Science Association, half-way through the second year of the Century of the Common Man, naturally devotes some of its attention to the prospects of democracy in our own country. It is fitting that we should inquire into what has been happening to our party system, for we have had as long an experience as most modern countries in the working of popular political parties as part of the machinery of democracy, and our experience should be of some significance to other peoples as well as to ourselves. How little systematic study has been done on this subject, however, is brought home to a Canadian after he has lived for a time in the United States and has had to try to answer Americans when they ask for books on the principles, organization, and history of Canadian parties, such as they produce so abundantly on their own parties. It might not be a bad idea, therefore, to begin this paper with some reference to recent American discussions of their party system. One can usually derive from a study of American experience the most useful categories of thought in which to arrange our own Canadian experience. And American books on democracy in general and on political parties as one of the techniques of democracy have been pouring from their presses in great profusion in recent years.American study of the subject of political parties in America has now reached the stage at which text-books digesting for university undergraduates the conclusions of the experts are almost as standardized as American motor-cars. When one reads the new ones that appear with each new publishing season one gets a strong impression that the chief reason for the new publication is not the author's urge to throw fresh light on the subject but simply the reason which produces new text-books in most subjects, namely the urge to supplement a meagre salary by a comfortable income from royalties.

Psychological Effects of Alcohol 1

THE literature on the alcohol question is already vast, but it promises to be bigger still if the ambitious programme of Prof. F. G. Benedict and his colleagues is accomplished to the full. It must be more than thirty years ago that, feeling the tyrannv of the ultra-teetotal party in America, the late Prof. Atwater founded a famous committee with the object of freeing, at any rate, the scientific section of the community from the limitations of opinion and research on the question which the so-called temperance party sought to impose upon them. Excellent work they did, but in the intervening years the methods of research have been so improved that the work of that committee urgently needed revision. So in January, 1913, Prof. Benedict invited the co-operation of physiologists throughout the world to share in a gigantic investigation of the numerous problems presented by the dietetic use of alcoholic beverages, and obtained sympathetic answers from a large number of eminent people in all countries. In the present volume a long list is given of these, and grateful acknowledgment is made of friendly, helpful letters from the majority of them.