Political Parties and Their Role
in a Democracy

Political parties are organizations that try to gain control over government by electing officials to public office who carry the party label. In representative democracies, parties are the principle organizations that recruit candidates for public office, run candidates against the candidates of other political parties in competitive elections, and try to organize and coordinate the activities of government officials under party banners.

Observers disagree about the value of political parties to democratic government. The Founders, for instance, were generally critical of parties, even the rudimentary and ill- formed parties of their own day. Progressives believed that political parties were undemocratic and corrupt instruments of political bosses, and created devices such as the direct primary (in which party candidates are chosen by voters rather than the party leaders) and nonpartisan elections (elections without party labels) to reduce the influence of parties. Today, public opinion polls show that a majority of Americans are highly skeptical about politicians and political parties, and remain uncertain about the relationship between parties and democracy.

Parties are essential for majority rule. Elections create an incentive for parties to assemble as many voters as possible, with a majority being the optimal goal. To win elections, parties must first mobilize and activate their natural supporters, i.e., those who share their core goals and values. Parties must also move beyond their core supporters to attract a broad range of voters.

In order to increase their electoral appeal, parties usually try to put together broad-based group coalitions. This process contributes to the formation of majorities where none may have existed before.  Parties perform various roles in American society. Parties can make majority preferences effective by simplifying ballot choices for voters. It doesn't make sense for most people to spend much time on politics. For them, voting cues provided by party labels are helpful. Competition between political parties can increase public awareness of, and interest in, candidates and issues. Political parties can also be the glue that holds together the various and sundry offices of government, giving unity and direction to the actions of officeholders.

Finally, parties can help make officeholders more accountable. When things go wrong or promises are not kept, it is important in a democracy for citizens to know who is responsible. Political parties, therefore, allow for collective responsibility. Citizens can pass judgment on the governing ability of a party as a whole and decide whether to retain the incumbent party or throw it out of office. For each of these reasons, parties are important to majority rule.

The Two-Party System

Although the U.S. political party system shares certain characteristics with other political party systems around the world, it is unique in some essential ways. The U.S., for example, comes closer to having a pure two-party system than any other nation in the world. Most countries have either one-party systems or multiparty systems. In the U.S., two parties have dominated the political scene since 1836, and the Democrats and the Republicans have controlled the presidency and Congress since 1858.

Moreover, competition on the national level between the two dominant parties in races for Congress and the White House has been remarkably close since the end of the Civil War. (Although the U.S. is a two-party system at the national level, it is often a different story at the regional, state, and local levels. From the end of the Civil War  to the 1960s, for instance, the deep South was solidly Democratic, devoid of serious party competition.)

We can delineate at least five or six distinct party systems or stages of party development in the United States. The first party system featured competition between Federalists and Democratic Republicans. Although the Founders were hostile to parties in theory, they created them almost immediately. Alexander Hamilton persuaded sympathetic members of Congress to form a loosely organized party that eventually took the name Federalist.

The Federalists, being close to New England and New York merchant and banking interests, favored a policy of trade and good relations with Great Britain, despite Great Britain's policy of preying on American shipping in the Atlantic. The Federalists also called for protective tariffs, a national bank, and federal assumption of revolutionary war debts.

In opposition to the Federalists, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and others formed a party in Congress known as the Democratic Republicans, which took the opposite stance from the Federalists on most issues. The split between the two parties was widened by their bitter debate over the new revolutionary government in France, with Jefferson and the Democrat Republicans favorable to it, and the Federalists hostile (though officially neutral).

The political fortunes of the two parties waxed and waned. The Federalists captured full control of government after the election of Federalist John Adams as president in 1796. In 1800, however, Thomas Jefferson, the Democratic Republican presidential candidate, campaigned against the unpopular Alien and Sedition Acts and won the presidency. 

Jefferson's victory was only the first of a string of spectacular successes by Democratic Republican presidential candidates. The Federalists became tainted by their sympathies with Great Britain in an anti-British era, their attempt to take New England out of the Union during the War of 1812, and their inability to transform themselves from a party of the wealthy in an age when democracy was gaining popularity. They quickly disappeared. By 1816, the first two-party system had evolved into a one-party or no-party system, generally known as the "Era of Good Feelings."

The second party system consisted of competition between the Democrats and the Whigs. The nonparty system that prevailed during the 1820s gave way to a strong two-party system by the 1830s. The Democrats (formally the Democratic Republicans) and the Whigs were parties of a different sort from those in the first party system. Instead of being loosely organized groups of local dignitaries and public officials, the parties that emerged in the 1830s were well-organized, with sharply contrasting programs tied to a highly partisan electorate.

This was brought about, in part, by a significant democratization of American life. Many barriers to voting by adult white males were lifted and some states passed laws requiring the direct popular election of presidential electors, taking the process out of the hands of the state legislatures. The Whigs favored a protective tariff, a national bank, and a federal program of internal improvements (roads, canal, etc.). In contrast, the Democrats, under the leadership of Andrew Jackson, opposed all three of the Whig proposals, couching their arguments in terms of the common people versus the wealthy.

Both the Whigs and the Democrats were torn by the conflict over slavery. The Whig party simply disintegrated and disappeared, although some of its remnants formed the new Republican Party (the ancestor of the present-day Republicans). The Democrats survived but could not agree on a single candidate to run against Republican Abraham Lincoln in 1860, so each wing of the party nominated its own candidate. During the third party system, which lasted from the Civil War to 1896, the Republicans and Democrats fought on roughly even terms. The Democratic party was primarily a white southern party, though Catholics and many workers in northern urban areas supported it as well. In the meantime, the Republican party became a party of business, the middle class, and newly enfranchised blacks.

The late nineteenth century was a time of very rapid transformation of the American economy and society, with massive disruptions in the fabric of everyday life. Farmers and industrial workers were especially hard hit, and they responded with social protest movements. Many of these movements, particularly the Populist Movement, ran candidates in election campaigns who garnered a great number of votes. The Populist Movement managed to create an alliance of black and white small farmers in many of the states of the deep South, posing a threat to the area's traditional leadership

In 1896, the Populist party joined with the Democratic party to nominate a single candidate for the presidency, the charismatic orator William Jennings Bryan, who urged free coinage of silver to help debtors with cheaper currency (which also pleased silver mining companies). The threat of a radical agrarian party, joining blacks and whites, farmers and unionists, proved to be too much for many Americans and contributed to one of the most bitter electoral campaigns in U.S. history.

Conservative Democrats deserted their party to join the Republicans. Businesses worried about the dangers of a Populist-Democratic victory and contributed heavily to the campaign of the Republican candidate, William McKinley. The Republicans won handily and dominated American politics until the Great Depression. A final important consequence of this period of American politics was that the states of the deep South, using both law and intimidation, removed blacks from the electorate.

The election of 1896 began the fourth party system which was a thirty-six year stretch of Republican dominance. Republicans controlled Congress and the White House throughout most of the period. The major exception to Republican control was the presidency of Democrat Woodrow Wilson who won election because the Republican party was divided.

The fifth party system, which is called the New Deal party system, was a period dominated by the Democratic party. The Great Depression, the New Deal, and the leadership of President Franklin D. Roosevelt fundamentally changed the conception of the proper role of the federal government, the groups aligned with each of the two parties, and the relative balance of power in the country between the Democrats and Republicans.

During the forty years from 1932 to 1972, the Democrats won seven of eleven presidential elections, enjoyed control of the Senate and House of Representatives for all but four years, and controlled a substantial majority of governorships and state legislatures across the nation. The Democrats also enjoyed a large lead over the Republicans in party identification among the electorate and were supported by a broad coalition of groups. By the middle of the 1930s, workers, Catholics, Jews, unionists, small and medium-sized farmers, people in urban areas, white ethnics, Southerners, and blacks were firmly in the Democratic party camp.

Some observers characterize the current party system as a post-New Deal party system. After the stunning Reagan victories in 1980 and 1984, many people thought that the United States might be in the midst of another major realignment, with a transition to a new party system dominated by the Republican party. It is not clear, however, that such a change has occurred or is likely to occur.

Although the New Deal Democratic coalition is slowly coming unglued, what has taken its place is not yet clear. The present system is not like traditional ones, in which one party controlled the government, led in party identification among the electorate, dominated the states, and defined the public agenda. The Republican party dominates the presidency today, but Democrats retain a strangle hold on Congress, state legislatures, and governorships. Nor have the Republicans been able to convince a majority of Americans to identify with their party.

Finally, there has been no wholesale substitution of one policy agenda for another, as in past realignment periods. Despite the Reagan Revolution, the American public has yet to reject the dominant issues of the New Deal party system and adopt an alternative issue agenda. Some scholars use the term de-alignment to characterize the current party system, focusing on the decreasing tendency of Americans to care about parties at all.

In the history of the two-party system in the United States, we see five relatively stable periods, each stretching over 30 or 40 years, linked to one another by much shorter periods of realignment in which a new party system takes the place of the old. The new party system differs from the old in a variety of ways, even when the name of the parties stay the same. Party systems tend to differ from one another on the issues that get attention, the party loyalties of voters, the group foundations of the parties, and the policies of the federal government.

Most political scientists agree that realignments are triggered by the transformation of structural factors. They occur when the old party system is unable to accommodate or solve problems that develop during rapid social, economic, and cultural change. Political scientists disagree, however, about how realignment takes place.

Most believe that it involves the movement of blocs of voters from one party to another and the entrance of new voters into the electorate. During realignment, citizens are unhappy about the course of affairs in the nation and express themselves either by switching their party allegiance or by voting in higher proportions than in the past.

Other political scientists, however, believe that realignment is best explained by shifts in the behavior of major investors, especially business groups. The New Deal party system, they argue, was less a product of shifts among voters than it was the formation of a new coalition of business interests who wanted free trade and were willing to back social reforms in exchange.

Such a viewpoint suggests that voters eventually follow the lead of major investors, who define the issues, pose the alternatives, and fund parties and candidates. According to this interpretation, changes in partisan identification and voting behavior in the electorate are not the cause of realignment, but an effect.

Why does the United States have a two-party system when most other western democracies have multiparty systems? The answer to this question is best explained by an examination of electoral rules, restrictions on minority parties, and popular attitudes toward parties.

First, let's consider election laws. Most other democratic nations elect their representatives on the basis of proportional representation. Each party is represented in the legislative branch of government in rough proportion to its percentage of the popular vote in an election. Even parties who have only a narrow appeal can win a proportion of the popular vote. Voters with strong views on an issue or with strong ideological outlooks can vote for a party that closely represents their views. A vote for a small party is not wasted, because it would ultimately be translated into legislative seats and perhaps a place in the governing coalition.

Elections in the United States, however, are organized on a plurality or winner-take-all, single-member-district basis. Each electoral district in the United States, whether it is an urban ward, a county, a congressional district, or a state, generally elects only one person to a given office and does so on the basis of whoever wins the most votes. This arrangement creates a powerful incentive for parties to coalesce and for voters to concentrate their attention on big parties.

From the vantage point of party organizations, this type of election discourages minor-party efforts, because failure to  win a plurality leaves such a party with no representation at all. Leaders of minor parties are tempted to merge with a major party. From the voter's point of view, a single member, winner-take-all election means that a vote for a minority party is wasted. Those who vote for a minority party may feel good, but voters have few illusions that such votes will translate into representation.

The effect of the American form of election is accentuated by the fact that the main prize in our political system--the presidency--is elected in a single gigantic district: the nation.

Second, election laws that restrict the activities of minor parties help account for the two-party system. Once a party system is in place, the dominant parties often establish rules that make it difficult for other parties to get on the ballot. The way in which the federal government partially funds presidential campaigns has made the situation of third parties even more difficult.

Major-party candidates for president automatically qualify for federal funding once they are nominated. In contrast, minor party candidates must attract a minimum percentage of the votes in the general election to be eligible for public funding. They are, furthermore, not reimbursed until after the election. Moreover, the television networks are no longer obliged to give equal time to parties other than the Republicans and Democrats because the Federal Communication Commission's equal time policy and fairness doctrine have been suspended.

Third, the attitudes of the American people contribute to the maintenance of a two-party system. Once a party system is in place, it seems natural. This attitude is passed on to children by family, schools, and the media. Moreover, the American political culture does not provide fertile ground for a broad range of ideological distinctive parties. The broad consensus on classical liberalism allows little space for parties outside the consensus.

Finally, the absence of a strong labor movement is another reason that a broad range of parties does not exist in the United States. In most Western European nations, a strong labor movement was instrumental in the creation of Socialist and Labor political parties. The Unit d States lacks both the traditional conservative party groupings that grew out of feudalism and a strong labor movement.

Minor parties have played a less important role in the United States than in virtually any other democratic nation. In our entire history, only a single minor party (the Republican party) has managed to replace one of the major parties. 

Several types of minor parties have played a part in American politics throughout the years. Protest parties have usually been a part of a protest movement. For example, the American party was against immigration, the Populist movement against monopolistic practices of the banking and railroad industry, and the American Independence party against federal activism in civil rights.

Ideological parties such as the Socialist party, Communist party, and Libertarian party have existed for years in the United States but none have had a significant electoral impact.

Single issue parties are barely distinguishable from interest groups, though they do run their own candidates for public office. Examples of these parties include the Women's party and the Free Soil Party.

Splinter parties form when a faction within one of the major political parties bolts to run its own candidate for president. Examples of these type of parties include the Bull Moose party and the Dixiecrats. Although the role of minor parties is not clear, it can be said that they allow those with grievances to express themselves in a way that is not possible within the major parties.

More cynical observers suggest that this allows unhappy groups to blow off steam without seriously disturbing the normal political process or threatening those holding public office. Most observers agree, however, that because minor parties are not usually as cautious as major parties, they probably expand the scope of conflict in American politics, increase attention and interest among at least some segments of the public, and bring a few more Americans into the political process.

The Parties as Organizations

American political parties differ organizationally from parties in other democracies. In most democratic countries, parties are fairly well-structured organizations, led by party professionals, and committed to a set of policies and principles. They also tend to have clearly defined membership requirements, centralized control over party nominations and electoral financing, and discipline over party members holding political office.

None of this is true for major parties in the U.S. The classic boss-led political machines of American folklore have disappeared from the cities and states where they once existed, mainly the result of reforms that ended party control over government contracts and jobs. Even the most popular presidents have trouble controlling members of their own party. The vagueness of party membership is a good indicator of the insubstantial nature of our parties. American don't join parties in the sense of paying dues and receiving a membership card. To Americans, being a member of a party may mean nothing more than voting most of the time for the candidate of that party.

American political parties are not organizations in the formal sense of the term. In contrast to corporate CEOs or party leaders in most other countries, the leaders of American political parties cannot issue orders that get passed along a chain of command to those at the bottom. In the U.S., each level of the party is relatively independent and only acts in concert with other levels on the basis of common interests.

There are only a few ways in which the American parties can compel one level of organization to do the bidding of another. Most important, the national party is unable to control its most vital activity: the nomination of candidates running under its party label.

The national party conventions, which are the governing bodies of American parties, have some authority to encourage coordination and cooperation among levels. Convention delegates meet every four years, not only to nominate presidential and vice-presidential candidates, but also to adopt a party platform and revise party rules. Although the national convention is the formal governing body for each of the parties, it cannot directly dictate to party candidates and party organizations at other levels.

The business of the party is conducted during the years between the national conventions by a national committee made up of elected committee members from each of the states. The real business of the committee is conducted by the chairperson and his or her staff. The chairperson exercises little power when a president from his or her party is in office, but when the other party controls the presidency, the party chairperson exercises more influence in party affairs.

Congressional campaign committees are an entirely independent arm of the parties which help members of Congress campaign for reelection. These committees are controlled by party members in Congress, not the party chairperson, the national committees, or even the president.

Finally, there are a wide range of affiliated groups associated with the parties, such as organizations for women and young people, research groups, and policy and ideological reform groups. Each of these affiliated groups is free to go its own way; the national parties have limited power to shape their actions.

In most other democracies, candidates are less important than parties. Party organizations draw up party lists and candidates cannot force themselves on the ballot. Most money for conducting electoral campaigns is raised and spent by the party organizations, not individual candidates. The campaign is waged between parties and their alternative programs, not between individual candidates, and the electorate tends to make choices based on feelings about the parties rather than candidates.

In contrast, American politics is candidate centered. The weakness of our parties as organizations is most apparent in their inability to select and channel the activities of those who run for public office under the party banner.

In most parliamentary systems, candidates are beholden to the party. Parties select candidates, are responsible for most of a candidate's campaign financing, and strongly influence their behavior once in office. In the United States, the opposite is true. Candidates are primary and the parties are secondary in the sense that party activities are shaped by the electoral needs of their candidates. Today, nominations are increasingly slipping out of the grasp of party regulars and officials. Nominees are so independent that they sometimes oppose party leaders and reject traditional party policies.

Obviously, parties want to win election, but for what purpose? That's not as easy to answer as it may seem, given the fragmentation and complexity of party organizations. Each component tends to have its own goals.

Party activists, the people who do the most important organizational work of the parties, are themselves divided. Party professionals are the traditional party activists whose first commitment is to the party itself. They tend to be pragmatic, oriented to winning elections. Issues and ideology are less important to them than finding candidates who can appeal to as many voters as possible.

Party amateurs are party activists who tend to be motivated by ideological or issue concerns. Although they are interested in finding a winning candidate, these amateurs often want candidates to conform to their ideological or issue agenda.

Party officeholders, meanwhile, first and foremost want to retain their positions or gain higher office, and they generally behave with an eye on the next election. Party voters are difficult to pigeonhole. They are a diverse lot; some want ideological and issue purity, while others seeks party victory as their main goal.

Finally, financial contributors have diverse goals as well. Most large contributors are interested mainly in either gaining access to officeholders or trying to influence legislation and thus are usually attracted to popular candidates.

The Republican and Democratic parties are both coalitions seeking to attract as many individuals and groups as possible in order to prevail in winner-take-all, single-member- district elections. Thus, there are strong pressures on them to be ideologically ambiguous. Ideology may be understood as an organized set of beliefs about the fundamental nature of the good society and the role government ought to play in achieving it.  In other Western democracies, it is common for the major parties to be aligned closely with an ideology. Ideological contests in the United States, however, are not the norm. By and large, Democrats and Republicans believe in the same ideological fundamentals. Both parties are committed to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, free enterprise, and individualism. It may be most accurate to say that our parties are ideological--people in them believe in a coherent set of ideas about the nature of the good society, economy, and polity--but that they are not ideologically opposed to one another.

Does the absence of ideological differences between the two parties mean that there isn't that much difference between the Democrats and Republicans? The evidence indicates that the difference between Democrats and Republicans are real and important. The two parties disagree on the details of public policy, even if they agree on fundamental values and objectives. It is possible to agree on the value of individualism, for example, yet disagree about the scale of the federal government's role in providing social welfare.

The Republican and Democratic parties differ in a number of ways. The electorate perceives the parties differently. A recent study shows that over sixty percent of the American people report that they see the parties as different on a whole range of issues.  

The parties also differ in terms of who supports them. Americans who classify themselves as liberals overwhelmingly support Democratic candidates, while self-described conservatives overwhelmingly support Republicans.

Another way that the parties differ is in terms of their party platforms. Scholars have noted persistent differences between the parties in terms of rhetoric, issues, public policies, and pledges made. 

However, it is important to note that the Republican and Democratic platforms tend to overlap more than they diverge. Party activists differ, with Republicans activists being more conservative than Republican voters and Democratic activists being more liberal than Democratic voters. 

Finally, the parties differ in the voting behavior of their elected representatives. Republicans and Democrats in office favor different policies on taxes, corporate legislation, and welfare.

Many people believe that the parties are becoming more ideological. This is particularly true for the Republican party. After the 1970s, the Republican party became far more conservative. The Democratic party still contains large segments of conservative leaders and voters, thus ideological diversity, and ideological ambiguity as a party, remain the watchwords for Democrats.

America's fragmented system of government sometimes produces policy deadlock. One of the roles that political parties can play is to overcome this deadlock by persuading officials in the different branches of government to cooperate with one  another on the basis of party loyalty. 

The constitutionally designed conflict between president and Congress might be bridged, for example, when a single party controls both branches. The problem of governing presented by fragmented and separated powers in the United States is almost unique among the Western democracies.

In most parliamentary systems (as in Great Britain, Germany, and Japan), the executive and legislative branches are combined. American political parties only partially improve the coherence and responsiveness of our government. Because they are organizationally weak and ideologically ambiguous, American parties are unable to command the complete loyalty and attention of their adherents or to influence strongly their behavior. Nonetheless, American parties are sometimes able to overcome constitutional deadlock, as in the case of FDR's New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs.

Divided party control of the national government exaggerates the problems caused by the constitutional separation of powers. At best, divided party control leads to government paralysis, stalemate, and delay. At worst, divided party control of government produces open warfare between the two ranches--what some political scientists have called  institutional combat. This involves an effort by one branch of government to diminish another and build its own autonomous power to govern.

Parties are not only organizations and officeholders; they are also images in the minds of voters and potential voters, mental cues that affect the behavior of the electorate. It is important to note that partisanship is declining within the electorate. Americans are less prone to identify with one of the two main parties now than they were in the past. They are also more likely to vote for candidates of different parties.

This decline in party allegiance is not so much a reflection of public hostility to parties as it shows a lack of confidence that parties can make the government responsive and responsible to the people. If parties were not important to the practices of democracy, none of this would be cause for concern. Given the centrality to popular sovereignty to democracy, however, the decline of partisanship is very important.

Party Decline and Reform

The evidence indicates that parties are indeed declining in their popularity among the electorate and in their ability to control central party functions such as nominating candidates and organizing campaigns. Many political scientists contend that the decline of parties will lead to an increase in the influence of interest groups.

Parties are the closest thing we have to an institution capable of fashioning policy coherence out of interest group politics, while at the same time bringing broad elements of the public into the political arena. If parties continue to decline, national policy will lack coherence because weak parties will be unable effectively to aggregate the competing demands of interest groups.

Moreover, the decline of parties will diminish the political influence of the worst-off members of society who will lack the resources to fund interest group activity. If this should develop, political equality will be eroded further.

Scholars disagree as to whether measures should be taken to strengthen parties. The most elaborate and extensive set of proposals for reform of the parties is that which calls for responsible-party government in the United States. 

Proponents of this model want a party system that resembles the parliamentary party systems of Western Europe, where parties stand for clearly defined programs, compete against other parties with distinctive stands, put their programs into effect once in office, and face the voters based on their performance. Such a system, its adherents contend, would make elections more meaningful.

Structural factors prevent the responsible party model from being realized in the U.S. Constitutional rules virtually guarantee that American parties will be fragmented and decentralized. American political culture has long been anti-party and hostile to the concentration of political power. The absence of an organized labor party in America is another factor contributing to a lack of appeal for a responsible party system. Finally, there is no wide-spread public support for strengthening American parties.

Even if creating responsible parties were possible, proponents are vague about leadership in these strengthened parties and the mechanisms by which party ideologies and platforms are fashioned. Though parties of the sort described in the responsible-party model are both unlikely to appear and problematic in several respects, the present decline of the parties must be reversed if they are to play a role in making popular sovereignty a reality.