Party Position Change in American Politics: Coalition Management

✍ Scribed by David Karol

• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 328
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

America's two party system is highly stable, but its parties' issue positions are not. Democrats and Republicans have changed sides on many subjects, including trade, civil rights, defense spending, and fiscal policy, and polarized on newer issues like abortion and gun control. Yet party position change remains poorly understood. In this book David Karol views parties as coalitions of groups with intense preferences on particular issues managed by politicians. He explains important variations in party position change: the speed of shifts, the stability of new positions, and the extent to which change occurs via adaptation by incumbents. Karol shows that the key question is whether parties are reacting to changed preferences of coalition components, incorporating new constituencies, or experimenting on "groupless" issues. He reveals that adaptation by incumbents is a far greater source of change than previously recognized. This study enhances our understanding of parties, interest groups, and representation.

✦ Table of Contents

Half-title......Page 3
Title......Page 5
Copyright......Page 6
Dedication......Page 7
Contents......Page 9
List of Figures......Page 10
List of Tables......Page 13
Acknowledgments......Page 15
Introduction......Page 17
Plan of the Book......Page 20
What is a Party?......Page 22
What is an Issue?......Page 24
What are Groups?......Page 25
Why do Parties' Relative Positions Matter?......Page 26
Earlier Approaches......Page 27
Ideology: A Cause or an Fffect?......Page 30
Explaining Party Position Change: Premises and Three Models......Page 32
Premises and Models of Party Position Change......Page 33
Shifts among Elites: Conversion or Replacement?......Page 40
Case Selection, Data, and Measurement......Page 43
2 Coalition Maintenance: The Politics of Trade Policy......Page 51
Shifts among elites......Page 66
Other cases of coalition maintenance......Page 70
3 Coalition Group Incorporation: The Politics of Abortion and Gun Control......Page 72
Change among elites......Page 83
Gun control......Page 100
4 The Politics of Race: Coalition Maintenance in the North, Coalition Group Incorporation in the South......Page 118
Shifts among elites......Page 138
5 Coalition Expansion: The Politics of National Defense and Fiscal Policy......Page 150
Shifts among Elites......Page 159
Subsequent Changes......Page 162
Defense Politics and Interests......Page 166
Coalition Expansion: Fiscal Policy......Page 178
Shifts Among Elites......Page 186
6 Conclusions......Page 198
Directions for Future Research......Page 201
Implications......Page 203
Appendix: Data Sources and Procedures for Tables, Figures, and Rapoport and Stone Totals......Page 207
Sources for tables......Page 208
Sources for figures......Page 224
Votes used to calculate rapoport-stone scores......Page 271
Bibliography......Page 303
Index......Page 319