A ‘New Era’ in America


The election of Barack Obama as president of the United States has been greeted as the starting of a ‘new era’. There are several strands of academic literature about ‘historical cycles’, ‘critical elections’ and ‘voters’ realignments’ in American politics. The most recent contribution is a series of articles by Gary Miller and Norman Schofield (at Washington University in Saint Louis), based on the assumptions of a durable multidimensional issue space and a succession of changing party positions on that space.

Basically, Miller and Schofield identify two main dimensions: economy and culture, each including a number of issues with opposite party stances, such as industry-agriculture, business-labor on the former, and race, family and immigration on the latter. In the Figure below I adapt, simplify and update. Parties and candidates can be located for reference to the left and right poles on the economy dimension and the liberal and conservative poles on the culture dimension. The positions for the ‘new period’ presumably starting now are also included.

Since the current two-party system was established, several periods can be distinguished as follows:

1860-1928.

Major event and president: Republican A. Lincoln wins the Civil War.

Main issues: Abolition of slavery (culture liberal); industry development (economy center).
In 1896 the economy issue becomes more salient, with the Republican party taking a more pro-business position. The Democrats are electorally weakened by the Populists as third party.

Record: Republicans win 80% of presidential elections and 67% of House elections.

End: The financial crash of 1929 and further economic depression break support for the Republicans on the economy dimension.

1932-1964.

Major event and president: Democrat F.D. Roosevelt wins the Second World War.

Main issues: Government intervention (economy left); racial segregation in the South (culture conservative).

Record: Democrats win 77% of presidential elections and 97% of House elections.

End: Civil rights and sexual liberation movements break support for the Democrats on the culture dimension. Split of pro-segregation Southern candidacies.

1968-2004.

Major event and president: Republican R. Reagan wins the Cold War.

Main issues: Unregulated markets (economy right); family values (culture conservative).

Record: Republicans win 70% of presidential elections, although only 30% of House elections.

End: The financial crash of 2008 brakes support for the Republicans on the economy dimension.

See how, after 150 years of rotating around the clock, the two parties have almost completely alternated their respective positions. Democrat Obama is, thus, approaching Republican Lincoln's initial position.

Actually, Lincoln (of Illinois) was almost the only name mentioned by Obama in his victory speech in Chicago (Illinois).

REFERENCES

For a critical survey of past contributions by Key, Schattschneider, Sundquist, and Burnham:

David R. Mayhew, 'Electoral realignments', in Annual Review of Political Science, 3, 2000, pp. 449-74.

The most recent contribution, including references to previous works by the authors:

Gary Miller and Norman Schofield, 'The Transformation of the Republican and Democratic Party Coalitions in the U.S.', Perspectives on Politics, 6, 3, September 2008, pp. 433-50.

COMMENTS

Salvador Giner said…

Very useful and illuminating!

Gianfranco Pasquino said…

Dear Josep,

You have done an excellent job in identifying different eras in US politics. The 2008 elections and their outcome do pose the problem whether a realignment is in the making. My impression is that, for the time being, one can see, at best, the beginnings of a significant process of electoral and, probably, political change. Hence, before speaking of "realignment", one should first redefine what we mean by it with the help of Key and Mayhew, second, look more closely to the data state by state and constituency by constituency, as done in the past by Walter Dean Burnham, finally wait for the outcome of the 2010 Congressional elections.
Let me conclude stressing that US elections are always extremely interesting and your blogs are very stimulating !

Best wishes
GP

Lowell Lewis and Montserrat Trueta said…

Hello Josep,

We enjoyed seeing you on TV in Barcelona this past week.

[it was on the US election]