6 - Issue Politics in Ideological Context

Summary

The gradual realignment of the last half-century was not about any one issue. Chapter 5 demonstrated that the issues that make up liberalism and conservatism together have reshaped political parties, and that the many issues did so together. Nevertheless, this process can be seen among individual issues. As ideology reorganized race, it led race to change its alignment with the parties. As ideology reorganized abortion, it led to a change in the relationship of abortion to the parties. This chapter surveys these two specific issues. In each, I argue that ideology organized the issue, and then led the parties to adapt to that new organization.

I begin with race, because race is a central issue in the realignment of the twentieth century, even if it is not the only important issue. I then address the changes in abortion, a narrower issue that has prominence for social conservatives and the development of women’s rights activists. In both of these cases, the parties shifted their positions for a variety of reasons. Surely the opinions of elite pundits were not the only reason. Political activists had to do the hard work of building alliances and convincing activists with other interests that theirs were compatible, but they were aided by ideology in finding coalition partners.