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Amateurs and Peofessionals: A Study of Delegates to the 1968 Democratic National Convention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

John W. Soule  and
James W. Clarke
John W. Soule
Affiliation:
Florida State University
James W. Clarke
Affiliation:
Florida State University
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Extract

Several years ago James Q. Wilson studied the members of the three amateur Democratic clubs in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. He intended his study, by his own admission, to be interesting rather than theoretical, but we have found its theoretical portions to be intriguing. The amateur politicians studies by Wilson primarily concentrated their energies in local politics, although their ambitions extended far beyond local campaigns and issues. Indeed, they expressed a clear desire to alter fundamentally the character of the American party system and, accordingly, all governing institutions.

Wilson's task of identifying and characterizing the political motives and tactics of amateur Democrats was facilitated by the existence of political clubs. He had only to identify the clubs he wished to study and survey their members. Future researchers were left the responsibility of identifying similar political motives and tactics in less well-defined groups. We attempted to do this for a sample of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in 1968, and, following Wilson's criteria, we were successful in identifying a substantial proportion of amateur Democrats.

The amateur Democrat described by Wilson was not set apart from the more conventional party activitsts by his liberalism, his age, education or class. He was not a dilettante or an inept practitioner of politics, nor did he regard politics as an avocation or hobby. Rather the amateur found politics intrinsically interesting because it expressed a conception of the public interest. The political world was perceived in terms of policies and principles which were consistent with the amateur's theory of deomocracy.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 64 , Issue 3 , September 1970 , pp. 888 - 898
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1970

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References

* This Project was funded by the Political Research Institute at Florida State University.

1 Wilson, James Q., The Amateur Democrat (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962)Google Scholar.

2 Ibid., ch. 1. We have relied heavily on Wilson's study in designing our own and hereby acknowledge our intellectual debt to him. Henceforth only specific references from The Amateur Democrat are noted.

3 The characteristics of the amateur and professional are described by Wilson in Chs. 1, 10 and 11, Ibid.

4 For examples of this theme, see: Martin Oppenheimer, “Alienation or Participation,” paper read at the 1965 Meetings of the Pennsylvania Sociological Society, and reprinted by the Students for a Democratic Society; Jacobs, Paul and Landau, Saul, The New Radicals (New York: Vintage Books, 1966)Google Scholar; Kopkind, Andrew, “Of, By and For the Poor: The New Generation of Student Organizers,” The New Republic, June 19, 1965 Google Scholar.

5 Commonly know as the “Port Huron Statement,” this document exists as a statement of principles of the Students for a Democratic Society, 1962.

6 New Left members have been characterized as being totally alienated by rejecting the contemporary two-party system, thus making comparisons between them and avid partisan amateurs fallacious. See Jacobs and Landau, op. cit., chs. 4 and 5. No doubt there exist many New Left people who completely eschew conventional partisan activity. But these individuals appear to represent what Keniston has labelled the “uncommitted” as contrasted with the “committed” or “radicals.” The latter, while nursing an abiding suspicion of political parties and their leaders, are still willing to engage in party activities when they believe there exists an opportunity for achieving some goals. During the Chicago convention delegates and supporters of Senator Eugene McCarthy often joined New Left protestors outside the convention hotels. One chant in particular, “You killed the party, you killed the party …” which was directed at Humphrey delegates, reflects some affinity between amateur Democrats and New Left supporters. See Keniston, Kenneth, Young Radicals: Note on Committed Youth (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1968)Google Scholar and also The Uncommitted (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1965)Google Scholar.

7 Converse, Phillip E., “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics,” in Ideology and Discontent, Apter, David (ed.) (New York: Free Press, 1964)Google Scholar; Campbell, Angus, Converse, Phillip E., Miller, Warren E. and Stokes, Donald E., The American Voter (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1964), ch. 9Google Scholar; McClosky, Herbert, “Consensus and Ideology in American Politics,” this Review, LVIII (June, 1964) 361–382 Google Scholar; Levin, Murray B., The Alienated Voter (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960)Google Scholar.

8 Wilson, op. cit., p. 359. It should be noted, however, that a good deal of diversity exists even within locally based party organization both in terms of motivational and value perspectives. See Eldersveld's, Samuel J. insightful study, Political Parties: A Behavioral Analysis (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964)Google Scholar.

9 More programmatic, internally democratic and responsible parties were recommended by the American Political Science Association Committee on Political Parties in 1950. This report has been subject to some of the identical criticism raised here concerning the amateurs conception of parties. See, Key, V. O. Jr., Politics, Parties and Pressure Groups (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, fifth edition, 1964), chs 9, 12, pp. 662–665 Google Scholar; and Ranney, Austin, “Toward a More Responsible Two Party System: A Commentary,” this Review, XLV (June, 1951), 448–500 Google Scholar.

10 When these items were factor analyzed, four factors emerged. An examination of the four factors indicated that preoccupation with winning, willingness to compromise, intraparty democracy and programmatic parties appeared to be the dimensions underlying the concept “amateurism.” Although we have statistically treated amateurism as a unidimensional variable, it can be broken down conceptually into correlated components.

11 We wish to thank the CBS News Bureau for providing us with the CBS News 1969 Democratic National Convention Handbook, copyright: Columbia Broadcasting System.

12 Wilson, op. cit., 13.

13 Not shown in tabular form.

14 Op. cit., p. 122.

15 Adelson, Joseph and O'Neil, Robert P., “Growth of Political Ideas in Adolescence: The Sense of Community,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, IV (1966), 295–1306CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 When we speak of the party being an “end,” we mean that party loyalty ranks near the top of a person's hierarchy of political values.

17 Loc. cit.

18 It should be noted here, however, that a majority of all groups agreed with the Vietnam statement, which is a direct quote from a speech by Senator Eugene McCarthy.

19 See note, Table 10.

20 Wahlke, John C., Eulau, Heinz, Buchanan, William, and Ferguson, Leroy C., The Legislative System: Explorations in Legislative Behavior (New York: Wiley, 1962), Ch. 13Google Scholar.

21 Merton, Robert K., “Patterns of Influence: Local and Cosmopolitan Influentials,” in Social Theory and Social Structure (Revised Ed.; Glencoe: Free Press, 1957), pp. 387–420 Google Scholar; and Wilson, op. cit., pp. 10–11.

22 Ibid.

23 See Minar, David W., “Ideology and Political Behavior,” Midwest Journal of Political Science 5 (November, 1961), 317–331 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Converse, Phillip E., “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics,” in Ideology and Discontent, Apter, David (ed.) (New York: Free Press, 1964), pp. 206–261 Google Scholar.

24 See McClosky, Herbert, et al., “Issue Conflict and Consensus Among Leaders and Followers,” American Political Science Review 54 (June, 1960) 406–427 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “Consensus and Ideology in American Politics,” American Political Science Review 58 (June, 1964) 361–379 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In addition to McClosky's studies which dealt with positional issues, a host of other studies too numerous to list here have found ideology to be correlated with political decision-making.

25 Wilson, op. cit., p. 2.

26 Ibid, p. 2. It is interesting to speculate about the extent of amateurism present among Republicans especially when we recall the Goldwater nomination in 1964. See for example, Wildasky, Aaron, “The Goldwater Phenomenon: Purists, Politicians and the Future of the Two-Party System,” Review of Politics, 27 (July, 1965), 386–413 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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