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A Two-Dimensional Scheme for Classifying the States According to Degree of Inter-Party Competition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Joseph A. Schlesinger
Joseph A. Schlesinger
Affiliation:
Michigan State College
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Extract

The student of American politics has displayed an increasing interest in the states as units of analysis. Since the states share a common institutional framework and cultural base, and at the same time differ in respect to economy, politics, and social structure, they provide excellent material for comparative studies. The political scientist has at hand a group of political units in which some of the most elusive variables are held constant. In the comparative study of American state politics, then, there is the promise that hypotheses about politics in general may be formulated and tested.

The first stage of analysis is classification. Since competition between political parties for public office is a basic concept in the study of American politics, the nature and degree of party competition provide important criteria for a classification of the states. It is the purpose of this paper to point up the difficulties involved in formulating a classification of the states according to their party systems and to suggest possible categories of party competition which such a classification might include.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 49 , Issue 4 , December 1955 , pp. 1120 - 1128
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1955

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References

1 See Ranney, Austin and Kendall, Willmoore, “The American Party Systems,” this Review, Vol. 48, pp. 477–86 (June, 1954)Google Scholar. Also the statement of conditions requisite for a two-party system in Lipson, Leslie, “The Two-Party System in British Politics,” this Review, Vol. 47, pp. 337–58 at p. 338 (June, 1953)Google Scholar.

2 Ranney and Kendall, pp. 482–84.

3 Ibid.

4 A number of different sources were used to gather the data upon which the diagram is based; the World Almanac and Encyclopedia (New York, published annually since 1885)Google Scholar, Gallup, George, The Political Almanac 1952 (New York, 1952)Google Scholar, Council of State Governments, The Governors of the States 1900–1950 (Chicago, 1948)Google Scholar, and White's Conspectus of American Biography, 2nd ed. (New York, 1937)Google Scholar, provide electoral information for the period covered.

5 In Maryland the Republicans gained a second consecutive victory for the first time in 1954 with T. R. McKeldin.

6 Massachusetts held annual elections for governor until 1917.

7 Recent secular trends away from traditional voting behavior in some states will necessarily be obscured in the present scheme. The long time span used in classifying the states will cause the averaging out of such recent developments, so that Rhode Island or Michigan are classed as strongly Republican despite an apparent shift to the Democratic party in the latter years. This is a fault which cannot be eliminated, for any period selected will affect the results. The cyclical dimension introduced in the present scheme does have the advantage of revealing past secular changes; the advantage, however, declines the closer such secular changes are to the 1950 end of the series.

8 Haynes, Fred E., Third Party Movements since the Civil War (Iowa City, 1916), p. 133Google Scholar.

9 Ring, Elizabeth, The Progressive Movement of 1912 and the Third Party Movement of 1924 in Maine, University of Maine Studies, 2nd series (Orono, 1933), pp. 20–21Google Scholar.

10 New York Times, September 15, 1954.

11 Schlesinger, Joseph A., “The Emergence of Political Leadership, A Case Study of American Governors,” unpub. diss. (Yale University, 1954), pp. 151–53Google Scholar.

12 Key, V. O. Jr., Southern Politics (New York, 1949)Google Scholar and Heard, Alexander, A Two-Party South? (Chapel Hill, 1952)Google Scholar.

13 See Liebling's, A. J. article, “Out Among the Lamisters,” New Yorker, March 27, 1954, pp. 63–75Google Scholar, for discussion of McCarran's position within the Democratic party in Nevada and the support he gave to Malone in 1952.

14 Howard, Joseph K., “Decline and Fall of Burton K. Wheeler,” Harper's Magazine, Vol. 194, p. 228 (March, 1947)Google Scholar.

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