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I am sure that all of us who have been attempting to make sense of American party politics these last couple of decades welcome Professor Reiter's contribution, and look forward to the publication of his book. As I understand the argument he is making, at least four positions are possible with respect to the recent history of political parties and Presidential nominations in the United States: (1) that no changes have occurred; (2) that long-term secular trends account for all changes; (3) that party reforms account for all changes; and (4) that a combination of longer-term trends and party reforms account for changes. Perhaps in order to hold the attention of readers, Professor Reiter has chosen to contrast positions (2) and (3).
1 Consequences of Party Reform (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983).Google Scholar
2 Presidential Elections: Strategies of American Electoral Politics, 6th ed (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1984).Google Scholar
3 ‘It is not the argument of this book … that the explicit choices entailed in the political reforms presently to be considered are completely responsible for the consequences I may seem to be fastening on them. I wish rather to argue that they are partially responsible, and facilitative in character, that they were necessary but not sufficient pre-conditions of a particular set of institutional problems toward which the American political system evolved in the wake of the turmoil of the late 1960s. Although other forces of varying sorts were also at work – technological, demographic and insitutional changes that were bound, for example, to increase the independent influence of news media on American politics – it does not seem to me unreasonable to focus on the contribution to social change made by the explicit choices of political actors. To study political choices in light of their consequences is not to claim they are the only determinants of consequences but merely to acknowledge that they are a set of determinants through which people took a direct hand in managing their own affairs, and might have managed differently, and that studying how these choices are made, their factual premises, their results, and their theoretical justifications can hope to add to useable knowledge.’ Consequences, pp. 4–5.Google Scholar
4 An especially learned demonstration of this point, focusing on party reform, is Truman, David B., ‘Party Reform, Party Apathy, and Constitutional Change’, Political Science Quarterly, IC (1984–1985), 637–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar