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Trends in Public Support for the American Party System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Jack Dennis
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Extract

To this point I have presented a variety of available observations on what I take to be several types of most relevant indicators of support for the party system in the United States. I have paid special attention in this analysis to the trends in public opinion regarding the parties over time. Given the fragmentary nature of the available indicators, when they are considered in combination they do reveal some fairly common general tendencies. First, these data show that public support for the parties, both in historical and cross-institutional perspective, is relatively weak. Attitudes toward the parties and the evaluations of the importance of the party institution show, with few exceptions, a general state of low public regard and legitimation. More importantly, even the areas such as party identification or a preference for keeping party labels on the ballot, relatively strong points of support a decade ago, have shown a significant decline since that time. The decline is greater for some aspects of public evaluations of parties than for others. But this downward trend, especially beginning in the years i960 to 1964, is fairly uniform across the various areas that we have touched upon. There are a few exceptions to these trends - such as one aspect of contributor support, willingness to contribute money. Yet, even at the point of measurement when people are most willing to contribute, those who are positively supportive are far from a majority. Thus, the improvement here does not really offset the many other kinds of losses the party institution has suffered in public regard over the past decade.

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Articles
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British Journal of Political Science , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , April 1975 , pp. 187 - 230
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

1 Hofstadter, Richard, The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780–1840 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1969).Google Scholar Also see Chambers, William Nisbet, Political Parties in a New Nation: The American Experience 1776–1809 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963)Google Scholar; Ranney, Austin and Kendall, Willmoore, Democracy and the American Party System (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1956), pp. 83–115Google Scholar; and Formisano, Ronald P., ‘Deferential-Participant Politics: The Early Republic's Political Culture, 1789–1840’, American Political Science Review, LXVIII (1974), 473–87.Google Scholar

2 Schattschneider, E. E., Party Government (New York: Rinehart, 1942), p. 1.Google Scholar This is quoted in Lowi, Theodore, ‘Toward Functionalism in Political Science: The Case of Innovation in Party Systems’, American Political Science Review, LVIII (1963), 570–83, at pp. 571– 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar It is also quoted in Sorauf, Frank J., ‘Political Parties and Political Analysis’, in Chambers, William Nisbet and Burnham, Walter Dean, eds., The American Party Systems: Stages of Political Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 33–55, at p. 50.Google ScholarSorauf, , in Party Politics in America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972), pp. 54–5, puts the case for parties more elaboratelyGoogle Scholar:At the most fundamental level the American parties, and those of the other democracies, serve democracy by reaffirming and promoting its basic values. The very activities of the two gigantic and diversified American parties promote a commitment to the values of compromise, moderation, and the pursuit of limited goals. They also encourage the political activity and participation that a democracy depends on. And they reinforce the basic democratic rules of the game: the methods and procedures of orderly criticism and opposition, change by the regular electoral processes, and deference to the will of the majority. These reaffirmations of the democratic ethos are achieved by the parties in part by the example of their operations and in part by their clarification and simplification of political choices.In addition, the parties offer an operating mechanism for the processes of democracy. By organizing aggregates of voters, the major American parties express the demands and wishes of countless Americans with meaningful political power. They are mobilizers of both democratic consent and dissent. By channeling choices into a few realistic alternatives, they organize the majorities by which the country is governed. Because of the parties’ simplification of political choices, the average citizen, distracted often by his personal worries and limited in his background, can participate more meaningfully in the affairs of politics. The party is, moreover, the instrument of compromise among competing claims on public policy. Interest groups generally represent a specific, comparatively narrow interest, but the party must bring together a wider range of interests. To put the matter briefly, the political parties have helped fashion a workable system of representation for the mass democracies of the twentieth century.

3 ‘Political Parties and Political Analysis’, in Chambers, and Burnham, , The American Party Systems, p. 50.Google Scholar Also see Lowi, ‘Toward Functionalism in Political Science’, for a useful general discussion of functionalist analyses of parties.

4 See Ostrogorski, M., Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties (New York: Anchor, 1964), Vol. II.Google ScholarLipset, Seymour Martin, in his introduction to this volume (p. lix)Google Scholar, says that, ‘As he [Ostrogorski] noted inmuch detail, party organizations are not democratic reflections of popular will, but powerful instruments for dominating the electorate, for imposing officials, opinions, and policies on the public. As he, and later Michels, noted, party functionaries have interests of their own and use their control of the party apparatus to further them.’

5 See, for example, Broder, David S., The Party's Over: The Failure of Politics in America (New York: Harper, 1971)Google Scholar; and Stewart, John G., One Last Chance: The Democratic Party, 1974–1976 (New York: Praeger, 1974).Google Scholar

6 See Easton, David, A Systems Analysis of Political Life (New York: Wiley, 1965), pp. 273–4.Google Scholar

7 Some contemporary students do not see such drastic consequences should the party institution disappear, however. See, for example, Epstein, Leon D., Political Parties in Western Democracies (New York: Praeger, 1967), pp. 7–8Google Scholar; or King, Anthony, ‘Political Parties in Western Democracies: Some Sceptical Reflections’, Polity, I (1969), 111–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Burnham, Walter Dean, Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics (New York: Norton, 1970), pp. 132–3.Google Scholar

9 Broder, David, The Party's Over, p. xxiii.Google Scholar

10 The report was originally published by Rinehart in 1950 and as a supplement to the September, 1950 issue of the American Political Science Review. For a useful overview of these proposals, see Ranney, Austin, The Doctrine of Responsible Party Government (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962).Google Scholar

11 Broder, , The Party's Over, pp. 245–6.Google Scholar See also Stewart, , One Last Chance, p. 33.Google Scholar

12 The sources for these data are U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the Unite States (Washington, D.C., 1970, 91st edn.), p. 368Google Scholar, and 1973 (94th edn,), p. 379.

13 That these kinds of factors are associated with voting turnout is shown in Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E. and Stokes, Donald E., The American Voter (New York: Wiley, 1960).Google Scholar For discussion of turnout as a measure of support for the institution of elections and of the regime of democracy, see Dennis, Jack, ‘Support for the Institution of Elections by the Mass Public’, American Political Science Review, LXIV (1970), 819–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 The sources used for the Gallup political party identification data are The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1935–1971 (New York: Random House, 1972)Google Scholar; and The Gallup Opinion Index (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965–74).Google Scholar

15 The source for the CPS/SRC data is the Inter-University Consortium for Political Research (ICPR). The 1952–70 data are published in Nimmo, Dan D., Popular Images of Politics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. 1974), p. 122.Google Scholar

16 Gallup Opinion Index, No. 105 (1974), p. 21.

17 Broder, David S. and Johnson, Haynes, ‘Parties Don't Mean Much to Today's Confused Citizen’, Milwaukee Journal, Accent on the News Section, 16 October 1970, pp. 1, 6;Google Scholar and ‘Party Loyalties Disintegrating in a Nation Torn by Change’, Washington Post, 9 October 1970, p. A13. Also see Reston, James, The Party's over for Political Party’, Milwaukee Journal, 10 January 1972, p. 13;Google ScholarHarris, Louis, ‘Party Loyalty Waning’, New York Post, 24 May 1971;Google Scholar and ‘Is the Donkey Dying?’, Milwaukee Journal, 12 March 1972, p. 24.

18 On the other hand, the fact that an increasing proportion of young, college-educated voters are turning away from party identification could have important implications in future years. The proportion of such persons in the voting population has been increasing steadily for some time; and their weight could be thrown increasingly against partisanship. See the evidence presented in The Gallup Opinion Index, No. 55 (1970), p. 11, where we see that 52 percent of surveyed college students considered themselves to be partisan independents! See also The Gallup Opinion Index, No. 57 (1970), p. 3; No. 37 (1968), p. 34; No. 48 (1969), pp. 37,39; No. 36 (1968), pp. 2–5; No. 68 (1971). PP. 34–5.

19 Harris, Louis, The Anguish of Change (New York: Norton, 1973), p. 274.Google Scholar

20 Burnham, Walter Dean, ‘The End of American Party Politics’, Trans-action: Social Science and Modern Society, VII (1967), 12–22, pp. 18–19.Google Scholar For Burnham's data source, see Cummings, Milton, Congressmen and the Electorate (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Fress, 1967), p. 37.Google Scholar

21 These calculations are based on data reported by Campbell, Angus and Miller, Warren E., ‘The Motivational Basis of Straight and Split-Ticket Voting’, American Political Science Review, LI (1957), 293–312, for 1952 and 1956CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on work by Sullivan, William, in ‘Straight and Split-Ticket Voters for the 1968 and 1972 Elections: Some Socio-Political Perspectives’, unpublished paper, Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 05 1974, for 1968 and 1972Google Scholar; and from data prepared by Royce Crocker for 1960 and 1964.

22 The source for the Gallup data is the International Survey Library Association, Roper Public Opinion Research Center (ISLA).

23 The CPS/SRC data are from the codebooks of the election studies furnished by ICPR. The decline shown at the national level is reproduced in Wisconsin from 1972 to 1974. In answer to the question, ‘Since you have been voting, how often have you voted a straight ticket for one party. always, most of the time, some of the time, or hardly ever?’, 13 per cent in Wisconsin in 1972 said ‘always’, whereas 10 per cent chose this option in 1974. For additional evidence on straight or split-ticket voting see De Vries, Walter and Tarrance, V. Lance, The Ticket-Splitter: A New Force in American Politics (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1972)Google Scholar, and Burnham, Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics.

24 Campbell, et al., The American Voter.

25 See, for example, Pomper, Gerald M., ‘ From Confusion to Clarity: Issues and American Voters, 1956–1968’, American Political Science Review, LXVI (1972), 415–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Boyd, Richard W., ‘Popular Control of Public Policy: A Normal Vote Analysis of the 1968 Election’, American Political Science Review, LXVI (1972), 429–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Miller, Arthur, Miller, Warren, Raine, Alden and Brown, Thad, ‘A Majority Party in Disarray: Policy Polarization in the 1972 Election’, paper presented at the 1973 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New Orleans, 09 1973Google Scholar; Repass, David, ‘Issue Salience and Party Choice’, American Political Science Review, LXV (1971), 389–400CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Key, V. O. Jr,, The Responsible Electorate (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Field, J. O. and Anderson, R. E., ‘Ideology in the Public's Conceptualization of the 1964 Election’, Public Opinion Quarterly, XXXIII (1969), 380–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Luttbeg, Norman, ‘The Structure of Beliefs among Leaders and the Public’, Public Opinion Quarterly, XXXII (1968), 398–409CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brown, Steven R., ‘Consistency and the Persistence of Ideology’, Public Opinion Quarterly, XXXIV (1970), 60–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pierce, John G., ‘Party Identification and the Changing Role of Ideology in American Polities’, Midwest Journal of Political Science, XIV (1970), 25–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 One may of course devise more complex analyses of predictors of the vote that do not make much use of party identification directly or are more successful in predicting the vote than by using party identification alone. A recent example is Kelley, Stanley Jr, and Mirer, Thad W., ‘The Simple Act of Voting’, American Political Science Review, LXVIII (1974), 572–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 Dennis, Jack, ‘Support for the Party System by the Mass Public’, American Political Science Review, LX (1966), 600–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 See Miller, et al., ‘A Majority Party in Disarray’.

29 These data are from The Gallup Poll, Vol. II, p. 1450Google Scholar; and The Gallup Opinion Index, No. 40 (1968), p. 26.Google Scholar

30 Other related data show essentially the same result. For example, Gallup asked in 1936 ‘Should all postmasters hereafter be selected by Civil Service examinations?’ Eighty-six per cent said ‘yes’ and 14 per cent said ‘no’. The same percentages occurred for ‘Should the entire Post Office Department, including the Postmaster General, be put under Civil Service?’, also asked in 1936. In 1952 Gallup asked the following: ‘It has been suggested that all United States tax collectors should be selected by civil service examination instead of being appointed by the leaders of the political party in power as at present. Do you favor or oppose this suggestion?’ Eighty-four per cent of those who had heard about corruption (82 per cent of the total) in the U.S. Bureau of Internal Revenue were in favor, whereas 7 per cent said they were opposed to this suggestion. These data are from The Gallup Poll, pp. 14,40 and 1037. Also see The Gallup Poll, pp. 136 and 223, for data which show strong public opposition to government employees making contributions to political campaigns.

31 Butler, David and Stokes, Donald report comparable data for the British public's assessment of the efficacy of political parties in making the government pay attention in Political Change in Britain (New York: St Martin's Press, 1969), pp. 32–7,477,485, and 500.Google Scholar The data collected by Butler and Stokes show an even lower level of support for the parties along this dimension than is true for the comparable data in the US. In Britain, 31 per cent said that parties help ‘a good deal’ in 1963, 28 per cent in 1964, and only 21 per cent in 1966. The comparable US figure for 1964 is over 40 per cent and the 1968 US figure is over 35 per cent. This comparison is with a system in which the parties are purported to be very important in organizing the government. Yet the British figures are clearly lower at every point! This finding for Britain is supported by recent NOP data collected for BBC TV's Panorama program (NOP 8063, September 1974), which showed that 68 per cent of a national sample have little or no confidence in the ability of the present political parties to solve Britain's problems. Only 7 per cent said they were very confident that the present parties could solve Britain's problems (Britain Today, The Social Research Unit, NOP Market Research Ltd., p. 6). Thus, the American party system may not be the only one suffering from institutional decline at the level of public support.

32 The CPS/SRC election studies contain a related, but less pure measure of party membership. They asked, ‘Do you belong to any political club or organization?’ Unfortunately for our purposes, many other kinds of political organizations exist in America besides political parties, ranging from Students for a Democratic Society, through the League of Women Voters or Common Cause, to the John Birch Society. Even with this source of error, we see that the combined political organization membership total is relatively small, and there is no clear upward trend in the figures for the period 1952–72. These data are:

33 I will deal with the question of public support for the system of interest group representation in detail in a forthcoming work.

34 See, for example, Stewart, , One Last Chance, p. 50Google Scholar ff., for a discussion of these reform efforts.

35 See Jackson, Robert J., Rebels and Whips (New York: St Martin's Press, 1968)Google Scholar; Epstein, Leon D., ‘British MPs and Their Local Parties: The Suez Cases’, American Political Science Review, LIV (1960), 374–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ranney, Austin, Pathways to Parliament (London: Macmillan, 1965).Google Scholar

36 ‘Support for the Party System by the Mass Public’, p. 605. Donald Devine provides data that suggest that my figure of 23 per cent saying that members of Congress should follow their party leaders is close to what has obtained in the past. He quotes Gallup data from 1946 that show only 21 per cent in favor of congressmen voting strictly with their party and 25 per cent in a 1958 SRC survey so agreeing. The Political Culture of the United States (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972), p. 175.Google Scholar

37 Devine, , The Political Culture of the United States, p. 174.Google Scholar

38 Gallup Opinion Index, No. 40 (1968), p. 27.Google Scholar

39 Devine, , The Political Culture of the United States, p. 175.Google Scholar

40 These data were obtained from the International Survey Library Association, Roper Public Opinion Research Center, Williamstown, Mass. They are from Minnesota Polls 131 (October 1954), 140 (August 1955), and 177 (December 1958) and AIPO 616 (21 July 1950).

41 These six items are all fairly well related to each other at each available data point. The average value of the twenty-seven inter-item correlations (Pearson r) available in the five surveys is ·38.

42 Zero-order Pearson coefficients for intensity of political party identification versus the three-item party system support scale are:

43 I will deal with these variables in greater detail in a subsequent work with Leonard Berkowitz.

44 For discussion of various measures of general and political alienation, see Finifter, Ada, ed., Alienation and the Social System (New York: Wiley, 1972).Google Scholar The construction of the three measures of general alienation that I used were reported in the original (1974 APSA) version of this paper.

45 The construction of the gratification (deprivation) measures is reported in the original (1974 APSA) version of this paper.

46 Recent Harris data confirm the rise in general alienation among the mass public in the period of Watergate:Question: ‘I want to read you some things some people have told us they have felt from time to time. Do you tend to feel or not feel – (read list)?'Seepage 227 for footnote table.

47 Two Harris surveys illustrate the difference at the two points. A Harris release of 19 October 1972, entitled, ‘Majority Dismiss Watergate and G.O.P. Fund Charges’, showed that, ‘by 50 to 25 per cent, the voters did not feel that White House aides ordered the bugging’. By an even more substantial 66 to 16 per cent, nearly two in every three voters also did not believe that ‘President Nixon was involved or had knowledge of the Watergate affair’. On 30 April 1973, a Harris poll release entitled ‘63 Per Cent Feel White House Has Not Told Truth about Watergate’ provided the following information about the distribution of public sentiment: ‘By a margin of 63 to 9 per cent the American people feel that the “White House has not been frank and honest on the Watergate affair” but “has withheld important information about it”.’

‘The trend on whether the President “personally knew about Watergate” shows a sharp fall-off in the number who express confidence the Chief Executive was not involved: “Do you feel that President Nixon personally knew about the attempt to wiretap Democratic headquarters or not?”’