A Revised Theory of American Party Politics (1)

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A Revised Theory of American Party Politics

Author(s): Samuel P. HuntingtonSource: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Sep., 1950), pp. 669-677Published by: American Political Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1950805.

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A REVISED THEORY OF AMERICAN PARTY POLITICSSAMUEL P. HUNTINGTON

Harvard UniversityThe traditional theory of American politics holds that the pervasive charac-

teristic of our major parties is their similarity. Both parties are presumed tosupport similar policies and to make similar appeals to similar groups. In-herent in this theory is the view that the parties are most evenly balancednumerically where they are most alike in programmatic terms. This followsbecause both parties will almost equally represent all groups of the populationand because each party will be directing special appeals to that middle elementwhose support means the difference between victory and defeat. On the otherhand, where one party is definitely dominant, the opposition party in that areawill tend to be isolated and of an extremist nature of one sort or another. Pro-fessor Schattschneider has summed up this theory as follows:

Measured on a scale of radicalism and conservatism from Left to Right, both partiestry more or less successfully to spread over the whole political rainbow from one extremeto the other. Specimens of nearly all shades of opinion are found in both parties; for stra-tegic reasons the parties need to be strong on both wings....

Party politics tends to establish an equilibrium which approaches perfection when theparties are alike, equal, and compete on even terms throughout the country while events,rude disturbances outside the party system, upset the equilibrium.'Thus, if the voting strength of a party is called its quantitative aspect andits degree of liberalism or conservatism its qualitative aspect, the traditionaltheory states that the quantitative and qualitative differences between theparties tend to be directly proportional.It is the purpose of this article to test this theory by making a statisticalanalysis of these quantitative and qualitative differences. The quantitativeindex here used is based upon the vote for congressmen in the 1946 election.The qualitative index is based upon the voting records of the members of theHouse of Representatives in the Seventy-ninth and Eightieth Congresses. Theresults of this analysis suggest that the traditional theory is no longer valid andthat American politics does not tend to produce two equally balanced similarparties. The conclusion is instead reached that, contrary to the traditionalthesis, the quantitative differences between the parties tend to be inverselyproportional to the qualitative differences between the parties.

In making the analysis upon which this conclusion is based the quantitativedifference for each congressional district is defined as the deviation of a party'epercentage of the two party vote in that district from its percentage of the totalnational two party vote for congressmen in the 1946 elections. The use of thisadjusted percentage plurality (APP) is, of course, necessary in order to avoiddistortion caused by the nationwide Republican trend of that year. If a straight

1 E. E. Schattschneider, Party GovernmentNew York, 1942), pp. 88, 96.669


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670 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEWpercentage plurality were used, many districts which are normally Democraticwould be classified as close and many districts which are usually close would beclassified as strongly Republican. The Republican percentage of the total twoparty vote for candidates for Congress throughout the' country in 1946 was54.3%. Consequently the quantitative difference for a district is the Republicancandidate's percentage of the two party vote less 54.3%, if the latter is thesmaller. Or if the former is smaller the quantitative difference is 54.3% less thedistrict percentage.2The method which has been used to' measure the liberalism and conservatismof the parties is to analyze the voting records of the representatives in theSeventy-ninth and Eightieth Congresses as published by the Congress of Indus-trial Organizations and the' New Republic.3 By dividing the total number ofvotes a representative cast on the selected issues into the number of liberalvotes-accepting the CIO-New Republic definition of liberal vote -he caston the same issues, an index of liberalism is arrived at for that representative.By averaging the indices thus obtained from the separate congresses a compos-ite index covering the entire four year period is arrived at for each representa-tive. Since our interest here is in parties and not in personalities, in districtswhere one party has been represented in the two congresses by two differentrepresentatives the indices of those representatives have been combined in thesame manner as if a single representative of that party occupied that seatthroughout the two congresses.The CIO and the New Republic were chosen for this study because it is gen-erally recognized that they represent a point of view usually denoted as liberal'and opposed to the attitude of those who usually classify themselves as con-servative. The CIO is the largest and most powerful organization consistentlysupporting this liberal viewpoint; the New Republic is a leading journalisticexponent of the same locus-of opinion. The selection of issues by these two or-ganizations, moreover, is broad enough to exclude any unrepresentative influ-ences which might result from too narrow a choice. Twenty congressional roll-calls were used from the Seventy-ninth Congress and nineteen from theEightieth. Included among these were votes on labor relations, price control,agriculture, education, public power, civil rights, taxes, social security, mo-nopoly, housing, and foreign affairs. The voting records of two congresses wereused because this insures greater accuracy, affords additional information onthose districts which changed parties in 1946, and avoids possible distortionsif the representatives held different views when their party was in the majorityin Congress and when it was in the minority. A possible complication in the

2 The source for the vote percentages which form the basis for the calculation of theadjusted percentage pluralities is The Gallup Political Almanac for 1948 (Princeton, 1948),passim.

Facts for November, New Republic, Vol. 115, Part 2 (Sept. 23, 1946); Sold Out:The Story of the 80th Congress, ibid., Vol. 119, pp. 11-30 (Sept. 27, 1948); Special Sup-plement, CIO News, Vol. 9 (August 19, 1946); 1948 Voting Record, CIO News, Vol. 11(July 19, 1948).


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672 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEWareas where the Republican party is overwhelmingly strong. The qualitativedifference between the two parties in the marginal congressional districts ismoreover twenty per cent greater than the qualitative difference between thetwo parties nationally.This same inverse relationship is also visible when the congressional dis-tricts are classified according to their degree of ruralism or urbanism.4 Thesefigures are summarized in Table IL' It will be observed that the parties are

TABLE II. QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DIFFERENCES BY RURAL-URBAN GROUPS

Rural-Urban Number of Quantitative QualitativeGroup Congressional Difference DifferenceDistricts

Urban 132 10.6 62.9Suburban 66 12.4 50.8Subrural 116 21.3 44.1Rural 110 31.9 28.8most evenly balanced numerically in the urban congressional districts. Yet itis in these same districts that the parties are furthest apart qualitatively.Similarly, the quantitative differences tend to increase as the districts becomemore rural while the qualitative differences tend to decrease. The qualitativedifference between the parties in the rural districts, which are generally soliddistricts, is only half the qualitative difference between them in the urban areas.This relation not only exists for the country as a whole but also holds truefor much smaller areas. If only congressional districts outside the eleven statesof the South are considered, the same tendency can be observed. In these north-ern districts the parties are most closely balanced in the suburban rather thanin the urban districts. The greatest qualitative differences also occur, however,in the suburban rather than the urban areas. The urban and subrural Northhave about the same quantitative differences and also about the same qualita-tive differences. In the rural North, on the other hand, the quantitative differ-ence between the parties is much greater and the qualitative difference corre-

4 I am indebted to Mr. Ralph Goldman of the University of Chicago for the basic dataon ruralism and urbanism. A ruralism index for each congressional district was computedby Mr. Goldman by counting as rural population units of less than 2,500 people andas urban population units of more than that number, and then calculating the percentageof the total population of the district living in rural units. See Ralph Goldman, SomeDimensions of Rural and Urban Representation in Congress (Unpublished M.A. Thesis,University of Chicago, 1948), pp. 39-43, Appendix II. In this article, urban congres-sional districts are defined as those less than 30% rural, suburban as those 30% to 49.9%rural, subrural as those 50 % to 69.9 % rural, and rural districts as those 70 % or more rural.

It will be noted that the total number of congressional districts is only 424. Through-out this study eleven congressional districts are excluded from all calculations: the 18thNew York district because it was represented in both congresses by Mr. Vito Marcantonioof the American Labor Party and the 1st, 2d, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 15th, 17th, and 19thCalifornia districts because the successful candidates in those districts obtained the nomi-nations of both major parties under California's cross filing law.


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A REVISED THEORY OF AMERICAN PARTY POLITICS 673spondingly less. The same phenomenon is also observable if those congressionaldistricts in the border states-Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri,and Oklahoma-are excluded and calculations are limited to the other northernstates.If the various sections of the country are considered as separate entities thesame inverse relationship again emerges. These data are presented in Table V.6

TA BLE III. QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DIFFERENCES BYRURAL-URBAN GROUPS, NORTHERN DISTRICTS

Rural-Urban Nureof Quantitative QualitativeGroup CnrsoaDiff erence Difference

DistrictsSuburban 55 6.6 71.3Subrural 91 8.1 67.5Urban 124 8.4 66.8Rural 48 12.8 45.5

From these figures it will be seen that the parties are most evenly balancednumerically in the Pacific coast, New England, and Middle Atlantic regions.It is also in these areas, however, that the parties are furthest apart qualita-tively. In the mountain states the quantitative difference is greater and the

TABLE IV. QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DIFFERENCES BY RURAL-URBAN GROUPS,NORTHERN DISTRICTS EXCLUDING BORDER STATES

Rural-Urban Number of Quantitative QualitativeGroup C Diff erence Diff erenceDistrictsSuburban 52 6.7 74.2Subrural 82 8.5 69.9Urban 114 8'.6 70.4Rural 28 12.7

qualitative difference is less. In the border states the quantitative difference isstill larger and the qualitative difference still smaller. Finally in the Souththe qualitative difference is very small-the Republican party in th Atareabeing substantially similar in opinion to the Democratic party-but the quanti-

6 The states are classified into sections as follows: New England Me., N. H., Vt., Mass.'R. I., Conn.; Middle Atlantic N. Y., N. J., Pa., Del.; Border-Md., W. Va., Ky., Mo.'Okla.; South-Va., N. C., S. C., Ga., Fla., Ala., Miss., Tenn., La., Tex., Ark.; Midwest-Ohio, Ind., Ill., Mich., Wis., Minn.; Prairie-N. D., S. D., Ia., Neb., Kan.; Mountain-N. M., Ariz., Utah, Col., Nev., Wyo., Mont., Ida.; Pacific Coast-Calif., Ore., Wash.The quantitative differences are the adjusted percentage pluralities computed from theper cent of the total two party vote for all candidates for Congress in that section receivedby the majority party in the 1946 congressional elections. Vote statistics are from U. S.Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1948, p. 316.


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674 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEWtative difference is very large.7 The only section which does not clearly fit intothis pattern is the Midwest where the qualitative difference between the partiesis abnormally large.No statistical data are available for a qualitative index for the Democraticparty in the prairie states. Applying this'theory in reverse, however, it is pos-sible to conclude that the qualitative difference between the parties in thisregion should be less than it is in the border states and greater than it is in theSouth. Considering the conservatism of the Democratic party in these statesthis seems like a plausible deduction. The Democratic party in Kansas, forinstance, has long been controlled by a conservative faction headed by HarryWoodring. In Nebraska the Mullen-Berry conservative group has generally

TABLE V. QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DIFFERENcES BY SEcTIONSNumber of Quantitative Qualitative

Section Congressionalax 1 * ~Difference Diff erenceDistrictsPacific. Coast 23 .3 74.1New England 28 .9 66.1Middle Atlantic 92 1.4 72.1Mountain 16 2.7 64.4Midwest 96 3.0 79 .9Border 42 4.6 47.4Prairie 22 7.8South 105 35.4 24.0dominated the party despite opposition from Bryan liberals. In Iowa the keyfigure among the Democrats has been Senator Guy Gillette who acquired fame,if not notoriety, in 1938 as a target of President Roosevelt's purge and in 1949as an opponent of Vice-President Barkley's cloture ruling in the civil rightsdebate. In North Dakota the Democratic party has frequently been the vehiclefor conservative elements when they have lost control of the Republican party.Thus, it seems not unreasonable to conclude that the qualitative differencebetween the parties in the prairie states is as relatively small as the quantitativedifference between the parties in that area indicates it ought to be.8This observed tendency in the variation of qualitative and quantitative dif-ferences is also generally characteristic of smaller groupings of congressionaldistricts. In New England, for instance, contrary to the national pattern thequantitative difference between the parties is much greater in the urban areas,where it is 11.3, than in the suburban and subrural areas, where it is 4.4 and6.0 respectively. The qualitative difference between the parties neverthelessvaries accordingly. It is much less in the urban areas, where it is 63.6, than it

7 For a description of the qualitative characteristics of the Republican party in theSouth, see V. 0. Key, Jr., Southern Politics in State and Nation (New York, 1949), Ch. 13,esp. pp. 289-297.

8 For the views of one of these conservative prairie Democrats, see Arthur F. Mullen,Western Democrat (New York, 1940), pp. 343-360.


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A REVISED THEORY OF AMERICAN PARTY POLITICS 675is in the suburban and subrural areas, where it is 75.9 and 76.5 respectively.In the border states a somewhat similar pattern prevails. The parties are mostevenly balanced in the suburban and subrural areas where they are furthestapart qualitatively. They are more unevenly balanced in the urban and ruraldistricts where they are most alike qualitatively. Similarly, for the Pacificcoast the parties are more numerically equal in the suburban areas where thequalitative difference is greatest and are less evenly balanced in the urbanand subrural areas where the qualitative differences are less. Lack of sufficientdata for many areas of the country unfortunately prevents a complete break-down of urban and rural districts section by section. From what information isavailable, however, there appear to be no major exceptions to this generaltendency on the subsectional level.This inverse relationship which has been found to be generally prevailingthroughout the North also exists in the South. Eighteen congressional districtsin the South fall outside the solid Democratic classification. These include threein Tennessee, five in Virginia, nine in North Carolina, and one in Florida. Allexcept four of these districts are located in the Piedmont and Appalachian up-land. If our theory is to hold true, the qualitative difference between the partiesin this area should be greater than it is elsewhere in the South. Since the con-servatism of the Republican party is a fairly constant phenomenon from whichthe two Republican representatives from eastern Tennessee with a liberalismindex of 16.3 show no deviation, this means in effect that the Democratic partymust be more liberal in these upland districts than it is in the other parts ofthe South. This turns out to be exactly the case. The party's index in thesedistricts is 46.2 as contrasted with an index of 39.5 for the rest of the South.This conclusion by way of statistics coincides, moreover, with the empiricalobservations of persons familiar with the region. Professor Nixon, for instance,has pointed out the existence of relatively strong Republican organizations inthis area and has compiled an impressive list of the liberal Democrats whichit has produced.9 This same tendency can also be observed at the state level.The Democratic party in the South is most liberal in Alabama, North Carolina,Tennessee, and Texas. With the exception of Alabama these are also stateswhere the Republican party is relatively stronger than elsewhere in the South.The evidence presented here thus suggests that in some areas there will betwo similar but unequally balanced parties and in others two equally balancedbut dissimilar parties. In terms of an interest group analysis this means of coursethat instead of appealing to all groups the parties will limit their appeal tocertain specific groups. They will attempt to win elections by mobilizing a highdegree of support from a small number of interests rather than by musteringa relatively low degree of support from a large number of interests.It is, furthermore, generally in the rural areas that the qualitative differencesare low and the quantitative differences' high and in the urban and suburban

I Included in this list are Hugo Black, Ellis Arnall, John Sparkman, Helen DouglasMankin, Luther Patrick, Estes Kefauver, Albert Gore. H. C. Nixon, Politics of the Hills,Journal of Politics, Vol. 8, pp. 123-133 (May, 1946).


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676 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEWareas that the qualitative difference. are high and the quantitative differenceslow. This phenomenon suggests certain further conclusions as to the nature ofthe interest group analysis. In any rural area there is usually only one domi-nant economic interest. Whether this be cotton, corn, wheat, or dairy farming,the economic life of the area is dependent upon that one interest. Consequentlyboth parties in that area reflect that interest. Since, therefore, there are noreal differences between the parties the choice of party is determined by non-economic historical and traditional factors. Once this choice has been deter-mined by historical circumstance, there are no conflicts of economic interestto cause it to be altered; the candidates of the same party are continually re-turned to office; and thus there arises a perpetually dominant party. This isgenerally the Republican party in the rural North and the Democratic party inthe rural South. In these areas the second major party loses its most importantcharacteristic, its monopoly of opposition.'l In the first place, there is no basicopposition for it to express, and secondly, those personality differences and dif-ferences on minor issues which do arise can be settled in the major party'sprimaries. It is a well recognized characteristic of rural one-party politics thatit tends to be based largely on personalities and to follow a friends and neigh-bors pattern. The second major party hence ceases in a very real sense to bea major party and declines to the status of a minor party. Socially and economi-cally it is composed of the same elements which make up the dominant party;politically its principal importance is as a dispenser of federal patronage. Thisis true of the Democratic party in northern rural districts and of the Republi-can party in southern rural districts.In urban and suburban districts, a different situation exists. Instead ot onetdominant economic interest there are here two competing economic interests,one composed of middle and upper class, property owning, capitalistic groups,the other composed of lower class, propertyless, laboring elements. The eco-nomic conflict between these groups is direct and sharp. Within the narrowconfines of a single urban area no party could represent them both. Conse-quently one party tends to adjust itself to represent one interest and the otherparty accommodates itself to the other interest; one becomes the party of laborand the lower class and the other the party of business and the upper class.Economic conflict and not tradition determines party loyalties. Since these twoconflicting economic interests are generally fairly evenly matched in most urbanareas, the two parties likewise become evenly balanced. Naturally there areexceptions: in an overwhelmingly slum area the lower class party will dominatewhile in a wealthy suburban residential area the upper class party will prevail.Usually, however, upper and lower classes are found together in a relativelyrestricted area and hence the parties representing them tend towards numericalequality.

10 Schattschneider, op. cit., pp. 80-84.11Albert Blumenthal, Small Town Stuff (Chicago, 1932), pp. 295-306; Granville

Hicks, Small Town (New York, 1946), pp. 183-194; Key, op. cit., pp. 37-41, 87-91,131-135, 223-224, 246-253, 298-311.


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A REVISED THEORY OF AMERICAN PARTY POLITICS 677As the United States continues to become an increasingly urban country itseems likely that this quantitative-qualitative relation which today is charac-

teristic of the urban and suburban areas must eventually become characteristicof the nation as a whole. Each party's appeals will generally be limited to onemajor economic class and the groups usually associated with it. The Demo-cratic party will not seriously attempt to win the banker and businessman voteand the Republican party will make little effort to secure the support of laborunion members and the unemployed. The parties will strive to win not by con-verting their opponents but by effectively mobilizing their own supporters,not by extending their appeal but by intensifying it.A step in this direction was perhaps made in the 1948 election. The Republi-can party in that campaign made an extensive, general appeal to all groups ofthe population. According to traditional theory the Democrats should havemade a similar appeal, and, as a result of their defeat in the elections of 1946,they should have shifted to the right to regain the support of the voters whohad deserted them'for the Republicans. Instead, however, the Democraticparty moved to the left, eschewed generalities, and made direct, simple, inten-sive appeals to those groups which were normally Democratic. By doing so,the Democratic party won the election.12A year later in the New York senatorialcampaign the same trend was evident. Senator Dulles, making a frankly con-servative appeal, warned of the dangers of statism and received surprisinglylarge pluralities in conservative rural districts. Former Governor Lehman,espousing the cause of the welfare state, swept the industrial portions ofNew York by unexpectedly impressive margins.13As long as the law of the in-verse relationship of quantitative and qualitative differences continues to oper-ate in American politics, the politicians of both parties will find it increasinglydesirable to follow similar tactics in the future.

12 See the post-election studies of Elmo Roper, New York Herald-Tribune, June 19,1949, and the Survey Research Center, A Study of the Presidential Vote: November 1948(Ann Arbor, 1949).

13 New York Times, November 10, 1949.

Documents

A Revised Theory of American Party Politics (1)