Political parties and interest groups

1. Political Parties and Interest
Groups

2. POLITICAL PARTIES

3. • political party – a group of office holders,
candidates, activists, and voters who
identify with a group label and seek to
elect to public office individuals who run
under that label.
• interest group – an organized group that
tries to influence public policy

4. The Birth of American Political Parties
• George Washington was unifying, no
parties
• Adams (Federalist) versus Jefferson
(Anti-Federalists)
• Federalists versus “Democratic-
Republicans”

5. The Early Parties Fade (1824)
• Democratic-Republicans become
Democrats (Jackson)
• Whigs (Henry Clay) become
Republicans (Lincoln)

6. Democrats and Republicans:
The Golden Age (1874-1912)
• Two parties stable and dominant
• political machine – a party organization
that recruits voter loyalty with tangible
incentives and is characterized by a high
degree of control over member activity
• Parties provided social services and
entertainment to immigrants in urban
areas, generating intense loyalty

7. The Modern Era
• Government has assumed party functions of
printing ballots, conducting elections and
providing social welfare services
• direct primary – the selection of party
candidates through the ballots of qualified
voters rather than at party nominating
conventions
• civil service laws – these acts removed the
staffing of the bureaucracy from political
parties and created a professional bureaucracy
filled through competition

8. The Modern Era
• issue-oriented politics – politics that focus on
specific issues rather than on party, candidate,
or other loyalties
• ticket-split – to vote for candidates of different
parties for various offices in the same election
• candidate-centered politics – politics that
focus directly on the candidates, their particular
issues, and character, rather than on party
affiliation.

9. Realignment
• party realignment – a shifting of party
coalition groupings in the electorate that
remains in place for several elections
• critical election – an election that
signals a party realignment through
voter polarization around new issues

10. Three significant critical elections in
U.S. history
• Jefferson, Democratic-Republican, 1800,
reaction against Federalists
• Lincoln, Republican, 1860, slavery
• Franklin D. Roosevelt, Democrat, 1932,
depression

11. Secular Realignment
• secular realignment – the gradual
rearrangement of party coalitions, based
more on demographic shifts than on
shocks to the political system.
• dealignment – a general decline in
party identification and loyalty in the
electorate
– Fewer voters willing to profess party choice
– Parties provide way to address
irreconcilable differences

15. What Do Parties Do?
• Mobilizing Support and Gathering Power
– Leaders can mobilize support for policies
– http://www.democrats.org/
– http://www.gop.com/
• A Force for Stability and Moderation
– Can bring together opposing groups
• New Deal (African Americans & southern whites)
• Unity, Linkage and Accountability
– Individual liberty versus timely action

16. What Do Parties Do?
• The Electioneering Function
– Provide candidates
– Balanced competition
– Fundraising for campaigns
– Media divisions, volunteers

17. What Do Parties Do?
• Party as a Voting and Issue Cue
– Benefits least informed and least interested
voters
• Policy Formulation and Promotion
– national party platform – a statement of the
general and specific philosophy and policy
goals of a political party, usually promulgated
at the national convention

18. What Do Parties Do?
• Legislative Organization
– Parties organize and operate Congress
– Parties today are more unified in Congress

19. Crashing the Party: Minor Parties in
the American Two-Party System
• Tend to organize around neglected issues
• Usually absorbed into one or the other
major party

20. The Party Organization
• National Committees
– RNC and DNC (presidential campaigns)
– Congressional campaign committees
• Leadership
– Chairman serves as spokesperson for party

21. The Party Organization
• National Conventions
– national convention – a party meeting held
in the presidential election year for the
purposes of nominating a presidential and
vice presidential ticket and adopting a
platform.
• States and Localities
– Most party structure is based in states and
localities

22. Sources of Party Identification
• party identification – a citizen’s personal
affinity for a political party, usually
expressed by a tendency to vote for the
candidates of that party

23. Party Identification
• Group Affiliations
– Gender, race and ethnicity, age, occupation,
religion
• Women, African-Americans, Hispanics more
Democratic
• Old/young favor Democrats, middle Republicans
• Executives, professionals, white-collar Republican;
trial lawyers, educators, blue-collar Democrat
• Democratic support drops with rise in income
• White protestants Republican; Catholics/Jews
Democrat

24. INTEREST GROUP
STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS

25. Interest Group Formation
• social capital – the myriad relationships
that individuals enjoy that facilitate the
resolution of community problems through
collective action.

26. What Do Interest Groups Do?
• What Do Interest Groups Do?
– Lobbying
• lobbying – the activities of a group or organization
that seeks to influence legislation and persuade
political leaders to support the group’s position
• lobbyist – interest group representative who
seeks to influence legislation that will benefit his or
her organization or client through political
persuasion

27. What Do Interest Groups Do?
• Lobbying Congress
– congressional testimony, letters, contributions, payments
• Lobbying the Executive Branch
– information, public opinion
• Lobbying the Courts
– sponsorship, amicus curiae briefs
• Grassroots Lobbying
– mobilize individuals to contact their representatives
• Protests and Radical Activism
– visible events, media attention

28. What Do Interest Groups Do?
Election Activities
• Candidate Recruitment and Endorsements
– recruit, endorse and support candidates
• Getting Out the Vote
– get voters to the polls, education, registration
• Rating the Candidates or Office Holders
– candidate report cards
• Political Action Committees
– political action committee (PAC) – Federally
mandated, officially registered fund-raising committee
that represents interest groups in the political process.