ABSTRACT
Believing that American political parties, always weaker than their European counterparts, had become so ineffectual as to render them all but meaning less, a group of political scientists penned a document entitled “Toward a More Responsible Two Party System” in 1950. They argued that steps needed to be taken to strengthen American parties, so they could do what parties do well, namely, play a meaningful role in structuring political conflict in gov ernment and, in turn, provide ordinary Americans with meaningful choices. American parties only grew weaker in the succeeding decades. In fact, news paper columnist David Broder even suggested in the early 1970s that Ameri can parties had died.1 Compare that situation with today. According to data collected by Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal every Democrat in the U.S. House of Represent atives is more liberal than every Republican, a stark departure from the past when liberal northeastern Republicans and conservative southern Democrats roamed the political world. And, those divisions in Washington are starting to spill over more into the electorate with voters supporting their party elites much more loyally than in the past. Sometimes the partisan heat seems to be boiling over. In the 2010 midterm election campaign, for example, fisticuffs broke out twice, once in the state of Washington and once in Kentucky, between Republican and Democratic candidate supporters. So much for the idea that ordinary Americans do not care much about party politics. More and more of them care and care a lot. With concerns about weak parties replaced by concerns of hyper partisan ship, worries that parties are too weak seem almost quaint. Indeed, political scientists might be careful what they wish for. Political commentators now fret about the pernicious effects of party polarization. Increased party strength is evident at all levels of American politics. The national party organizations are in better financial shape than ever. The parties in Congress pursue ideologically distinct policies, making it easier for the electorate to distinguish between them. And, as a consequence of this resurgence of parties among political elites, ordinary Americans now identify more closely with parties than they have for decades. In fact, in the 2004 and
2008 presidential elections, partisans were more faithful to their party’s can didates than any election in the history of polling. In this chapter, I make sense of these profound changes in the American political universe, with a focus on the role that parties play for ordinary people. I start by explaining what scholars mean by party identification. In providing this conceptual sketch, I trace the development of the concept as well as detail the arguments that critics have leveled against its central impor tance. I then turn to an explanation of why partisanship is so important to understand. Finally, I trace the historical arc that has led us from party decline to party polarization, with a particular emphasis on the contemporary schol arly debate on party polarization.
