ABSTRACT
Incumbents were becoming insulated from public pressures. The improving fortunes of incumbents were central to the thesis that American political parties were in decline. The fortunes of incumbents matter because they are intertwined with interpreting political change in American politics since the 1950s. Attention was directed away from other political changes and narratives about American politics. If the changing policy goals and constituencies of each party and the subsequent secular realignment had been given more attention, a very different narrative and set of research questions might have emerged. Paradigms can be valuable to provide common questions for scholars to focus upon, which in turn directs the kinds of data collected. Paradigms are intertwined with narratives of what is shaping political outcomes. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
