Abstract
Parties, as we have seen, are organizations playing a major role again today in the election of leaders — presidents, congresspersons, senators, and state and local officials. They are political action structures that mobilize money, support, and votes on behalf of their candidates for public offices. They do this in sharp competition with each other, year in and year out. But if they are to be key actors in the system, they aspire to play a significant role in presidential and legislative performance after the election. They normally seek at least three types of relevance: (1) to represent their followers, who supported them in the campaign; (2) to achieve their policy objectives outlined in the campaign; (3) to enhance their prospects for reelection, to retain power and attempt to increase it. Thus, representation, policy making, and power maximization are three key functions parties seek to achieve in the legislature.
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Notes
Quoted by Senator Fred Harris in “A Nationalized and Individualized Senate,” Extensions (Fall 1997), Carl Albert Research and Studies Center, University of Oklahoma, Norman Oklahoma.
William J. Keefe, Congress and the American People (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1980), 101–5. See also Thomas E. Cronin, The State of the Presidency (Boston: Little, Brown, 1975), 107.
David Truman, The Congressional Party (New York: Wiley, 1959).
David Mayhew, The Electoral Connection (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974) 27.
For a good description of these events, see David Rohde, Parties and Leaders in the Post Reform House (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 17–34.
Barbara Sinclair, “The Congressional Party: Evolving Organizational, Agenda Setting and Policy Roles,” In L. Sandy Maisel, The Parties Respond (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990), 246.
Rohde, Parties and Leaders, 173, for a discussion of this view. See also Leroy Rieselbach Congressional Reform (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1986); and Burton D. Sheppard, Rethinking Congressional Reform (Cambridge: Schenkman, 1985).
David Rohde, “‘The Reports of My Death Are Greatly Exaggerated’: Parties and Party Voting in the House of Representatives,” in Glenn R. Parker, ed., Changing Perspectives on Congress (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990), 32.
Gary Cox and Matthew McCubbins, Legislative Leviathon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 144–57.
Ibid., 154–55.
Edward R. Tufte, Political Control of the Economy (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 71.
Ibid., 101–2.
Douglas Hibbs, “Political Parties and Macroeconomic Policy,” American Political Science Review 71 (1977): 1486.
Benjamin Ginsberg, “Elections and Public Policy,” American Political Science Review 70 (1976): 49.
John Kingdon, Congressmen’s Voting Decisions (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 135.
Barbara Greenberg, “New York Congressmen and the Local Party Organization,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1972.
Bruce Cain, John Ferejohn, and Morris Fiorina, The Personal Vote (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 52–59, 60.
Nelson W Polsby, “Political Change and the Character of the Contemporary Congress,” in Anthony King, ed., The New American Political System (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute).
Warren E. Miller and Donald E. Stokes, “Party Government and the Salency of Congress,” Public Opinion Quarterly 26 (1962): 531–46; “Constituency Influence in Congress,” American Political Science Review 57 (1963): 45–56.
See Philip E. Converse and Roy Pierce, Political Representation in France (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), 674.
Kenneth Janda, “Comparative Political Parties: Research and Theory,” in Ada Finifter, ed., Political Science: The State of the Discipline II (Washington, DC: American Political Science Association, 1993), 173.
Richard Neustadt, Presidential Power (New York: Wiley, 1960), 181.
Ibid., 33.
Paul A Beck, Party Politics in America, (New York: Longman, 1996), 350.
President Kennedy’s speech to the National Press Club, January 14, 1960. Quoted in Robert H. Blank, Political Parties: An Introduction (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1980), 183.
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Eldersveld, S.J., Walton, H. (2000). Parties and Governance: Making Divided Government Work. In: Political Parties in American Society. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-11290-3_15
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