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Third Parties in American Politics

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Abstract

Third parties have been, and continue to be, part of our political culture. To understand the two-party system, we need to know the roles which these third parties play They are important because they have become fairly frequent phenomena, because they reveal the vulnerabilities of the two major parties, and because they can influence the results of elections and the direction of public policy Rather than criticize them, we should understand their contribution to the dynamism of our politics. And finally, studying them can help us understand how and why the two party system has survived as long as it has.

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Notes

  1. Noble Cunningham, Jr., “Who Were the Quids,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 2 (September 1963): 252–63.

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  2. See the excellent review of those parties in Steven J. Rosenstone, Roy L. Behr, and Edward H. Lazarus, Third Parties in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984 or 1996).

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  3. Ibid.

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  4. Ibid., 231–73, for a thorough review of Perot’s 1992 campaign.

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  5. Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, America at the Polls 1996 (Storrs, CT: Roper Center, 1997), 80–83.

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  6. Fred Haynes, Third Party Movements Since the Civil War (Iowa City: State Historical Society of Iowa, 1916); Paul H. Douglas, The Coming of a New Party (New York: McGraw Hill, 1932); William B. Hesseltine, The Rise and Fall of Third Parties (Princeton, NJ: VanNostrand, 1962); David A. Mazmanian, Third Parties in Presidential Elections (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1974); J. David Gillespie, Politics at the Periphery (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993); Rosenstone, Behr, and Lazarus, Third Parties in America, 1984, 1996.

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  7. V. O. Key, Jr., Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups (New York: Crowell, 1964), 61–62.

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  8. Hanes Walton, Jr., “Black Female Presidential Candidates,” in “Black Politics and Black Political Behavior (Connecticut: Praeger, 1994), 251–74.

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  9. Rodney Hero, Latinos and U.S. Political System (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992), 37–38.

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  10. Edward G. Carmines and James A. Stinson, Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 37–58

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© 2000 Bedford/St. Martin’s

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Eldersveld, S.J., Walton, H. (2000). Third Parties in American Politics. In: Political Parties in American Society. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-11290-3_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-11290-3_4

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-62492-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-11290-3

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

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