Voters and the Managing of Conflict

Abstract

At the beginning of one of the twentieth century’s most cited books on American politics E.E. Schattschneider explained why politics is “contagious.” He argued that “the outcome of all conflict is determined by the scope of its contagion. The number of people involved in any conflict determines what happens; every change in the number of participants, every increase or decrease in the number of participants affects the result.”¹ If Schattschneider is correct, then it follows that in a society with high levels of conflict, trying to expand or contract the number of participants will be an important aspect of how politics is conducted. It might be expected, therefore, that with conflict being so pervasive in American politics, major struggles as to who can be allowed to vote will be prominent. This is precisely what happens. Compared with other democracies, there are more shifts over long periods in the inclusiveness of elections. Some of these shifts have to do directly with the point that Schattschneider was making about the contagiousness of conflict. Others are related to the nature of both American voters and the country’s peculiar party system, together with the consequent ability of such broad coalitions to attract voters consistently.