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Workshop (Wednesday, August 30) -- Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, room Delaware A:

Chair: John J. Coleman, University of Wisconsin

Papers:
"Presidential Leadership in the Government of Parties: An Unrealized Perspective 50 Years Later" (108k pdf)
   Charles O. Jones, University of Wisconsin

A leading premise of the APSA Committee Report on Political Parties is that responsibility or accountability can and should be realized in a system of separated powers. "The party system that is needed must be democratic, responsible, and effective." (p. 1) Diagnosis is provided as to why this goal has not been achieved and proposals are offered for integrating what is separated so as to realize this goal. Diagnosis on leadership? "Party organization does not vest leadership of the party as a whole in either a single person or a committee." (p. 3) Proposals for vesting leadership? A Party Council (p. 5); "tightening up the congressional party organization" (p. 8); changes in nominations and elections. Oddly little attention is directed to the presidency itself as a source of leadership, other than to point out that the president "can probably be more influential than any other single individual in attaining a better organized majority party." (p. 13) Indeed, the Report warns that failure to act on the Committee's proposals could result in an overextended presidency. "When the president's program actually is the sole program, either his party becomes a flock of sheep or the party falls apart." The Report specifies a need for responsible leadership in a person or committee but fails to clarify how that should happen.

There are many advantages of the separated system. Alas, focused accountability is not one of them. As it happens, and as is illustrated by the Report itself, the separation of institutions is unlikely to produce party government. Rather it fosters a government of parties. Responsibility is not focused, it is diffused, by design. The House of Representatives has two political parties, as does the Senate (with several internal structures). Presidents are elected through a party organization, mostly unrelated to congressional parties. There are national party headquarters. State and local party organizations abound, as electoral and governmental structures. Where then does the presidency fit within this elaborated and highly articulated separated and federalized government of parties? This paper directs attention to presidential leadership in a government of parties. Not only must the president seek to manage within the separated and federalized system, he must, in addition, often cope with split party government. Party leadership and accountability, in the APSA Report preferred manner, are unlikely to occur when there is neither a majority nor an opposition party, as such. Therefore the principal purpose of this paper is to propose what the APSA Report failed to clarify: presidential leadership in a separated system that is unlikely ever to produce party government 

"The Dream Fulfilled? Congressional Parties 50 Years After the APSA Report" (277k pdf)
   Barbara Sinclair, University of California, Los Angeles

In their 1950 APSA Report "Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System," a group of eminent political scientists advocated stronger and more disciplined congressional parties. They argued that a democratic, responsible and effective party system requires such congressional parties and that such congressional parties would go a long way toward making our party system more democratic, responsible and effective. In this essay, I trace and attempt to explain the changes in the congressional parties since 1950; I show that since the mid?1980s, they have, in fact, become stronger and more disciplined. I then assess whether these changes have contributed to a more democratic, responsible and effective party system.

Discussants: 
John K. White, Catholic University
E. J. Dionne, Washington Post
Gerald Pomper, Rutgers University

Conference Panels and Roundtables (Saturday, September 2):

Chair: Paul S. Herrnson, University of Maryland, College Park

Papers:
"Party Development in the Twentieth Century: Laying the Foundations for Responsible Party Government?" (227k pdf)
   John C. Green, University of Akron
   Paul S. Herrnson, University of Maryland, College Park

This paper explores the development of major party organizations between 1900 and 2000 from the perspective of the responsible party model. First, we abstract a set of criteria from the APSA Report's recommendations and then apply them to party organizations in the early, middle, and late Twentieth Century--periods that roughly coincide with the implementation of Progressive reforms, the rise of candidate-centered politics, and the strengthening of national parties. By the end of the Twentieth Century, the major party organizations have met many but not all of the recommendations of the APSA Report, contributing to party responsibility. This process was slow, incremental, and more incidental than planned. We conclude that developments in party organizations alone are not sufficient to sustain responsible party government on a permanent basis. A century of party developments may have laid the foundations for responsible party government, but much remains to be done if this ideal is to become a reality.

"Campaign Consultants and Responsible Party Government" (143k pdf)
   David B. Magleby, Brigham Young University
   Kelly D. Patterson, Brigham Young University
   James A. Thurber, American University

Until relatively late in the 20th century, political parties controlled many of the resources and expertise candidates needed to operate their campaigns. However, political consultants have recently assumed control over many of the activities traditionally performed by political parties. This paper examines the increasingly important role that political consultants play in the conduct of campaigns and elections. It looks at the attitudes held by political consultants, how they interact with the political parties, and the tasks they perform in campaigns. Traditional democratic theory relies on political parties to organize choices for the electorate and to link citizens to the campaigns. However, we argue that the rise of consultants will undermine these functions. Indeed, the industry of political consulting will only accelerate the current trend toward parties as service organizations. Political consultants, because of their professional norms and competitive industry, will continue to compete with parties as the main actors to provide those services that candidates need most. The 21st century will dawn with a more competitive and professional political system, one where parties broker decisions increasingly outside of their traditional areas of expertise. 

"Election Laws and Party Rules: Contributions to a Stronger Party Role?" (300k pdf)
   L. Sandy Maisel, Colby College
   John F. Bibby, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

The authors of the 1950 Report would be surprised by the fact that movement toward strengthening of the party system in recent years have been the result of changes in electoral processes and party rules that have little to do with their recommendations. On balance, election law changes in the past 50 years have been more conducive to candidate-centered campaigns than they have been to party-centered campaigns, though these changes are not all of one type. They have been countered by other alternations in electoral procedures, by FEC and judicial rulings, and by changes in party rules and practices that allow for a stronger role of party, a role more conducive to the responsible party model. This chapter examines trends in both directions and suggests future directions.

"Toward a More Responsible Two-Party Voter: The Evolving Bases of Partisanship" (212k pdf)
   Gerald M. Pomper, Rutgers University, New Brunswick
   Marc D. Weiner, Rutgers University, New Brunswick

The 1950 APSA Report hoped that its proposed reforms "would prompt those who identify themselves as Republicans or Democrats" to base their support on "a national program." To assess the realization of that hope, we examine changes in the foundations of partisanship over the past five decades, using two connected research designs. First, we employ a logistic regression model on individual level data to predict first the presence, and then the direction of partisanship. We assess the relative importance of traditional party loyalty inherited from parents (affective partisanship) as compared to gross perceptions of differences in party issue positions (cognitive partisanship). Perception of party differences has increased substantially and persistently. These perceptions are now a better predictor of party loyalty than parental loyalty. The second approach employs a time-series cross-section model with a binary dependent variable to assess the relative impact of political and non-political explanations on the aggregate level of these changed perceptions of party differences. We assess the relative importance of education, as a proxy for non-political factors, and the level of party unity in Congress, as a proxy for political factors. We provide evidence that, although non-political factors are significant, political factors are more important and are essential in constructing an appropriate model of the aggregate change in the perception of party differences. Party combat has provided a learning experience for voters, making them more aware of political realities. By connecting party programs to electoral behavior, these changed perceptions move American politics closer to the goals of the APSA Report.

"Strength Through Financial Wizardry: Problems and Dilemmas for the Major American Parties" (79k pdf)
   Frank J. Sorauf, University of Minnesota

By 2000 the American parties have regained much of the role in funding campaigns that they were beginning to lose at the very time the authors of "Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System" were preparing their report. By the end of the century they are the ideal political organizations to exploit all of the new opportunities of the end-of-century system of funding campaigns. One need only mention their ability to move funds within the federal system, their skill in raising soft money, their ability to fund both issue ads and independent expenditures. But their enhanced role in campaigns has fostered and accompanied fundamental changes in the parties--their nationalization and rise of legislative parties as funders, for example. And so the question: what price for and what consequences from the new financial success? Has new strength brought the "responsibility" the reformers in 1950 sought? Or is that the wrong question for the new millennium? 

"The Party in the Electorate as a Basis for More Responsible Parties" (361k pdf)
   Herbert F. Weisberg, Ohio State University

The importance of "the party in the electorate" was recognized by the time of the 1950 APSA Report "Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System." Yet the authors of the Report did not recognize the tension between ideological parties and party divergence that Downs pointed out a few years later. This paper will discuss this tension, while tracing changes in partisanship trends and ideological polarization of parties at the mass level. The decades since the APSA Report was written have seen dealignment, some realignment, and a few important independent candidacies for the presidency, but the party in the electorate has provided a stable base for our party system. Yet the movement to more ideological consistency within our parties at the level of the mass public may provide a foundation for more programmatic parties. 

Discussant: John C. Green, University of Akron

  

Chair: Susan E. Scarrow, University of Houston

Papers:
  "Party Cohesion, Democratic Accountability, and Responsiveness: Democratic Institutions and Political-Economic Change" (212k pdf)
   Herbert Kitschelt, Duke University

The dominant general theoretical models of party competition in electoral democracies assume that parties announce programmatic platforms. These, in turn, allow voters to  assess the extent to which their own ideal policy preferences agree with those of the competing parties. The analytical literature realizes that the value of a party's platform is a function of how credibly the party can make its claims that it will actually pursue the advertised programs. This credibility, in turn, is a function of the party's programmatic cohesiveness and legislative discipline, two rather different concepts whose values vary considerably across polities and individual parties. Drawing on the experience of not just well-entrenched democracies in advanced post-industrial countries, but also the new postcommunist, Latin American, and Southeastasian democracies emerging since the 1980s, the paper will assess what we have learned about the conditions (institutional, economic, etc.) that allow parties to advance credible programmatic platforms. Moreover, the paper explores the conditions under which parties pursue other mechanisms of linkage to vote constituencies than programmatic appeals. Those alternatives, such as clientelist inducements, also establish circuits of democratic accountability and responsiveness that, under specific circumstances, may yield rather robust, durable democracies. 

"Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System: The British Party System Reconsidered" (361k pdf)
   Patrick Seyd, University of Sheffield
   Paul F. Whiteley, University of Sheffield

Fifty years ago a distinguished group of American political scientists suggested that their government would be improved if US parties adopted the responsible party model. They used Britain as a model for this, characterising the British system as having national party programs, regular policy-making conventions, strong and active local branches, permanent professional staff and program-conscious party members. The aim of this paper is to examine the extent to which the contemporary British party system fits this model in relation to the role of party members. It examines the importance of party programs in recruiting and sustaining party members in the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties. It looks at the extent to which there are underlying values and beliefs in the attitudes of party members, and explores their own conception of their role in developing policies and programmes. The paper concludes by examining some of the dilemmas for party management created by these attitudes among grassroots party members.

"Responsible Parties in Comparative Perspective"
   Matthew Shugart, University of California, San Diego

The notion of "responsible parties" implies disciplined and programmatically coherent parties that gain control of the entire policy-making apparatus, and thus can be held accountable at the next election for their performance. This concept has long appealed to critics of the slow-moving American policy process and its relatively uncohesive parties and its tendency to promote divided government or "gridlock." Promoters of responsible parties for the US have sought to emulated the British model; however, comparative consideration of institutional and other factors suggests that the model may not be feasible for the US. Moreover, the experience of other presidential systems with parties that are highly disciplined has generally not been favorable.

"Strong Institutions, Weak Parties: The Paradox of Canadian Political Parties" (417k pdf)
   Eric M. Uslaner, University of Maryland, College Park

Discussant: Susan E. Scarrow, University of Houston

Chair: David R. Mayhew, Yale University

Participants:
David S. Broder, The Washington Post
James MacGregor Burns, Williams College
Ralph M. Goldman (63k pdf), Center for Party Development
Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Georgetown University
Nelson W. Polsby, University of California, Berkeley
John K. White, Catholic University