The Democratic Party Heads North, 1877–1962

This book examines how the Democratic party tried to construct a winning electoral coalition between 1877 and 1962.

Alan Ware (Author)

9780521858274, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 February 2006

300 pages, 47 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.61 kg

"'I belong to no organized political party,' Will Rogers is supposed to have said. 'I am a Democrat.' In this work of impressive historical sweep and penetrating analytical clarity, Alan Ware reveals the fundamental truth behind Rogers's famous quip. He chronicles the Democratic Party's remarkable and immensely consequential transformation from a party of the South to a party of the North. This development, he shows, owed less to the shifting allegiances of voters than to choices made by party leaders attempting to construct and maintain national majorities out of inherently unstable and fractious ingredients. In doing so, Ware offers a fresh perspective not only on theories of political change but also on the historical roots of our own contentious era." Robert C. Lieberman, Columbia University

This book examines the dynamics of the American party system and explores how contemporary American politics was formed. Specifically, it asks how the Democrats could become sufficiently competitive in the American North as to be able to construct a national political majority. It rejects the conventional account, based on 'realignment theory', that between the end of Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Revolution, the base level of support for the Democratic party varied greatly from one era to another. Instead, by distinguishing between the 'building blocks' available to the Democrats in coalition formation and the aggregation of those 'blocks' into an actual coalition, the author shows that there was much less variation over time in the available 'blocks' than is usually argued. Neither the economic depression of 1893 nor the New Deal had the impact on the party system that most political scientists claim.

1. The south and the democratic convention
2. The dynamics of party coalition building
3. The unstable party equilibrium, 1877–96
4. The re-assembling of the democratic coalition, 1896–1912
5. Woodrow Wilson and the failure to re-shape the democratic coalition, 1912–20
6. How could a winning democratic coalition be constructed, 1920–32?
7. Democratic party dominance or restored party equilibrium, 1938–52?
8. The two parties' coalitions come under threat, 1952–62
9. Conclusions.

Subject Areas: Political parties [JPL], Politics & government [JP], History of the Americas [HBJK], Regional studies [GTB]