The Nationalization of American Political Parties, 1880–1896

Investigates the creation of the first truly nationalized party organizations in the United States in the late nineteenth century.

Daniel Klinghard (Author)

9781107617926, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 January 2014

282 pages, 2 b/w illus. 6 tables
23.4 x 15.6 x 1.6 cm, 0.44 kg

“Daniel Klinghard’s book is institutional history and political analysis at its finest. Without a constitutional foundation, political parties in America had to be created and maintained by the wit of some our most astute politicians. Klinghard explains how and why they did so, surveying the whole nineteenth century and concentrating on its last two decades, when a new strategy was required to renew the party organizations. All who are interested in party history and development will want to read this fascinating and important work.”
– James W. Ceaser, University of Virginia

This book investigates the creation of the first truly nationalized party organizations in the United States in the late nineteenth century, an innovation that reversed the parties' traditional privileging of state and local interests in nominating campaigns and the conduct of national campaigns. Between 1880 and 1896, party elites crafted a defense of these national organizations that charted the theoretical parameters of American party development into the twentieth century. With empowered national committees and a new understanding of the parties' role in the political system, national party leaders dominated American politics in new ways, renewed the parties' legitimacy in an increasingly pluralistic and nationalized political environment, and thus maintained their relevance throughout the twentieth century. The new organizations particularly served the interests of presidents and presidential candidates, and the little-studied presidencies of the late nineteenth century demonstrate the first stirrings of modern presidential party leadership.

Introduction
1. Localism and the Jacksonian mode
2. The nineteenth-century associational explosion and the challenge to the Jacksonian mode
3. Organizational transformation and the national parties
4. National campaign clubs and the party-in-the-electorate
5. Grover Cleveland and the emergence of presidential party leadership
6. Party transformation in the Republican Party
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP], History of the Americas [HBJK]