Groups and Parties in American Political Development

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

In recent years, party scholars have made organized groups and social movements central to the study of political parties in the United States. However, the nature, timing, scope, and impact of group-party ties remains significantly underexplored. This panel assembles five papers that explore the role, mobilization, and meaning of group interests, identities, and incentives for the course of American party development. Ranging from the early nineteenth century to the present, panelists explore the role of religious organizations in the rise and fall of the Second Party System, the relationship between southern slaveholders and party patronage, the role of police coercion in shaping election outcomes, the place of political entrepreneurialism in group identity and interest formation, as well as asymmetrical paths of party development undergirding modern polarization. As a whole, the papers make both theoretical and empirical contributions to understanding the historical evolution of group-party ties in American politics.

Sub Unit

• Division 7: Politics and History

Individual Presentations

• The Moral Axis: Organized Religion and the Second Party System - John W. Compton, Chapman University

• Slavery and the Spoils System in American Political Development - Jeffrey Broxmeyer, University of Toledo

• Stolen Elections: How Police Changed 19th Century Parties - Stephanie Saxton, Johns Hopkins University

• Exploring Group Alliances: The Women's Suffrage Movement and Agrarian Interests - Boris Heersink, Fordham University; Matthew Lacombe, Case Western Reserve University

• Party Building, Alliance Making, and Asymmetric Polarization in the US - Jessica Hejny, APD; Adam Hilton, Mount Holyoke College

Chair

• Shamira M. Gelbman Wabash College

Discussant

• Richard F. Bensel Cornell University