Angels in the machinery: gender in American party politics from the Civil War to the Progressive Era

1998 ◽  
Vol 35 (08) ◽  
pp. 35-4688-35-4688
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Progressive Era ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
American Party

The First Phase of the Empire State’s “Triple Transition”: Banks’ Influence on the Market, Democracy, and Federalism in New York, 1776–1838

1997 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 521-558
Author(s):  
Robert E. Wright
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Market Forces ◽  
Bank Account ◽  
Access To Credit ◽  
Market Democracy

The story usually goes something like this: Colonial Americans lived in a world very different from that of the generation that fought the Civil War. Locals wielded the tools of government most of the time; rarely did distant officials attempt control, and when they did they were usually roundly rebuffed. Politicians “stood” for positions of honor rather than “running” for lucrative posts. A man’s surname was a crucial determinant of his socioeconomic well-being. Artisans and yeomen deferred to gentlemen. Barter predominated as little “cash” circulated. Custom and family, not market forces, dictated the allocation of credit. Change of all types occurred slowly. By Martin Van Buren’s presidency some threescore years later, America was a very different place. Though still evolving, the United States exuded modernity, at least in its general outlines. Politicians and bureaucrats in state capitals, and even Washington, increasingly affected Americans’ everyday lives. Party politics and patronage took on increased importance as plutocrats plied for patronage posts. A man’s bank account meant more than his lineage. Gentlemen feared the artisans and yeomen they once easily ruled. Cash was abundant, and the market determined most access to credit. Societal conditions changed apace. Generally speaking, over these decades America is described as becoming less “aristocratic” and “mercantile,” or even “feudal,” and more “democratic” and “capitalist.”

Patronage Regimes and American Party Development from ‘The Age of Jackson’ to the Progressive Era

2005 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
SCOTT C. JAMES
Keyword(s):  
Progressive Era ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Presidential Appointments ◽  
Empirical Inquiry ◽  
Political Incentives ◽  
Party Development ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
Strategic Allocation ◽  
American Party

This article introduces the concept of patronage regimes and, through it, extends the research on American party development. No systematic empirical inquiry into the operation of American patronage practices has yet been undertaken. Its analysis investigates the strategic allocation of public jobs by party elites to enhance cadre performance in presidential elections. Utilizing a dataset of 49,000 Senate-confirmed, presidential appointments, presidential patronage removals between the years 1829 and 1917 are analysed. Two distinctive patronage regimes are identified: an antebellum regime structured by pure-and-simple spoils politics and a postbellum regime conforming to principles of machine rationality. Factors central to the process of regime transformation are pinpointed. The presence of two successive patronage regimes highlights the importance of endogenous political incentives and elite strategic choice to the emergent character of party organization, shedding new light on the historical development of these pre-eminent nineteenth-century American political institutions.

The End of Party Politics? Activist-Officeseeker Relationships in the Colorado Democratic Party

1979 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Ware
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Organizational Politics ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
State Organizations ◽  
Governmental Politics ◽  
American Party

This Note is concerned with a neglected aspect of American party politics in the last decade: the sources of development or decay in local and state organizations. In the wake of much research into the transformation of the American electorate during this period, it might seem surprising that changes in organizational politics should have attracted such scant attention. Nevertheless, this is easily explained once it is recalled how virtually all American politics textbooks analyse parties. In the first place, they compartmentalize problems about parties into ones affecting either ‘the party-in-the-electorate’ or ‘the party organization’ or ‘the partyin-government’. One consequence of conceiving parties in this way has been to obscure an obvious fact: party organizations both affect and reflect electoral decomposition, and they partly define the potential for cohesion between a party's public office-holders. When the concept of party is taken to be a ‘confederate’ trinity of concepts, it is only to be expected that rigid boundaries will be established separating what are seen as being the major problem areas of electoral politics from those of organizational and governmental politics. Secondly, party organizations in America are usually dismissed as ‘disorganizations’. They are bodies that perform the minimum necessary electoral functions, but are incapable of becoming anything more and could scarcely be anything less without ceasing to exist. From this perspective both the alleged decline of party machines and the rise of amateur politics are merely interesting phenomena, ones that are unconnected in any important ways with the party-in-the-electorate or the party-in-government.

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