Partisan Realignment Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

A partisan realignment is a shift in the ideological, or partisan, preferences of voters that leads to a transfer of power in government from the majority party to the minority party for a sustained period. These realignments can occur within a single election or take several elections to manifest and often revolve around new issues or political events. The U.S. elections of 1800, 1828, 1860, 1896, and 1932 are often characterized as realigning elections, with recent debates centering on whether the elections of 1964, 1980, and 1994 fit a similar pattern. The 1896 and 1932 realignments in the Northeast were the first to be studied and reported in a seminal article written by political scientist V. O. Key in 1955 in which he identified their characteristics.

A widening of ideological cleavages, which the majority party fails to address while in power, precedes realignment. For example, the rise of the conservative coalition in U.S. politics helped bring the Republican Party into power with Reagan in 1980, and again into the House and Senate in 1994. The same shift in voter preferences wrested power away from the Republicans and placed the New Deal Democrats in the majority at the end of the Great Depression. These transfers of power occur because of building tension in the political system and the inadequacy of the majority party to deliver policies that voters desire.

Following the stock market crash in 1929, the Republicans in Congress and particularly President Herbert Hoover believed that the national economy would soon recover on its own and attributed its demise to the worldwide depression. With no relief by 1932, presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt championed change with his campaign for New Deal policies that would help rescue the public from economic disaster. His policies realigned voters who wanted economic growth and led to a landslide election for Roosevelt and the Democrats in what became known as the Fifth Party or New Deal Party System.

Realignments often have occurred according to a thirty-six-year cycle, leading some to believe that a realignment happened in 1964. Others disagree that such a cycle exists in U.S. electoral politics and contend that the 1964 election shifted party positions only along the issue of race and civil rights and did not lead to a critical realignment. Those who believe that partisan realignments occur in a cyclical pattern argue that there is a weakening of partisan identification before the realigning election. After the realignment, new partisan identifications solidify and are based on new differences on issues. The weakening of partisan identification often is attributed to younger voters who are not as affiliated with the party in power.

Often, before a partisan realignment, a third party emerges that raises concerns about significant issues that the two previous parties did not address. The Populist Party emerged in 1892 to represent the interests of farmers, and in 1924 the Progressive Party introduced issues such as economic progressivism, welfare, and worker’s rights. The dominant parties during both eras subsequently consumed the newly created parties’ positions. Newly emerging parties can often become large enough to constitute major parties while other parties dissolve.

Partisan identification strengthens before partisan realignment. This leads to polarization of the two parties. These realigning elections are often known to have emotional and symbolic overtones that bring a larger than average number of voters to the polls. The increased turnout brings the minority party to power due to its distance from the other party and its position on issues. To stay in power, the new majority must institute policies or reforms that the previous government failed to achieve.

Bibliography:

Burnham,Walter Dean. Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics. New York: Norton, 1970.
Key,Vladimer Orlando. “A Theory of Critical Elections.” The Journal of Politics 17, no. 1 (1955): 3–18.
Mayhew, David R. Electoral Realignments. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002.
Sundquist, James L. Dynamics of the Party System: Alignment and Realignment of Political Parties in the United States. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1973.

This example Partisan Realignment Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.