Realigning election

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Realigning election or critical election or realignment are terms from political history and political science. They describe a dramatic change in politics. More specifically, they refer to any one of several U.S. presidential elections in which there are sharp changes in the rules of the game (such as campaign finance laws or voter eligibility), new issues, new leaders and new bases of power for each of the two political parties, resulting in a new political power structure and a new status quo that will last for decades. The usual focus is on the transition between party systems, as between the First Party System and the Second Party System, and then to the Third Party System and so on.

The central holding of realignment theory is that American elections, parties, and policymaking routinely shift in swift, dramatic sweeps.

V.O. Key Jr., E.E. Schattschneider, James L. Sundquist, and Walter Dean Burnham, some of the most distinguished election scholars of the past two generations, studied the election returns going back 150 years, and found patterns so similar and so peculiar that at first they seemed difficult to believe. Though they differed on some of the details, it was concluded that not only do realigning elections occur, but that they occur on a regular schedule: once every 36-years or so.

The alignment of 1860, with Republicans winning a series of close presidential elections, yielded abruptly in 1896 to an era of more decisive GOP control, in which most presidential elections were blowouts, and Democratic Congresses were infrequent and brief. Thirty-six years later, that system was displaced by a cycle of Democratic dominance, lasting throughout the Great Depression and beyond.

The terms themselves are somewhat arbitrary, however, and usage among political scientists and historians does vary. Many of the elections often included in the traditional 36-year cycle are considered "realigning" for different reasons.

Some political scientists, such as David Mayhew, are critical of the realignment theory altogether. "Electoral politics," he writes, "is to an important degree just one thing after another ... Elections and their underlying causes are not usefully sortable into generation-long spans ... It is a Rip Van Winkle view of democracy that voters come awake only once in a generation ... It is too slippery, too binary, too apocalyptic, and it has come to be too much of a dead end."

Here is presented a list of elections most often cited as "realigning," with disagreements noted:

Contents

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Realigning elections in United States history

  • U.S. presidential election, 1828 -- Andrew Jackson
    • The reason this is often listed is that it redefined the party system in the United States. Democratic-Republicans split into two parties, later renamed as the Democratic Party and the Whig Party. The Democrats were led by Andrew Jackson of Tennessee and Martin Van Buren of New York while the Whigs emerged as the opposition to Andrew Jackson. They were led by Henry Clay of Kentucky.
    • The election of 1828 was not fought over great issues (on issues of national importance, there were no clear cut party stances), and in statistical terms, using states as units, there is virtually no relation between 1836, when Martin Van Buren ran, and the three prior elections in which Andrew Jackson ran.
  • U.S. presidential election, 1860 -- Abraham Lincoln
    • This election marked the final downfall of the Whigs (who had sputtered throughout the 1850s) and the ascendence of the United States Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln beat out three other contenders as the South split its electoral votes away from other Democratic contenders, allowing Lincoln, who carried every Northern state, to triumph. Lincoln's election was the proximate cause of secession and his efforts to keep the nation united led to the American Civil War. This represented the reverse of 1800, as electoral power flowed to the growing and industrializing North.
    • Statistically, the election of 1860 does not seem terribly eventful. This may be explained away fairly easily, however, since no comparative statistical analysis could easily accommodate the Democratic Party's breakup into four factions that year.
  • U.S. presidential election, 1896 -- William McKinley
    • The status of this election is hotly disputed; some political scientists do not consider it a realigning election saying the Republicans remained in control--although in fact the President in 1896 was a Democrat. Other historians emphasize that the rules of the game had changed, the leaders were new, voting alignments had changed, and a whole new set of issues came to dominance as the old Civil-War-Era issues faded away. Funding from office holders weas replaced by outside fund raising from business in 1896--a major event in political history. Furthermore McKinley's tactics in beating William Jennings Bryan (as developed by Mark Hanna) marked a sea change in the evolution of the modern campaigning. McKinley raised a huge amount of money from business interests, outspending Bryan by 10 to 1. Bryan meanwhile invented the modern technique of campaigning heavily in closely contested states, the first candidate to do so. Bryan's message of populism and class conflict marked a new direction for the Democrats. McKinley's victory in 1896 and repeat in 1900 was a triumph for pluralism, as all sectors and groups shared in the new prosperity brought about by his policy of rapid industrial growth.
    • In statistical terms, the election of 1896 is a realignment flop. The election of 1876 passes the numbers test much better, and resulted in far more drastic changes in United States politics: Reconstruction came to a sudden halt, African Americans in the South would soon be completely disenfranchised, and politicians began to focus on new issues (such as tariffs and civil service reform).
  • U.S. presidential election, 1932 -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
    • Of all the realigning elections, this one musters the most agreement from political scientists and historians; it is the archetypal realigning election. FDR's admirers have argued that New Deal policies, developed in response to the crash of 1929 and the miseries of the Great Depression under Herbert Hoover, represented an entirely new phenomenon in American politics. More critical historians see a great deal of continuity with Hoover's energetic but unsuccessful economic policies. There is no doubt Democrats vehemently attacked Hoover for 50 years. In many ways, Roosevelt's legacy still defines the Democratic Party; he forged an enduring coalition of big city machines, labor unions, Catholics, Jews, racial minorities, Westerners and Southerners.
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Possible modern realigning elections in the United States

Some doubt exists today as to what elections (if any) could be considered realigning elections after 1932. Although several candidates have been proposed, there is no widespread agreement:

  • U.S. presidential election, 1968 -- Richard Nixon
    • This election is often cited due to the innovative campaign strategy of Nixon. In running against Hubert Humphrey, he used what became known as the Southern strategy. He appealed to white voters in the South with a call for "states' rights", which they interpreted as meaning that the federal government would no longer demand the forced busing of school children on behalf of African Americans' civil rights as it had under Democratic president Lyndon Johnson (who had signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964). Democrats protested that Nixon exploited racial fears in winning the support of white southerners and northern white ethnics. Republicans responded that in a democracy every vote counts equally and it is unamerican to delegitimize anyone's vote. Since realigning elections previously had tended to occur at 36-year intervals, the new realignment came on schedule. Roosevelt's New Deal coalition had lasted over 30 years but after the urban riots and Vietnam crisis of the mid 1960s one by one the coalition partners peeled away until only a hollow core remained, setting the stage for a GOP revival. Nixon's downfall postponed the realignment which came about under Reagan, as even the term "liberalism" fell into disrepute.
    • Many people do not consider 1968 a realigning election because control of Congress did not change; the Democrats would control the Senate until 1980 (and again from 1986 to 1994) and the House until 1994. Also missing was a marked change in the partisan orientation of the electorate. Some scholars would place the realigning election earlier, in 1964, when the Deep South voted Republican and much of the traditional Republican strongholds of the Northeast and Upper Midwest voted Democratic. Importantly, these two elections are consistent with the theory in that the old New Deal issues were replaced by Civil Rights issues as the major factor explaining why citizens identified with each party. Other scholars contend that this is the beginning of a thirty year dealignment, in which citizens generally moved towards political independence.
  • U.S. presidential election, 1980 -- Ronald Reagan
    • In this election, Ronald Reagan won a sweeping victory over Democrat Jimmy Carter, who won only six states (plus the District of Columbia) and 10% of the electoral vote. Republicans also took control of the Senate for the first time in over 25 years. (See Reagan's coattails.) Many people viewed Reagan's policies as sufficiently new to consider this a realigning election, and his iconic status within the Republican Party would appear to confirm this.
    • On the other hand, detractors note that control of the House did not change, nor even come close to changing, at this time. In addition, the Republicans lost the Senate again only six years later, leading some to theorize that the Senators simply rode in on Reagan's coattails, and did not represent a true shift in the ideological preferences of their constituents. Also absent was a shift in partisan alignment from public opinion polls.
  • U.S. House election, 1994 and U.S. Senate election, 1994
    • Republicans won majorities in both the House and the Senate, taking control of both chambers for the first time since 1954. In addition, that control has continued to date. Newt Gingrich and his Contract with America seemed like a sufficiently innovative technique to qualify, and the overwhelming nature of the Republicans' victory (they gained 54 seats, in a chamber of only 435—the total gain in elections since has been, for either party, in the single digits) would seem to make this a candidate for consideration as a realigining election.
    • Critics note that this, unlike the others, is a midterm election. They also note the third party candidacy of Ross Perot which enabled the election and reelection of Bill Clinton in 1996. There is a growing consensus in political science that this is a realigning election, given the consistency of Republican control of national and many state (e.g. gubernatorial) institutions. At the very least, most observers agreed that by 2004 the nation had realigned into Red (Republican) and Blue (Democratic) states, with sharp differences in attitudes and politics between the two blocs.
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Realigning elections outside the United States

  • UK general election, 1979 -- Conservative victory; Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister
    • This election brought the Conservatives into government where they remained for 18 years. Thatcher's policies of monetarism and privatisation represented a very different strand of Conservatism to that of previous governments and a bold shift from the post war consensus that had existed since 1945. The shockwaves led to a new party (the Social Democratic Party) and a long period of opposition for Labour during which time they were reformed and transformed into New Labour before they returned to government. At a more base level it led to a shift in voting patterns as the traditional class based voting started to break down and many of the working classes voted Conservative, whilst at the same time many public sector professionals turned away from them.
  • Canadian federal election, 1993 -- Liberal victory; Jean Chrétien Prime Minister
    • Throughout Canadian history two parties had taken turns in government and opposition: the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives (sometimes known as Liberal-Conservatives, Conservatives, Union and National Government). The Progressive Conservatives had won the largest majority in Canadian history in 1984 and were re-elected with a majority in 1988. In their second term, however, the policies of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney became largely unpopular and Quebec was frustrated by the failure of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords. The result was the rise of regional parties who elected large numbers of MPs despite a lack of national support. The Conservatives were crushed, winning just 2 seats, while new regional parties, the Bloc Québécois in Quebec and the Reform Party in the west won seats traditionally in the Conservative column. The Liberal Party would not be seriously challenged again until 2004, while the Progressive Conservative party never recovered, winning 20 (of 301) seats in 1997) and 12 in 2000 before merging with the Canadian Alliance, which had succeeded the Reform Party when it attempted to gain a national base of support, in late 2003. The new Conservative Party of Canada, though taking the "Tory" namesake of the old Progressive Conservatives, carried most of the policies of the old Reform and Alliance and continued with Stephen Harper at its helm who had lead the Canadian Alliance into the merger.
  • ROC presidential election, 2000 (Taiwan) -- Chen Shui-bian
    • Though more popular and consistently ranked higher in the polls, James Soong failed to gain the ruling Kuomintang's (KMT) nomination over incumbent Vice President Lien Chan. As a result, he announced his candidacy as an independent candidate, and was consequently expelled from the party. The split in the KMT vote resulted in a victory for Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party, even though he won only 39% of the popular vote. After the election, Soong founded the People First Party, which attracted members from the KMT and the pro-unification New Party, which was by that time beginning to fade. Angry from the defeat, the KMT expelled chairman Lee Teng-hui, who was president until 2000 and was widely suspected of causing the KMT split so that Chen would win. Lee then founded the pro-independence Taiwan Solidarity Union. The impact of these events changed the political landscape of Taiwan. Not only did the KMT lose the presidency for the first time in half a century, but its policies swung away from Lee's influence and it began intra-party reform. The two newly-founded parties became far more viable than other minor parties in the past, and the multi-party nature of Taiwan's politics was confirmed by the Legislative elections of 2001.
  • Palestinian legislative election, 2006 (Territory of Palestine)
    • In January of 2006 the militant Hamas organization, classified as a terrorist group by the United States government and other groups, won a landslide victory over the ruling Fatah party which had been in power under the leadership of former PLO chairman Yasser Arafat. The Bush Administration and others have threatened to cut off aid to the new Palestinian government if Hamas refuses to abandon terrorist tactics and recognize the right of the nation of Israel to exist.

Voter Realignment

Realignment can also be used to describe the switching of voter preference from one party to another, in contrast to dealignment (where a voter abandons his/her party and does not gain a new one).

Realignment can be a temporary or permanent state. In the USA, as the ideologies of the parties define many of the aspects of voters' lives and the decisions that they make, a realignment by a voter tends to have a longer-lasting effect.

In the UK, on the other hand, voters have a tendency to switch parties on a whim, perhaps only for one election, as there is far less commitment amongst voters towards a particular party as there is under the American system.

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See also

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References

  • Walter Dean Burnham. Critical elections and the mainsprings of American politics (1970) (ISBN 0393099628)
  • William Nisbet Chambers and Walter Dean Burnham, eds. American Party Systems: Stages of Political Development (1968) (ISBN 0196316626)
  • Clubb, Jerome M., William H. Flanigan, Nancy H. Zingale. Partisan Realignment: Voters, Parties, and Government in American History (1990)
  • Gerring, John. Party Ideologies in America, 1828-1996 1998.
  • William E. Gienap, The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856 1987.
  • Richard J. Jensen, Grass Roots Politics: Parties, Issues, and Voters, 1854-1983. Westport: Greenwood, 1983.
  • Richard Jensen, The Winning of the Midwest: Social and Political Conflict, 1888-1896 1971.
  • Paul Kleppner, ed. Evolution of American Electoral Systems (1981)
  • Ladd Jr., Everett Carll with Charles D. Hadley. Transformations of the American Party System: Political Coalitions from the New Deal to the 1970s 2d ed. (1978).
  • Richard P. McCormick, The Second American Party System: Party Formation in the Jacksonian Era 1966.
  • L. Sandy Maisel, Political Parties and Elections in the United States: An Encyclopedia. 1991.
  • Theodore Rosenof. Realignment: The Theory That Changed the Way We Think about American Politics (2003)
  • Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., ed. History of American Presidential Elections. 4 vols. 1971 and later editions
  • Silbey, Joel. The American Political Nation, 1838-1893. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991.
  • Sundquist, James L. Dynamics of the Party System: Alignment and Realignment of Political Parties in the United States (1983)
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