The Party Identification Model and Partisan Dealignment free essay sample

The decline in political parties, in conjunction with accessibility of mass media, has led to the deterioration of internal party campaigning. As such, the party professional with their polling, surveys and other aspects of systematic elections research have replaced the party worker as the primary method of gathering campaign information. In the United States, political parties have responded to such weakness by utilising candidate centred politics, in which candidates mobilise their own electorate. Whilst the decline of political parties is prevalent within Britain and Australia, these electorates have not adapted to this movement away from the party organisation and continue to vote according to party-orientation as candidates are unable to gain their own base of support with voters placing party policies and national issues over candidate value. By the 1950s, a portrait of the American electorate was drawn that emphasised ‘the absence of ideology or specific issues as political motivations for the American voter and the overwhelming importance of a sense of affiliation with party for presidential and congressional voting. We will write a custom essay sample on The Party Identification Model and Partisan Dealignment or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Partisan identification was the anchor of stability for the political system; however, following the impact of short-term events during the 1960s, such as the Vietnam War, there was a decline in party loyalty as the American political system was weakened. Such decline is indicated by the substantial decrease in voter turnout, the sharp rise in split-ticket voting and an increase in volatility within the electorate. As the political parties’ ability to polarise opinion weakened and voters were set politically adrift, the candidates themselves had to fill the power vacuum. The American electorate had entered an era labelled by Frank Sorauf as the candidate-centred campaign in which ‘the party professional had given way to a different type of professional- the advertising and public relations man, the management specialist, the media specialist, the pollster- who performs services for candidates based on the skills he has acquired in non-political fields. ’. The party, as Sorauf claims, no longer played the main role as the organising intermediary in the campaigns as ‘candidates increasingly mobilised their own electorates. ’ As political party organisations became less important in mobilising voters, and as voters became less inclined to vote a straight party ticket, candidates began to turn to professionals who possessed the skills to market candidates through other media. Consequently, the primary factor in the rise of candidate centred campaigning is the atrophy of political party organisations within the U. S. Since the early twentieth century, there has been a gradual decline in the control exercised by party organisations over the most important aspects of the electoral process- candidate selections, issue positions, setting of strategies and allocation of campaign resources. The new politics of campaigning have arisen because of changes in the American political scene that have weakened traditional party structures and strengthened the personality of the candidate. Once powerful party organisations, such of those at their height during the 1950s and 1960s, which mobilised a pre-existing base of voters behind a party ticket, had now given way to a new politics dominated by ‘personalities’ who employ new means to mobilise a more fluid electorate. As noted in Martin Wattenberg’s, The Rise in Candidate-Centred Politics, there exists ‘countless survey evidence to document Americans’ lack of concern with partisanship and the role of political parties in the U. S. government. ’ Most persuasive is the belief that one should vote for the candidate, not the party. Even in 1956, when most voters were in fact voting straight tickets, seventy-four percent of respondents in the Gallup poll agreed with this general belief and by 1968 this figure had risen to eighty-four percent. The principle of placing the value of the candidate ahead of party policies has become a key characteristic of the American consensus, as political parties are not perceived as being as particularly meaningful as they are within Britain and Australia. It is commonly understood within the British electorate that artisan attachment has eroded since attitudinal surveys of the electorate began in 1964. Such partisan erosion occurs not in the sense that significantly fewer people are willing to identify themselves with a specific political party, but rather in the sense that they feel unable to claim a very strong affiliation with their preferred party. This is identified in Figure 1. 1, highlighting the continual decline in membership for both the two major parties within the U K, the Labour and Conservatives. In 1951, the Conservatives membership stood at 2. million, and by 2011, it had fallen to as low as 177 000 members. Whereas, the proportion of British Election Survey respondents claiming to have a partisan identity only dropped from ninety-three percent to eight-nine percent between 1964 and 1992, it was the number with a very strong identity that fell from forty-eight percent to nineteen percent. Figure 1. 1 UK Political Party Membership While there is convincing evidence of decline in party politics within Britain, there are also indications of stable party legitimacy that is not evident within the U. S. electorate. The 1987 British Social Attitudes Survey found that fifty-one percent of survey respondents claimed to vote for a given party, regardless of the candidate choice. Some twenty-nine percent indicated that candidate choice came into their voting decision to some extent or other, but only 5. 5 percent claimed to focus primarily on candidate. In Britain, individual candidates have not been able to base campaigns on their own accord as the campaign at the constituency level is relatively insignificant, as general elections are so dominated by the campaign at the national level. Voters will decide whether to change their vote according to the appeal of a national party leader, or national party policies but not according to the personality of their local candidate or their policies. Reinforcing the traditional view that the UK electorate is still predominantly party-orientated and that an overwhelming majority of electors place party considerations well above candidate appeals when deciding on how to vote. Furthermore, the ability of the political parties in the UK to adapt to growing party decline is evident by the continual high levels of electoral turnout. In the UK, turnout was actually higher in the 1992 general election than it was in that of 1945 election with 77. 7 percent compared to 72. 8 percent. In the 2010 elections, UK general election turnout was at 65. 1 percent, almost ten percent higher than the United States Presidential election with only 57. 5% of voter turnout. Such as in Britain, the Australian electorate favours party-orientated voting over candidate centred politics. However, as party memberships have collapsed in recent decades, the importance of political parties as a source of campaign workers and a guide to community opinion has declined. Like the U. S. , Australia’s major political parties are now dominated by professional campaigners, with people who are experts in reading opinion polls, conducting focus groups and crafting messages for speeches, media releases and television commercials. As such, the Australian people have stopped joining political organisations in the vast numbers, as voters can utilise the mass media to understand what is happening within the political sphere, via the internet, television and social networking. The ability to access such information has ensured that the voting public have become sceptical of ideologies, and cynical about the true motives of leaders and their party organisations. As the trust of the government has declined, however, candidates within the Australian electorate have still been unable to create their own base of support, as voters have placed national issues and party policy over candidate value. The results published in the Australian Electoral Study, 1987-2007 identify the importance placed on party policies over party candidates within the Australian electorate, emphasising that while party base support continues to decline, the importance of the party’s policy issues has actually increased since 1996 from 48. 6% to 52. 5%, as shown in Figure 1. 2. Figure 1. 2 Considerations in Voting Decision Within Australia, the weakness of party politics lies in a lack of balance between the campaign professionals and a substantial legion of engaged members who are involved for their commitment to a cause. This decay of party affiliation and the decline in party membership has caused the Liberals, Nationals and Labour parties to look towards some modified form of American-style primaries as a way of attracting wider public engagement through their candidate selection processes. However, Australian political parties would be slow to adopt any change and it would, as is the case in the U. S, reduce the importance of parties, as this process easily allows for candidates to bypass the internal party structures and build power bases directly in the broader electorate. The U. S. have entered a political era in which independence is the main characteristic of party politics and the party organisation is no longer the central focus of the modern campaign as electors are more independent of party labels and party loyalties. The once powerful ‘mass party’ within America has given way to the personalities of power within the party framework that utilise the resources of popularity and financial wealth to formulate issue positions, define strategy while communicating with the voters through the mass media. Against this, in the Australian and British electorate, parties continue to fulfill a number of crucial political functions and have not responded to party decline with the rise of candidate centred politics, as voters continue in their party-orientated voting. Evidently, the electorate has transformed with decay of party affiliation and the dramatic decline in party membership since their height in the 1950s. Nevertheless, political parties have shown evidence of their capacity to respond to these weaknesses and their changing environment and as such, it could be suitable to refer to the phenomenon of party adaptation rather than that of party decline. 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