Where's Walto on the New APSA Study on Political Parties?

 

As many of you probably know, the American Political Science Association just put out a report on political parties in the U.S. It contains somewhere around 15 chapters (depending on whether or not you include the Executive Summary, Foreword, Preface, Introduction, Conclusion, and Afterword as chapters). 

Unlike APSA's 1950 report "Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System," which pushed hard for quite specific changes to the U.S. party architecture, this study is (intentionally) less single-minded. It consists of a batch of mostly interesting and relatively easy to understand papers by a variety of scholars who are not in compete agreement with one another--except about the current crisis facing American democracy. There is, for example, no unanimity on whether expansion of Ranked Choice Voting around the country would be a good thing for American democracy. At least one article here pushes that scheme for its moderating effects on candidates and office-holders, but at least one other one advises against it because it seems to  weaken parties.

The 1950 report is fairly widely seen to have been a significant factor in our current hyper-partisanship/polarization. Some will say that the APSA committee got exactly what it asked for--in trumps! But while today's Democratic and Republican parties are "sorted," they are hardly strong or responsible. We do have exactly two clearly separated parties: there are few liberal Repubs or conservative Dems to be found around the country anymore. Most of the APSA membership of 1950 would consider that a good thing. But the leadership of the 2015-16 Republican Party could not keep Donald Trump from the Presidential nomination, and that organization currently has as its "platform" whatever Donald Trump happens to want at any given time. It may be a fervid party, but it is hardly a strong or responsible one. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party isn't even particularly fervid about anything--except its dislike of Republicans. 

Today's APSA members generally want more than two parties and they want each to be a staunch guardian of real democracy, rather than just be focused on winning elections by any means necessary. They worry that today's parties are powerless to stem widespread autocratic impulses among the citizenry.

Anyhow, check out my fairly lengthy review (even though I did not discuss every paper) over at 3:16 AM Magazine. And, if you'd care to, let me know what you think about it.