Introduction; 1. Localism and the Jacksonian mode; 2. The nineteenth-century associational explosion and the challenge to the Jacksonian mode; 3. Organizational transformation and the national parties; 4. National campaign clubs and the party-in-the-electorate; 5. Grover Cleveland and the emergence of presidential party leadership; 6. Party transformation in the Republican Party; Conclusion.
Investigates the creation of the first truly nationalized party organizations in the United States in the late nineteenth century.
Daniel Klinghard is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.
“In recent years, our understanding of long-term change within
America’s political parties has been increasing greatly. Rather
simplistic accounts of how the decentralized 19th-century parties
had transformed themselves into the more centralized and
candidate-dominated parties of the later 20th century have been
superseded by more subtle explanations. Daniel Klinghard’s
excellent book represents an important contribution to the research
in political science and political history that has illuminated the
long gestation period of much of the party transformation.
Klinghard shows how moves towards more nationalized party
organizations started early in the 1880s, and also how late
19th-century developments were a springboard for change in the next
century. It is a book that displays great insight into the
complexities of party politics at the end of the so-called ‘party
period.’”
– Alan Ware, University of Oxford
“As they practice politics, politicians instrumentally experiment
with novel organizational forms, and that experimentation gives
rise to a pragmatically-disciplined imagination through which they
come to understand what they do within a much broader theoretical
perspective. In this creative re-examination of American political
development in the late nineteenth century, Daniel Klinghard
clearly demonstrates that it was the practice of politics by
experienced, ambitious party leaders, not the dreams of idealistic
reformers, that recast relations with the national electorate and
thus gave us modern democratic parties.”
– Richard Bensel, Cornell University
“Daniel Klinghard’s book is institutional history and political
analysis at its finest. Without a constitutional foundation,
political parties in America had to be created and maintained by
the wit of some our most astute politicians. Klinghard explains how
and why they did so, surveying the whole nineteenth century and
concentrating on its last two decades, when a new strategy was
required to renew the party organizations. All who are interested
in party history and development will want to read this fascinating
and important work.”
– James W. Ceaser, University of Virginia
Ask a Question About this Product More... |