tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post1941597738181559796..comments2023-10-16T07:13:12.123-05:00Comments on A plain blog about politics: Q Day 4: Party Actors?Jonathan Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-91864736310896702572011-10-09T13:58:42.396-05:002011-10-09T13:58:42.396-05:00I think you got this right, Jon. My impression fro...I think you got this right, Jon. My impression from some other research I've conducted is that sub-presidential nominations are pretty party centered, but that varies considerably in style and intensity. The reasons for these variations are pretty complicated. To some extent, it's because of institutional rules; you organize politics differently in California, where the formal parties are highly constrained by law, than you do in Illinois, where the formal parties can engage in more direct hands-on activity. There are variations in political culture which appear to be important, too. Some places (notably smaller, more rural ones) do seem to have some kind of elite organization of politics, but it's not necessarily operating within a party. That is, it may just be a group of local notables influencing nonpartisan city and county elections without much interest in either of the major parties.<br /><br />Ehrenhalt shows some of the variations along these lines in <i>United States of Ambition</i>, and Trounstine shows the differences and similarities in local "machine" and "reform" organizations in <i>Political Monopolies in American Cities</i>.<br /><br />I'd also encourage readers to look at Mayhew's <i>Placing Parties in American Politics</i>, but I'd also point out some of the limitations of his approach. He uses local news and academic reporting to describe the level of party organization in each of the 50 states (as of about 30 years ago), placing each on a 5-point "Traditional Party Organization" scale. It's impressive work, but I think it misses a lot of other kinds of organization out there. <br /><br />My impression is that actual candidate-centered politics, where a candidate unaffiliated with local party elites can jump in and win a nomination based simply on money and campaign skills, is very rare in this country, media reports to the contrary. Figuring out how to survey this in a broad and systematic way is really tricky, though.Seth Maskethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-65011619502447878852011-10-07T13:42:07.281-05:002011-10-07T13:42:07.281-05:00Also, for sub-presidential stuff, let's not fo...Also, for sub-presidential stuff, let's not forget Casey Dominguez's work: she's got a piece in last month's Political Research Quarterly, a piece coauthored with our distinguished host in PS a few years back, and her dissertation (which I think is going to be a book eventually, but she has it as a .pdf on her webpage at USD)Matt Jarvisnoreply@blogger.com