Changing Party Coalitions: The Mystery of the Red State-Blue State Alignment [Paperback]

Jerry F. Hough (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0875864074 | ISBN-13: 978-0875864075 | Publication Date: January 1, 2006

Where did the so-called Red states and Blue states come from? This book, based in substantial part on archival work, breaks outmoded taboos on the American past and shows what really occurred in the transformation of American politics and why. Jerry F. Hough observes that the historic Democratic-Republican party alignment was based on the great conflict between the North and the South and on that among the hostile European-American "races." Both of these conflicts basically ended in the 1960s and 1970s as European-Americans became "whites." This made a party realignment inevitable, but the politics surrounding the conflicts made it difficult to understand what was happening. As a result, the political elites crafted a highly unnatural and unhealthy red stateblue state alignment. This political reality is not incorporated in the theories of comparative politics and of nation-building, Hough explains, because it has been too encased in this mythology. The 1950s through the 1970s was a period of great political turmoil in the United States. The dramatic events of the black revolution, the anti- Vietnam demonstrations, and the women's liberation movement caught everyone's attention, but some of the most fundamental changes were less visible. The relations between North and South were highly confrontational, but the period actually led to the end of the historic North-South conflict that had defined the American political system since the Revolution. The two parties have been groping ever since to find a satisfactory new set of coalitions, but they have thus far failed. The new divide, the red state-blue state alignment, produces even narrower and more polarized electoral results in a society that is not fundamentally polarized. What is going on? The author insists that narrow cultural issues are used as electoral platforms in today's politics not because of their inherent importance, but because of party strategies. He explains how we can return to the healthy debating role that a two-party system is supposed to play in a democratic nation and why this is so crucial. * Jerry F. Hough is the James B. Duke Professor of Political Science at Duke University, where he teaches courses on the US Presidency. As a long-time specialist on comparative political development, especially the Soviet Union, he brings a rare perspective to the study of American political evolution. Expert and student alike will find his revision of the conventional wisdom fresh and thought-provoking.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Political Science - U.S. Politics This book by the erstwhile Soviet/Russian specialist is a welcome addition to the literature on American political development. Hough (Duke Univ.) intends to do nothing less than explain the evolution of the "red" state-"blue" state dichotomy in American politics, and he largely succeeds in giving a logically argued and elegantly written account. He contends that the Republican-Democrat divide goes back to the Civil War and the hostility between some European-American "races" against one another. The remnants of these hostilities largely disappeared by the 1960s and 1970s, and subsequently political elites produced a realignment that is now customarily referred to as the red state-blue state manifestation of American political culture. Although the differences between these orientations seldom generate overt confrontations, the dichotomy itself is based on a few polarizing issues of little relevance to many voters. Hough maintains that the reason for this is none other than the machinations of party strategists. They appear less interested in generating healthy debates on core issues than in winning elections. The book is meticulously researched and offers original insights on some of the big questions of contemporary American politics.
Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers, lower- and upper-division undergraduates. -- --Choice

The 1970s saw the end of the historic North-South conflict and the conflict between European-American ethnicities that had defined American two-party politics up to that time, argues Hough (political science, Duke U.), leading to a political realignment in which both parties abandoned any attempt to represent the economic interests of anyone but the upper class. He finds that the result of this realignment is the increasing importance of cultural issues in defining party electoral strategies. -- --BookNews

AMERICAN DUOPOLY...Amid fears of recession at home and disillusion in Iraq, the collapse of Karl Rove s once-acclaimed electoral strategy mobilizing a red-state alliance of Southern whites, Midwest Evangelicals and security moms around God, guns and the War on Terror prompts a longer-term look at the bloc-building tactics of American political elites. The merit of Jerry Hough s recent Changing Party Coalitions is the rigorously estranging eye it casts on these processes. A comparative political scientist at Duke University, Hough is best known for his work on the USSR, in which he set aside then dominant totalitarian interpretations to focus on the actual institutional workings of the Soviet polity. Far from the monolithic dictatorship posited by the likes of Richard Pipes, Hough revealed a complex system of factions and countervailing tendencies; nor did he hesitate to draw parallels between the ussr s one-party system and the practices of the us duopoly, including elite management of faction-ridden parties and interest-group capture of policy-making. Here, he brings a similar independence of mind to his discussion of American electoral processes and the emergence of what he sees as the deliberately anti-democratic red-state/blue-state paradigm; in the process, many of the central episodes of a familiar narrative appear in a new light....

In his view, the recent withdrawal of the two parties behind the winner-takes-all ramparts of the red-state/blue-state division, leaving only a dozen states genuinely competitive, represents a further diminution of the real electorate, narrowing the already circumscribed space available for meaningful political participation....
Changing Party Coalitions offers a ruggedly idiosyncratic take on the American political system, deeply researched and widely read. Hough has been well served by his publisher, Agathon Press: footnotes are helpfully placed at the bottom of each page and the list of archives alone should make it essential reading for serious students of the country s political history... --Tom Mertes, New Left Review 49, January-February 2008

About the Author

Jerry F. Hough is James B. Duke Professor of Political Science at Duke University, where he teaches courses on the US Presidency. A well-known figure in comparative politics and especially the Soviet Union, his earlier works were published by the Brookings Institution and by journals including World Policy Journal, Post-Soviet Affairs, Post-Soviet Politics, Problems of Communism, The Nation, and Commentary. As a long-time specialist on comparative political development, he brings a rare perspective to the study of American political evolution. Expert and student alike will find his revision of the conventional wisdom fresh and thought-provoking.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Algora Publishing (January 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875864074
• ISBN-13: 978-0875864075
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #656,059 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4.0 out of 5 stars Innovative and Original Approach to the Big Question of American Politics, August 16, 2009

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Si Sheppard (Larchmont, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Changing Party Coalitions: The Mystery of the Red State-Blue State Alignment (Hc) (Hardcover)

The two main parties in American politics have accomplished something unique in global democracy: each has completely switched 180 degrees, ideologically and geographically, to inhabit the space once occupied by the other. Duke University Professor of Political Science Jerry F. Hough brings a fresh approach to the study of this phenomenon, one that challenges many established assumptions.

Hough asserts the driving force in the formation of American party identification was the deep rooted ethno-religious cleavages within American society, primarily WASP vs. immigrant, and Catholic vs. Protestant. The salience of these cleavages persisted until the post-WWII era, when for the first time a common perception of a shared "white" identity, forged by the collective sacrifice of WWII, greater social mobility, and the increasing prominence of African Americans, led to a dramatic realignment in voting patterns.

Hough points out the significance of Adlai Stevenson as harbinger of the middle class orientation in policy and the suburban political appeal that would be the hallmark of the post-New Deal Democratic Party. The subsequent defection of the Southern and urban ethnic voters who had previously been the mainstay of the Democratic coalition was not simply a reaction to the liberal social agenda pursued by the Democrats but of their failure to appeal to the economic self-interest of those voters. This is particularly true of Southern evangelicals, who have been firmly identified with the GOP since 1980. However, unlike much of the knee-jerk analysis of the election of 2004, Hough does not overemphasize the significance of the evangelical vote in 2004, or the influence of its leaders within the GOP.

Hough justifiably draws attention to the startling lack of scholarship devoted to the Perot campaign in 1992, which he defines as a harbinger of the real defining force of politics after 911, the wave of nationalism on which George W. Bush rode to reelection in 2004.

Hough's anticipation, published in 2006, of stock market trends makes for interesting reading: "After three years of a bull market, it would be normal to expect a temporary correction of some 25% over the next few years. Judging by earlier experience, this might or might not forecast an impending recession. Depending on its timing, it might or might not have an effect on the 2008 election." (p. 256) In the event, the timing could not have been worse for John McCain.

Even more presciently, Hough's summation of the Bush economic agenda now reads like its epitaph:

"The Administration maintained consumption through reducing interest rates almost to zero. This allowed mortgage refinancing and an increase in disposable income. It also sharply lowered the monthly payments for new home buyers and produced a rise in housing prices. The resulting boom - some would say, a bubble - in housing prices increased the home equity for existing homeowners and allowed them to take out large loans against this home equity. The Bush administration also permitted a sharp further rise in the foreign trade deficit, again contributing to a rise in consumption." (p. 257)

It should be noted some errors did creep into the text:

Senator Robert La Follette was not a Catholic (p. 47)

Democratic candidate Al Smith lost five, not four, Confederate states in 1928 (including Texas), but still won only 87, not 97, votes in the Electoral College (p. 88)

It was the New York Daily News, not the Post, that headlined "Ford to City: Drop Dead", not "New York, Drop Dead" (p. 178)

Senator Robert Kerrey contested the 1992 presidential primaries, not Senator John Kerrey (sic: Kerry) (p. 227)

Bob Dole was selected as Gerald Ford's running mate in 1976, not 1974, after narrowly winning reelection to the Senate in 1974, not 1972 (p. 234)

Overall, this is an interesting overview of the broad themes of American electoral politics and a useful addition to the literature. One is left hoping some of the themes Hough touched upon in passing will be addressed in greater depth in subsequent publications; foremost among these would be the assertion the Constitutional Convention of 1787 "was a velvet military coup d'état against the Articles of Confederation, a coup led by the man who controlled the army," George Washington (p. 15)