Political Parties and the State: The American Historical Experience / Edition 1

by Martin Shefter

Overview

This book collects a number of Martin Shefter's most important articles on political parties. They address three questions: Under what conditions will strong party organizations emerge? What influences the character of parties—in particular, their reliance on patronage? In what circumstances will the parties that formerly dominated politics in a nation or city come under attack? Shefter's work exemplifies the "new institutionalism" in political science, arguing that the reliance of parties on patronage is a function not so much of mass political culture as of their relationship with public bureaucracies.


The book's opening chapters analyze the circumstances conducive to the emergence of strong political parties and the changing balance between parties and bureaucracies in Europe and America. The middle chapters discuss the organization and exclusion of the American working classes by machine and reform regimes. The book concludes by examining party organizations as instruments of political control in the largest American city, New York.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691000442
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	01/16/1994
Series:	Princeton Studies in American Politics: Historical, International, and Comparative Perspectives , #36
Pages:	316
Product dimensions:	7.75(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Martin Shefter is Professor of Government at Cornell University. He is author of Political Crisis/Fiscal Crisis: The Collapse and Revival of New York City (Columbia), co-author, with Benjamin Ginsberg, of Politics by Other Means: The Declining Importance of Elections in America (Basic Books), and editor of Capital of the American Century: The National and International Influence of New York City (Russell Sage).

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures

Preface

Ch. 1 Political Parties and States 3

Pt. I Party and Patronage in Europe and America 19

Ch. 2 Patronage and Its Opponents: A Theory and Some European Cases 21

Ch. 3 Party, Bureaucracy, and Political Change in the United States 61

Pt. II Economic Interests and Political Organization in the United States 99

Ch. 4 Trade Unions and Political Machines: The Organization and Disorganization of the American Working Class 101

Ch. 5 Regional Receptivity to Reform in the United States 169

Pt. III Political Parties and Political Control 195

Ch. 6 Political Incorporation and Political Extrusion: Party Politics and Social Forces in Postwar New York 197

Ch. 7 New York City's Fiscal Crisis: Countering the Politics of Mass Mobilization 233

Notes 259

Author Index 293

Subject Index 297

What People are Saying About This

Margaret Weir

Shefter's is a unique voice in the study of American politics. [He] offers an original and rich perspective on American political development by pointing to the ways parties and the state shaped the timing and form of political incorporation of key social groups.
— Margaret Weir, The Brookings Institution

From the Publisher

"Shefter's is a unique voice in the study of American politics. [He] offers an original and rich perspective on American political development by pointing to the ways parties and the state shaped the timing and form of political incorporation of key social groups."—Margaret Weir, The Brookings Institution

Editorial Reviews

"Shefter's is a unique voice in the study of American politics. [He] offers an original and rich perspective on American political development by pointing to the ways parties and the state shaped the timing and form of political incorporation of key social groups."--Margaret Weir, The Brookings Institution

From the Publisher