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Comment: The American Electoral Universe: Speculation and Evidence*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Jerrold G. Rusk
Jerrold G. Rusk
Affiliation:
Department of Government, University of Arizona
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Extract

In the last two decades the empirical approach to political science has been heavily preoccupied with the study of contemporary voting behavior. Few have been sufficiently curious about or motivated by the mysteries of our electoral past to sustain a concentrated research effort in this direction. Yet, as V. O. Key often noted, a knowledge of our electoral past provides us with a better understanding of our electoral present, with how our current system has evolved and changed over time. Only recently have scholars begun to heed the call of Key and new historians like Lee Benson and Samuel P. Hays for an empirical analysis of historical voting behavior. The initial research efforts, although often crude and unsystematic in method, have prompted interesting speculation as to “divergences” in our thinking from what previously had been assumed about past electorates. They have discovered “anomalies” in several different contexts—in earlier unconfirmed theories of voting behavior, in data-oriented contemporary work on the American voter, and even among the various historical research efforts themselves. While the presence of such anomalies characterizes the first stages of any research effort in virgin territory, unraveling the apparent inconsistencies must always be part of the process of a more fully developed cumulative research program. What is the task of the moment is to examine these anomalies in light of the theories and research of Professors Burnham, Converse, and myself—the principal elements in this continuing dialogue about the proper interpretation of our electoral past.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 68 , Issue 3 , September 1974 , pp. 1028 - 1049
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1974

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References

1 Key, V. O., “The Politically Relevant in Surveys,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 24 (Spring, 1960), 54–61Google Scholar.

2 The dialogue first started in an exchange of views between Professor Burnham and myself in the December, 1971 issue of the American Political Science Review. For a proper understanding of the history of this dialogue and some of the arguments used in the current paper, see Walter Dean Burnham, “Communications to the Editor,” and Rusk, Jerrold G., “Communications to the Editor,” American Political Science Review, 65 (December, 1971), 1149–1157.Google Scholar For the statement which prompted this exchange, see Rusk, Jerrold G., “The Effect of the Australian Ballot Reform on Split Ticket Voting: 1876–1908,” American Political Science Review, 64 (December, 1970), 1220–1238CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The latest addition to this dialogue is Converse, Philip E., “Change in the American Electorate,” in The Human Meaning of Social Change, ed. Campbell, Angus and Converse, Philip E. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1972), pp. 263–337Google Scholar.

3 Burnham, Walter Dean, “The Changing Shape of the American Political Universe,” American Political Science Review, 59 (March, 1965), 7–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Burnham, Walter Dean, Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 1970)Google Scholar.

5 For a description of these legal-institutional factors, see Rusk, “The Effect of the Australian Ballot Reform.”

6 Burnham, , Critical Elections, p. 90Google Scholar.

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10 What the particular issues were is left largely undefined by Burnham.

11 Burnham first referred to Jensen's notion of a “militaristic” campaign style in his book, Critical Elections. His source was Jensen's paper, “American Election Campaigns: A Theoretical and Historical Typology,” delivered at the 1968 Convention of the Midwest Political Science Association. Three years later, Jensen incorporated this idea as a subsidiary element in his broader religious-ethnic theory, published as the book, The Winning of the Midwest. It is the latter source that Burnham quotes in his present paper.

12 The reader should not be confused by Burnham's use of the word “sectional.” As a reading of his 1965 article makes clear, the “sectional” realignment was actually underlined and hence caused by an “economic” realignment. See Burnham, , “The Changing Shape,” especially pp. 24–26Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., p. 23.

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17 For a similar viewpoint, see Rusk, “Communications.”

18 Converse, “Change in the American Electorate,” pp. 263–264.

19 Ibid., pp. 276–295.

20 In any event, Jensen's analysis was only concerned with six states.

21 See Rusk, Jerrold G., The Effect of the Australian Ballot Reform on Split Ticket Voting: 1876–1908 (doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, 1968), chapter 2Google Scholar. Also see Evans, Eldon C., A History of the Australian Ballot System in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1917)Google Scholar.

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29 One imagines that a large part of the elite dialogue on issues that was carried in the newspapers attracted only the attention of a small segment of the population. Extensive elite dialogue does not necessarily imply a widespread interest on the part of the public. While the elites may or may not have known the limited audience to which they spoke (many still do not even have accurate notions on this score today), it seems most reasonable, given the lack of education, that only the elite and politically active, a small minority of the population, paid much attention to such debates.

30 Burnham actually cites Mills's image of the “crackerbarrel society” in “The Changing Shape,” p. 16. Also see Mills, C. Wright, The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), pp. 298–324Google Scholar.

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35 Ibid., p. 289.

36 Burnham, “Theory and Voting Research,” footnote 27.

37 For example, Burnham cites economic factors as important to his theory—a key question would be how important were such factors in relation to religion, something which could be tapped by multiple regression analysis. While Jensen and Kleppner do look at occupation and class variables, respectively, they do so only in a limited and cursory sense, never employing such variables in any multivariate analysis.

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39 Kleppner also refers to these issues as “style issues.” See Kleppner, , The Cross of Culture, pp. 149–178, 371–375Google Scholar.

40 Alford, Party and Society, chapters 10–11.

41 See, in particular, Burnham, Critical Elections, chapter 7.

42 While the two parties generally conveyed the opposite images prior to 1896, they were not above shifting positions on certain key issues, according to Kleppner, to gain temporary vote advantages from religious-ethnic groups which normally supported the other party.

43 Jensen, , The Winning of the Midwest, p. 296Google Scholar; also see pp. 291, 308, and chapter 10 in general.

44 Jensen, in the next-to-last page in his book (p. 307), attempts to reconcile his interpretation of the 1896 election with Burnham's, but this limited effort is unconvincing. On the last page of his book (p. 308), Jensen summarizes his theory, vividly pointing out his positive feelings about the 1896 election and the subsequent period.

45 Ibid., p. 308.

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52 Converse, “Change in the American Electorate,” p. 290. The actual turnout difference figure between 1896 and 1912 is unknown; various estimates place it in the 10–17 per cent range.

53 Those marginal voters dropping out of the electorate because of the registration obstacle would have an easier system to face a few decades later when the personal system changed from a “periodic” to a “permanent” basis of registering voters in many states.

54 Wigmore, John H., The Australian Ballot System as Embodied in the Legislation of Various Countries, 1st ed. (Boston: Charles C. Soule, 1889), p. 32Google Scholar.

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59 Jerrold G. Rusk and John J. Stucker, “The Effect of the Southern System of Election Laws on Voting Participation: A Reply to V. O. Key,” a paper delivered at the Mathematical Social Science Board's Conference on the History of Popular Voting Behavior, Cornell University, June 11–13, 1973. A revised version of this paper will appear in a forthcoming volume on the historical dimension of popular voting behavior, edited by Joel H. Silbey, Allan G. Bogue, and William H. Flanigan and published by Princeton Press.

60 Key, V. O., Southern Politics (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1949)Google Scholar.

61 Jerrold G. Rusk and John J. Stucker, “The Effect of Legal-Institutional Factors on Voting Participation: An Historical Analysis,” a paper delivered at the 1973 Convention of the Midwest Political Science Association.

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65 Ibid., p. 50. Also see Table 6 in Wigmore, John H., The Australian Ballot System as Embodied in the Legislation of Various Countries, 2nd ed. (Boston: Boston Book Co., 1889), p. 205Google Scholar.

66 Woodward, C. Vann, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966)Google Scholar; Key, Southern Politics, especially Part 5.

67 The 1896 election actually showed a small increase in turnout over the previous presidential election, 1892, testifying that some citizens were sufficiently motivated to overcome the legal obstacles to turnQut. However, the legal obstacles discouraged any major increase in turnout, and succeeding elections continued to show this effect.

68 Campbell, Converse, Miller, and Stokes, The American Voter.

69 The exact figures depend on how one defines a “party identifier.” The Michigan question taps a particular category of citizen—the “party leaner”—which some analysts classify as an “Independent” and others, as a “party identifier.”

70 Converse, “Change in the American Electorate,” p. 322.

71 Silbey, Joel H. and McSeveney, Samuel T., eds., Voters, Parties, and Elections (Lexington: Xerox College Publishing, 1972), p. 306Google Scholar.

72 Rusk, Jerrold G. and Weisberg, Herbert F., “Perceptions of Presidential Candidates: Implications for Electoral Change,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 16 (August, 1972), 388–411, especially 399CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73 Converse, Philip E., Clausen, Aage R., and Miller, Warren E., “Electoral Myth and Reality: The 1964 Election,” American Political Science Review, 59 (June, 1965), 321–336CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74 Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E., Rusk, Jerrold G., and Wolfe, Arthur C., “Continuity and Change in American Politics: Parties and Issues in the 1968 Election,” American Political Science Review, 63 (December, 1969), 1083–1105CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

75 Weisberg, Herbert F. and Rusk, Jerrold G., “Dimensions of Candidate Evaluation,” American Political Science Review, 64 (December, 1970), 1167–1185CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

76 Rusk and Weisberg, “Perceptions of Presidential Candidates.”

77 Personal communication with Professor Arthur H. Miller, Study Director of the 1972 Michigan Center for Political Studies National Election Study.

78 Burnham, , Critical Elections, p. 181Google Scholar.

79 Boyd, “A Review of Walter Dean Burnham.”

80 Robert McClure, “The Flow of American Politics and Party Systems: Cycles of Stability and Change,” a paper delivered at the 1970 Convention of the Midwest Political Science Association.

81 The political issues of the time (1865–1890) were, in any event, not “life-and-death” issues, but rather ones of less pith and moment. Parties were often drilling the voters to the polls with loyalist and patriotic appeals, such as the Republicans “waving the bloody red shirt” as a constant reminder that they were the party which preserved the Union. Even later national issues—such as the tariff—would only take on an importance, however limited, among the public when the troubled times of the 1890s had arrived. As for the pervasive sense of party identification, it did not seem to be forged out of whatever religious conflict existed in the late 1800s, but instead was most likely a product of the sectional-economic realignment of the 1850s. People after the War would often be voting the same loyalties that had existed prior to the War, the behavior becoming so routinized that frequently the original motive for such loyalties was later forgotten or considered of little import.