Political Parties and the State: The American Historical Experience

Martin Shefter

Published by Princeton University Press 1994

Political Parties and the State

The American Historical Experience

Martin Shefter

Volume 36 in the series Princeton Studies in American Politics: Historical, International, and Comparative Perspectives

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400821228

Overview
Contents

About this book

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.

Author / Editor information

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).

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

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Tables and Figures Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
Chapter 1. Political Parties and States Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I: PARTY AND PATRONAGE IN EUROPE AND AMERICA
Chapter 2. Patronage and Its Opponents: A Theory and Some European Cases Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
Chapter 3. Party, Bureaucracy, and Political Change in the United States Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	61
PART II: ECONOMIC INTERESTS AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES
Chapter 4 .Trade Unions and Political Machines: The Organization and Disorganization of the American Working Class Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
Chapter 5. Regional Receptivity to Reform in the United States Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
PART III: POLITICAL PARTIES AND POLITICAL CONTROL
Chapter 6. Political Incorporation and Political Extrusion: Party Politics and Social Forces in Postwar New York Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197
Chapter 7. New York City's Fiscal Crisis: Countering the Politics of Mass Mobilization Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	259
Author Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	293
Subject Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	297

(Deutsch)