Political Parties

The United States’ major political parties have traditionally been outliers in many aspects relative to the centralized, disciplined, and ideological major political parties of other Western liberal democracies. Much of this divergence has been attributed to the separation of powers in the US Constitution and peculiar factors in American political development. In recent decades, however, American parties have come to more closely resemble their counterparts in other liberal democracies, with more ideological cohesion within party ranks, unprecedented levels of legislative party unity, a growing role for national party organizations, and increasing polarization between the parties. Another aspect of this convergence has been the emergence of a new American party leadership elite or ‘establishment’ in both parties that has played a pivotal role in presidential nominating politics since 1980. The establishment in each major party came under severe challenge in the 2016 presidential nominating process, however, and in the case of the Republican Party the party elite was defeated by a rank political outsider – Donald Trump – who later went on the win the presidency. This chapter examines the role of party elites in American history and the circumstances in which leadership structures and the composition of party elites may be subject to change, with a specific focus on the 2016 presidential campaign.