The Nationalization of American Party Organizations, 1880-1900

FAIN: FB-52443-06

Daniel Peter Klinghard
College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, MA 01610-2395)

During the late nineteenth century, the Democratic and Republican parties transformed their organizational capacities, and became more competent institutions. This change has gone unnoticed and unexplained by political science. Instead, party change over time has been defined by the paradigm of "party decline." But what political scientists describe as "decline" is really a departure from the Jacksonian norm, and the result of a deliberate internal reform of the Jacksonian party model. This transformation was designed to assert national party control over sub-national party organizations. The result was a more nationally-oriented party system and enhanced capacities for the parties to achieve national policy change.

Media Coverage

Review of The Nationalization of American Political Parties, 1880-1896 (Review)
Author(s): Charles W. Calhoun
Publication: Journal of American History
Date: 6/1/2011
URL: http://jah.oxfordjournals.org/content/98/1/215.extract

Review of The Nationalization of American Political Parties, 1880-1896 (Review)
Author(s): Cedric deLeon
Publication: Political Science Quarterly
Date: 11/1/2011
URL: http://www.psqonline.org/?redir=%2Fright.php3%3Fname%3D%26expired%3D

Associated Products

The Nationalization of American Political Parties, 1880-1896 (Book)
Title: The Nationalization of American Political Parties, 1880-1896
Author: Daniel Klinghard
Abstract: This book investigates the creation of the first truly nationalized party organizations in the United States in the late nineteenth century, an innovation that reversed the parties' traditional privileging of state and local interests in nominating campaigns and the conduct of national campaigns. Between 1880 and 1896, party elites crafted a defense of these national organizations that charted the theoretical parameters of American party development into the twentieth century. With empowered national committees and a new understanding of the parties' role in the political system, national party leaders dominated American politics in new ways, renewed the parties' legitimacy in an increasingly pluralistic and nationalized political environment, and thus maintained their relevance throughout the twentieth century. The new organizations particularly served the interests of presidents and presidential candidates, and the little-studied presidencies of the late nineteenth century demonstrate the first stirrings of modern presidential party leadership.
Year: 2010
Primary URL: http://www.cambridge.org/aus/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521192811
Primary URL Description: Cambridge University Press catalog website
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780521192811

Reading Plunkitt of Tammany Hall in the Context of Late Nineteenth Century Party Nationalization (Article)
Title: Reading Plunkitt of Tammany Hall in the Context of Late Nineteenth Century Party Nationalization
Author: Daniel Klinghard
Abstract: Plunkitt of Tammany Hall is often read as simply an apology for machine politics. Drawing on a close reading of Plunkitt and contemporary Tammany sources, this article challenges the conventional reading of the text, and orients readers toward the book's critique of developments in national politics, particularly under the party leadership of Grover Cleveland and William Jennings Bryan. In addition to defending machine politics, Plunkitt defends the traditional, Jacksonian party organization against nationalizing trends in U.S. party politics at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.
Year: 2011
Primary URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/polity/journal/v43/n4/abs/pol20118a.html
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Polity
Publisher: Palgrave

Reading Plunkitt of Tammany Hall in the Context of Late Nineteenth Century Party Nationalization (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Reading Plunkitt of Tammany Hall in the Context of Late Nineteenth Century Party Nationalization
Author: Daniel Klinghard
Abstract: Plunkitt of Tammany Hall is often read as simply an apology for machine politics. Drawing on a close reading of Plunkitt and contemporary Tammany sources, this article challenges the conventional reading of the text, and orients readers toward the book's critique of developments in national politics, particularly under the party leadership of Grover Cleveland and William Jennings Bryan. In addition to defending machine politics, Plunkitt defends the traditional, Jacksonian party organization against nationalizing trends in U.S. party politics at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.
Date: 11/18/2009
Conference Name: Northeastern Political Science Association

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