An Essay on Parties

As a way of bringing together our discussions of parties and interest groups, you might want to read a recent (and brief) essay by Walter Russell Mead. Here is an excerpt:

The weakness of political parties is one thing that foreigners often don’t grasp about the United States. Elected officials are usually much more worried about their popularity among voters than about their popularity with party officials. Party organizations are only one among many sources of funding; most US politicians raise pots of money on their own, rather than relying solely on subsidies from party HQ.

This makes American politicians much more independent of party control than are politicians in many other democratic countries. Members of parliament and representatives in many countries know that their careers depend on their parties and leadership; they vote against their parties much less often than their American counterparts.

The results can be paradoxical. On the one hand, American politics is more populist than politics in many countries, with politicians scrambling to respond to strong feelings in the public. On the other, money plays a greater role as individual politicians are more easily influenced by the prospect of campaign contributions than large party organizations would be.