Steven E. Schier - Americas Dysfunctional Political System: Stability Without Success

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American Government and Popular Discontent

Popular distrust and the entrenchment of government by professionals lie at the root of Americas most pressing political problems. How did U.S. politics get to this point? Contemporary American politics got much of its shape from the transformations brought about from the 1950s to the 1980s. Presidential and congressional behavior, voting behavior, public opinion, public policy and federalism were all reconfigured during that time and many of those changes persist to this day and structure the political environment in the early twenty-first century.

Throughout American history, parties have been a reliable instrument for translating majority preferences into public policy. From the 1950s to the 1980s, a gradual antiparty realignment, alongside the growth of professional government, produced a new American political system of remarkable durability and remarkable dysfunction. It is a system that is paradoxically stable despite witnessing frequent shifts in party control of the institutions of government at the state and national level. Schier and Eberlys system-level view of American politics demonstrates the disconnect between an increasingly polarized and partisan elite and an increasingly disaffected mass public.

Steven E. Schier is Dorothy H. and Edward C. Congdon Professor of Political Science at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. He is the author or editor of fifteen books, most recently The American Elections of 2012, co-edited with Janet Box-Steffensmeier, and numerous scholarly articles. His analysis has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Atlantic Magazine and other publications.

Todd E. Eberly is an assistant professor of Political Science and coordinator of Public Policy Studies at St. Marys College of Maryland. He specializes in the policy and political legacies of the Great Society and has published numerous scholarly articles. His analysis and commentary have been featured in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, and on Public Radio.

American Government and Popular Discontent

Stability without Success

Steven E. Schier and Todd E. Eberly

First published 2013
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2013 Taylor & Francis

The right of Steven E. Schier and Todd E. Eberly to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him/her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schier, Steven E.

American government and popular discontent : stability without success / Steven E. Schier, Todd E. Eberly.

pages cm

1. Political participationUnited States. 2. Pressure groupsUnited States. 3. Right and left (Political science)United States. 4. United StatesPolitics and government. I. Eberly, Todd E. II. Title.

JK1764.S358 2013

320.973dc23

2012048684

ISBN: 978-0-415-89329-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-89330-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-80579-4 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo

by Keystroke, Station Road, Codsall, Wolverhampton

For Helen Virginia Schier Drury
and
Abigail and Kathryn Eberly

Contents

Correlation of successive presidential elections with prior election, 18282008, and the average of four prior elections, 18482008

Correlation of presidential vote in designated years, with prior election by state partisan strength, 19362008

Trends for select partisanship variables, 19522008

Trends for select institutional variables, 19522008

Trends for select electorate variables, 19522008

American political system macropattern, 19522008, averages and +/ 1 standard deviation of 40 standardized variables

Partisanship micropattern, 19522008, and mean and +/ 1 standard deviation of 17 standardized variables related to the electorate partisanship

Institutional micropattern, 19522008, and mean and +/ 1 standard deviation of 14 standardized variables related to the institutions

Electorate micropattern, 19522008, and mean and +/ 1 standard deviation of 9 standardized variables related to the electorate

Trust and popular discontent trends

Trust Index and related indicators, 19642008

Changes in the Democratic Party coalition, 19522008

Ideological divisions among general electorate and party activists

Trends in independent partisan identification, 19522008

Polarization in Congress

Process changes for major legislation in Congress

Senate action on cloture motions

Growth of the federal bureaucracy

Senate party polarization and Federal Appeals Court nominations, 19522008

Correlation of successive presidential elections with prior election, 19682012, and the average of four prior elections, 19682012

Schier and Eberlys update to Aldrich and Niemi macropattern, 19522004

Swing states prior to 2008 election and winning party by election

Indicators of change in national institutions and public confidence, 19602008

Systemic correlates of popular discontent, 19522008

Party switching by partisan attachment

Relation of strength of party identification to partisan regularity in voting for the House of Representatives (2000, 2002, and 2004)

Systemic correlates of congressional polarization

Presidential political capital indicator averages by era

Presidential political capital averages and standard deviations by presidencies

Systemic correlates of presidential leadership

Systemic correlates of policy professionalization

Comparison of traditional and contemporary lawsuits

Systemic correlates of Appeals Court nominations, 19522008

Preface

This book is designed for use in American Government courses, from survey classes to more focused courses on the national political system, including classes on Parties and Elections, the Presidency, Congress, the Bureaucracy and Public Policy. In it, we place the operation of each of these national political institutions in broader systemic perspective.

Our books theme will surprise some readers. Despite considerable political turbulence in national politics since the 1960s, we found much stability in the national political system over the last four decades, displayed with empirical evidence throughout our chapters. Two traits have simultaneously served to produce electoral turbulence but systemic stability during that time: widespread popular discontent with national government and the increasing dominance of occupational professionalism among the ranks of those who govern our nation. Popular discontent produces regular spasms of electoral turbulence, but professional government has remained a stable and defining characteristic of our national political system since the 1960s.

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