Political Parties Essay Review

 -Done by Sunday at 8 pm in Pacific Time Zone

Read “The Decline of Collective Responsibility in American Politics” and respond to the following questions.  

• -What is each essay’s main point regarding polarization in the electorate?    
• -How does each author support their respective points (what “evidence” is used to make their respective points)?  
• -Which argument do you think is most compelling?  Why? 

Please make your response at least 3/4 page in length (double spaced, size 12 Times New Roman).  Please do not use name, traditional header information, or titles for this assignment.    

CHAPTER 11

Political Parties

53
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/

“The Decline of Collective Res|>onsibility
in American Politics”

Morris P. Fiorina

For more than three decades, political scientists have studied the changing sta­
tus of American political parties. Morris Fiorina suggests that political parties
provide many benefits for American democracy, in particular by clarifying pol­
icy alternatives and letting citizens know whom to hold accountable when they
are dissatisfied with government performance. Writing in the early 1980s, he
sees decline in all the key areas of political-party activity: in the electorate, in
government, and in party organizations. He argues that the decline eliminates the
motivation for elected members of the parties to define broad policy objectives,
leading to diminished political participation and a rise in alienation. Policies are
aimed at serving the narrow interests of the various single-issue groups that domi­
nate politics rather than the broad constituencies represented by parties. Without
strong political parties to provide electoral accountability, American politics has
suffered a “decline in collective responsibility” in Fiorina’s view. In the effort to
reform the often-corrupt political parties of the late 1800s—commonly referred to as
“machines” led by “bosses”—Fiorina asks us to consider whether Americans
have overly weakened the best institutional device available to hold elected offi­
cials accountable at the ballot box.

Though the Founding Fathers believed in the necessity of establishing a genuinely national government, they took great pains to design one
that could not lightly do things to its citizens; what government might do

for its citizens was to be limited to the functions of what we know now as
the “watchman state.”

“The Decline of Collective Responsibility” 363

Given the historical record faced by the Founders, their emphasis on
constraining government is understandable. But we face a later historical
record, one that shows two hundred years of increasing demands for gov­
ernment to act positively. Moreover, developments unforeseen by the
Founders increasingly raise the likelihood that the uncoordinated actions
of individuals and groups will inflict serious damage on the nation as a
whole. The by-products of the industrial and technological revolutions
impose physical risks not only on us, but on future generations as well.
Resource shortages and international cartels raise the spectre of economic
ruin. And the simple proliferation of special interests with their intense,
particularistic demands threatens to render us politically incapable of
taking actions that might either advance the state of society or prevent
foreseeable deteriorations in that state. None of this is to suggest that we
should forget about what government can do to us—the contemporary
concern with the proper scope and methods of government intervention
in the social and economic orders is long overdue. But the modern age
demands as well that we worry about our ability to make government
work/or us. The problem is that we are gradually losing that ability, and
a principal reason for this loss is the steady erosion of responsibility in
American politics.

* >t it

Unfortunately, the importance of responsibility in a democracy is
matched by the difficulty of attaining it. In an autocracy, individual
responsibility suffices; the location of power in a single individual locates
responsibility in that individual as well. But individual responsibility is
insufficient whenever more than one person shares governmental author­
ity. We can hold a particular congressman individually responsible for a
personal transgression such as bribe-taking. We can even hold a president
individually respc^sible for military moves where he presents Congress
and the citizenry with a fait accompli. But on most national issues individual
responsibilityls difficult to assess. If one were to go to Washington, ran­
domly accost a Democratic congressman, and berate him about a 20-percent
rate of inflation, imagme,the response. More than likely it would run, “Don’t
blame me. If ‘they’ had done what I’ve advocated for x years, things would
be fine today.”

* ♦

American institutional structure makes this kind of game-playing all
too easy. In order to overcome it we must lay the credit or blame for
national conditions on all those who had any hand in bringing them
about: some form of collective responsibility is essential.

The only way collective responsibility has ever existed, and can exist
given our institutions, is through the agency of the political party; in Amer­
ican politics, responsibility requires cohesive parties. This is an old claim to

364 Morris P. Fiorina

be sure, but its age does not detract from its present relevance. In fact, the
continuing decline in public esteem for the parties and continuing efforts to
“reform” them out of the political process suggest that old arguments for
party responsibility have not been made often enough or, at least, convinc­
ingly enough, so I will make these arguments once again in this essay.

A strong political party can generate collective responsibility by creat­
ing incentive for leaders,- followers, and popular supporters to think and
act in collective terms. First, by providing party leaders with the capability
(e.g., control of institutional patronage, nominations, and so on) to discipline
party members, genuine leadership becomes possible. Legislative output
is less likely to be a least common denominator—a residue of myriad
conflicting proposals—and more likely to consist of a program actually
intended to solve a problem or move the nation in a particular direction.
Second, the subordination of individual officeholders to the party lessens
their ability to separate themselves from party actions.iike it or not, their
performance becomes identified with the performance of the collectivity
to which they belong. Third, with individual candidate variation greatly
reduced, voters have less incentive to support individuals and more
incentive to support or oppose the party as a whole. And fourth, the circle
closes as party-line voting in the electorate provides jsarty leaders with
the incentive to propose policies that will earn the support of a national
majority, and party back-benchers* with the personal incentive to coop­
erate with leaders in the attempt to compile a good record for the party
as a whole.

In the American context, strong parties have traditionally clarified
politics in two ways. First, they allow citizens to assess responsibility
easily, at least when the government’s unified, which it more often was
in earlier eras when party meant more than it does today. Citizens need
only evaluate the social, economic, and international conditions they
observe and make a simple decision for or against change. They do riot
need to decide whether the energy, inflation, urban, and defense policies
advocated by their congressman would be superior to those advocated by
[the president]—^were any of them to be enacted!

The second way in which strong parties clarify American politics fol­
lows from the first. When citizens assess responsibility on the party as a
whole, party members have personal incentives to see the party evaluated
favorably. They have little to gain from gutting their president’s program
one day and attacking him for lack of leadership the next, since they share
in the president’s fate when voters do not differentiate within the party.
Put simply, party responsibility provides party members with a personal
stake in their collective performance.

‘Back-benchers are junior members of the British Parliament, who sit in the rear benches
of the House of Commons. Here, the term refers to junior members of political parties
[Editors].

“The Decline of Collective Responsibility” 365

Admittedly, party responsibility is a blunt instrument. The objection
immediately arises that party responsibility condemns junior Democratic
representatives to suffer electorally for an inflation they could do little to
affect. An unhappy situation, true, but unless we accept it. Congress as a
whole escapes electoral retribution for an inflation they could have done
something to affect. Responsibility requires acceptance of both conditions.
The choice is between a blunt instrument or none at all. \

*

In earlier times, when citizens voted for the party, not the person, parties
had incentives to nominate good candidates, because poor ones could
have harmful fallout on the ticket as a whole. In particular, the existence of
presidential coattails (positive and negative) provided an inducement to
avoid the nomination of narrowly based candidates, no matter how commit­
ted their supporters. And, once in office, the existence of party voting in the
electorate provided party members with the incentive to compile a good
party record. In particular, the tendency of national midterm elections to
serve as referenda on the performance of the president provided a clear
inducement for congressmen to do what they could to see that their presi­
dent was perceived as a solid performer. By stimulating electoral phenom­
ena such as coattail effects and mid-term referenda, party transformed some
degree of personal ambition into concern with collective performance.

♦ îf

The Continuing Decline of Party in the United States

Party Organizations
In the United Stabes, party organization has traditionally meant state and
local party ‘organization. The national party generally has been a loose
confederacy oTsubnational units that swings into action for a brief period
every four years. This characterization remains true today, despite the
somewhat greater/influence and augmented functions of the national
organizations. Though such things are difficult to measure precisely, there
is general agreement that the formal party organizations have undergone
a secular decline since their peak at the end of the nineteenth century. The
prototype of the old-style organization was the urban machine, a form
approximated today only in Chicago.

[Fiorina discusses the reforms of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century]
In the 1970s two series of reforms further weakened the influence of

organized parties in American national politics. The first was a series of
legal changes deliberately intended to lessen organized party influence
in the presidential nominating process. In the Democratic party, “New

366 Morris P. Fiorina

Politics” activists captured the national party apparatus and imposed a
series of rules changes designed to “open up” the politics of presidential
nominations. The Republican party—long more amateur and open than
the Democratic party—adopted weaker versions of the Democratic rules
changes. In addition, modifications of state electoral laws to conform to
the Democratic rules changes (enforced by the federal courts) stimulated
Republican rules changes as well.

St- sfr ♦ ___ /

A second series of 1970s reforms lessened the role of formal party orga­
nizations in the conduct of political campaigns. These are financing regu­
lations growing out of the Federal Election Campaign Actvof 1971 as
amended in 1974 and 1976. In this case the reforms were “aimed at cleaning
up corruption in the financing of campaigns; their effects on the parties
were a by-product, though many individuals accurately predicted its
nature. Serious presidential candidates are now publicly financed. Though
the law permits the national party to spend two cents per eligible voter on
behalf of the nominee, it also obliges the candidate to set up a finance
committee separate from the national party. Between this legally man­
dated separation and fear of violating spending limits or accounting reg­
ulations, for example, the law has the effect of encouraging the candidate
to keep his party at arm’s length.

The ultimate results of such reforms are easy to predict. A lesser party
role in the nominating and financing of candidates encourages candidates
to organize and conduct independent campaigns, which further weakens
the role of parties…. [I]f parties do not grant nominations, fund their
choices, and work for them, why should those choices feel any commit­
ment to their party?

Party in the Electorate

In the citizenry at large, party takes the form of a psychological attach­
ment. The typical American traditionally has been likely to identify with
one or the other of the two major parties. Such identifications are trans­
mitted across generations to some degree, and within the individual they
tend to be fairly stable. But there is mounting evidence that the basis of
identification lies in the individual’s experiences (direct and vicarious,
through family and social groups) with the parties in the past. Our cur­
rent party system, of course, is based on the dislocations of the Depres­
sion period and the New Deal attempts to alleviate them. Though only a
small proportion of those who experienced the Depression directly are
active voters today, the general outlines of citizen party identifications
much resemble those established at that time.

“The Decline of Collective Responsibility” 367

Again, there is reason to believe that the extent of citizen attachments
to parties has undergone a long-term decline from a nineteenth-century
high. And again, the New Deal appears to have been a period during
which the decline was arrested, even temporarily reversed. But again, the
decline of party has reasserted itself in the 1970s.

As the 1960s wore on, the heretofore stable distribution of citizen party
identifications began to change in the general direction of weakened
attachments to the parties. Between 1960 and 1976, independents, broadly
defined, increased from less than a quarter to more than a third of the
voting-age population. Strong identifiers declined from slightly more
than a third to about a quarter of the population.

>f- >f-

Indisputably, party in the electorate has declined in recent years. Why?
To some extent the electoral decline results from the organizational
decline. Few party organizations any longer have the tangible incentives
to turn out the faithful and assure their loyalty. Candidates run indepen­
dent campaigns and deemphasize their partisan ties whenever they see
any short-term electoral gain in doing so. If party is increasingly less
important in the nomination and election of candidates, it is not surpris­
ing that such diminished importance is reflected in the attitudes and
behavior of the voter.

Certain long-term sociological and technological trends also appear
to work against party in the electorate. The population is younger, and
younger citizens traditionally are less attached to the parties than their
elders. The population is more highly educated; fewer voters need some
means of simplifying the choices they face in the political arena, and
party, of course, hàs been the principal means of simplification. And the
media revolution has vastly expanded the amount of information easily
available to the citizenry. Candidates would have little incentive to
operate campaigns independent of the parties if there were no means
to apprise the citizenry of their independence. The media provide the
means.

Finally, our present party system is an old one. For increasing numbers
of citizens, party attachments based on the Great Depression seem lack­
ing in relevance to the problems of the late twentieth century. Beginning
with the racial issue in the 1960s, proceeding to the social issue of the
1970s, and to the energy, environment, and inflation issues of today, the
parties have been rent by internal dissension. Sometimes they failed to
take stands, at other times they took the wrong ones from the standpoint
of the rank and file, and at most times they have failed to solve the new
problems in any genuine sense. Since 1965 the parties have done little or
nothing’ to earn the loyalties of modern Americans.

368 Morris P. Fiorina

Party in Government ,

If the organizational capabilities of the parties have weakened, and their
psychological ties to the voters have loosened, one would expect predict­
able consequences for the party in government. In particular, one would
expect to see an increasing degree of split party control within and across
the levels of American government. The evidence on this point is
overwhelming.

* * *

The increased fragmentation of the party in government makes it more
difficult for government officeholders to work toge^ey than in times past
(not that it has ever been terribly easy). Voters meanwhile have a more
difficult time attributing responsibility for government performance, and
this only further fragments party control. The result is lessened collective
responsibility in the system. >

What has taken up the slack left by the weakening’of the traditional
[party] determinants of congressional voting? It appears that a variety of
personal and local influences now play a major role in citizen evaluations
of their representatives. Along with the expansion of the federal presence
in American life, the traditional role of the congressman as an all-purpose
ombudsman has greatly expanded. Tens of millions of citizens now are
directly affected by federal decisions. Myriad programs provide opportu­
nities to profit from government largesse, and myriad regulations impose
costs and/or constraints on citizen activities. And, whether seeking to gain
profit or avoid costs, citizens seek the aid of their congressmen. When a
court imposes a desegregation plan on an urban school board, the con­
gressional offices immediately are contacted for aid in safeguarding exist­
ing sources of funding and in determining eligibility for new ones. When
a major employer announces plans to quit an area, the congressional
offices immediately are contacted to explore possibilities for using federal
programs to persuade the employer to reconsider. Contractors appreciate
a good congressional word with DOD [Department of Defense] procure­
ment officers. Local artistic groups cannot survive without NBA [National
Endowment for the Arts] funding. And, of course, there are the major
individual programs such as social security and veterans’ benefits that
create a steady demand for congressional information and aid services.
Such activities are nonpartisan, nonideological, and, most important,
noncontroversial. Moreover, the contribution of the congressman in the
realm of district service appears considerably greater than the impact of
his or her single vote on major national issues. Constituents respond
rationally to this modern state of affairs by weighing nonprogrammatic
constituency service heavily when casting their congressional votes.
And this emphasis on the part of constituents provides the means for
incumbents to solidify their hold on the office. Even if elected by a
narrow margin, diligent service activities enable a congressman to neu-

The Decline of Collective Responsibility” 369

tralize or even convert a portion of those who would otherwise oppose
him on policy or ideological grounds. Emphasis on local, nonpartisan fac­
tors in congressional voting enables the modern congressman to with­
stand national swings, whereas yesteryear’s uninsulated congressmen
were more dependent on preventing the occurrence of the swings.

ii- H’ H-

[The result is the insulation of the modern congressional member from national
forces altogether.]

The withering away of the party organizations and the weakening of
party in the electorate have begun to show up as disarray in the party in
government. As the electoral fates of congressmen and the president have
diverged, their incentives to cooperate have diverged as well. Congress­
men have little personal incentive to bear any risk in their president’s
behalf, since they no longer expect to gain much from his successes or
suffer much from his failures. Only those who personally agree with the
president’s program and/or those who find that program well suited for
their particular district support the president. And there are not enough
of these to construct the coalitions necessary for action on the major issues
now facing the country. By holding only the president responsible for
national conditions, the electorate enables officialdom as a whole to escape
responsibility. This situation lies at the root of many of the problems that
■now plague American public life.

Some Consequences of the Decline of Collective Responsibility

The weakening of party has contributed directly to the severity of several
of the important problems the nation faces. For some of these, such as the
government’s inability to deal with inflation and energy, the connections
are obvious. But for other problems, such as the growing importance of
single-issue politics and the growing alienation of the American citizenry,
the connectiojis are more subtle.

/ ‘ Immobilism
As the electoral interdependence of the party in government declines,
its ability to act also declines. If responsibility can be shifted to another
level or to another officeholder, there is less incentive to stick one’s neck
out in an attempt to solve a given problem. Leadership becomes more
difficult, the ever-present bias toward the short-term solution becomes
more pronounced, and the possibility of solving any given problem
lessens.

… [Pjolitical inability to take actions that entail short-run costs
ordinarily will result in much higher costs in the long run—^we cannot
continually depend on the technological fix. So the present American

370 Morris P. Fiorina

immobilism cannot be dismissed lightly. The sad thing is that the Amer­
ican people appear to understand the depth of our present problems and,
at least in principle, appear prepared to sacrifice in furtherance of the
long-run good. But they will not have an opportunity to choose between
two or more such long-term plans. Although both parties promise tough,
equitable policies, in the present state of our politics, neither can deliver.

Single-Issue Politics

In recent years both political analysts and politicians have decried the
increased importance of single-issue groups in American politics. Some
in fact would claim that the present immobilism in qur politics owes
more to the rise of single-issue groups than to the declihe of party. A lit­
tle thought, however, should reveal that the two trends are connected. Is
single-issue politics a recent phenomenon? The contentionxis doubtful;
such groups have always been active participants in Americah-politics.
The gun lobby already was a classic example at the time of President Ken­
nedy’s assassination. And however impressive the antiabortionists appear
today, remember the temperance movement, which succeeded in getting
its constitutional amendment. American history contains numerous fore­
runners of today’s groups, from anti-Masons to abolitionists to the Klan—
singularity of purpose is by no means a modern phenomenon. Why, then,
do we hear all the contemporary hoopla a,bout single-issue groups? Prob­
ably because politicians fear them now more than before and thus allow
them to play a larger role in our politics. Why should this be so? Simply’
because the parties are too weak to protect their members and thus to con­
tain single-issue politics.

In earlier times single-issue groups were under greater pressures to
reach accommodations with the parties. After all, the parties nominated
candidates, financed candidates, worked for candidates, and, perhaps most
important, party voting protected candidates. When a contemporary single­
issue group threatens to “get” an officeholder, the threat must be taken
seriously.

Not only did the party organization have greater ability to resist single­
issue pressures at the electoral level, but the party in government had
greater ability to control the agenda, and thereby contain single-issue pres­
sures at the policy-making level. Today we seem condemned to go through
an annual agony over federal abortion funding. There is little doubt that
politicians on both sides would prefer to reach some reasonable compro­
mise at the committee level and settle the issue. But in today’s decentral­
ized Congress there is no way to put the lid on. In contrast, historians tell
us that in the late nineteenth century a large portion of the Republican
constituency was far less interested in the tariff and other questions of
national economic development than in whether German immigrants

“The Decline of Collective Responsibility” 371

should be permitted to teach their native language in their local schools,
and whether Catholics and “liturgical Protestants” should be permitted
to consume alcohol. Interestingly, however, the national agenda of the
period is devoid of such issues. And when they do show up on the state
level, the exceptions prove the rule; they produce party splits and striking
defeats for the party that allowed them to surface.

In sum, a strong party that is held accountable for the government of a
nation-state has both the ability and the incentive to contain particularis­
tic pressures. It controls nominations, elections, and the agenda, and it
collectively realizes that small minorities are small minorities no matter
how’intense they are. But as the parties decline they lose control over
nominations and campaigns, they lose the loyalty of the voters, and they
lose control of the agenda. Party officeholders cease to be held collectively
accountable for party performance, but they become individually exposed
to the political pressure of myriad interest groups. The decline of party
permits interest groups to wield greater influence, their success encourages
the formation of still more interest groups, politics becomes increasingly
fragmented, and collective responsibility becomes still more elusive.

Popular Alienation from Government

For at least a decade political analysts have pondered the significance of
survey data indicative of a steady increase in the alienation of the Amer­
ican public from the political process…. The American public is in a
nasty mood, a cynical, distrusting, and resentful mood. The question is.
Why?

If the same national problems not only persist but worsen while ever-
greater amount^ of revenue are directed at them, why shouldn’t the typi­
cal citizen conclude that most of the money must be wasted by incompetent
officials? iFnarrowly based interest groups increasingly affect our poli­
tics, why shouldn’t citizens increasingly conclude that the interests run
the government?’^^Jifteen years the citizenry has listened to a steady
stream of promises but has seen very little in the way of follow-through.
An increasing proportion of the electorate does not believe that elections
make a difference, a fact that largely explains the much-discussed post-1960
decline in voting turnout.

Continued public disillusionment with the political process poses
several real dangers. For one thing, disillusionment begets further disil­
lusionment. Leadership becomes more difficult if citizens do not trust
their leaders and will not give them the benefit of a doubt. Policy failure
becomes more likely if citizens expect the policy to fail. Waste increases
and government competence decreases as citizens’ disrespect for politics
encourages a lesser breed of person to make careers in government. And
“government by a few big interests” becomes more than a cliché if citizens
increasingly decide the cliché is true and cease participating for that
reason.

372 Morris P. Fiorina

Finally, there is the real danger that continued disappointment with
particular government officials ultimately metamorphoses into disillu­
sionment with government per se. Increasing numbers of citizens believe
that government is not simply overextended but perhaps incapable of any
further bettering of the world. Yes, government is overextended, ineffi­
ciency is pervasive, and ineffectiveness is all too common. But govern­
ment is one of the few instruments of collective action we have, and even
those committed to selective pruning of government programs cannot
blithely allow the concept of an activist government to fall into disrepute.

Of late, however, some political commentators have begun to wonder
whether contemporary thought places sufficient empha^s on government
for the people. In stressing participation have we Ipsf sjght of accountabil­
ity? Surely, we should be as concerned with what government produces as
with how many participate. What good is participation if tKe citizenry is
unable to determine who merits their support?

Participation and responsibility are not logically incompatible, but
there is a degree of tension between the two, and the quest for either may
be carried to extremes. Participation maximizers find themselves involved
with quotas and virtual representation schemes, while responsibility
maximizers can find themselves with a closed shop under boss rule.
Moreover, both qualities can weaken the democracy they supposedly
underpin. Unfettered participation produces Hyde Amendments* and
immobilism. Responsible parties can use agenda power to thwart demo­
cratic decision—for more than a century the Democratic party used what
power it had to suppress the racial issue. Neither participation nor respon­
sibility should be pursued at the expense of all other values, but that
is what has happened with participation over the course of the past two
decades, and we now reap the consequences in our politics.

Discussion Questions

1. How do political parties provide “collective responsibility” and
improve the quality of democracy? Do you believe the complaints
raised by Fiorina thirty-five years ago remain persuasive?

2. Are strong parties in the interest of individual politicians? What
might be some reasons that members of Congress would agree to
strong parties? What would make them distance themselves from
their party’s leadership?

3. President Donald Trump won the Republican Party nomination in
2016 despite opposition from many party leaders and elected officials.
Is his electoral success in 2016 a confirmation of Fiorina’s concerns
or a rejection of them?

“The Hyde Amendment, passed in 1976 (three years after Roe v. Wade), prohibited using
Medicaid funds for abortion [Editors],