On The Reading List

Mayhew makes a fairly convincing case. But that was before I read the Gerber and Malhotra paper on political junk science. http://crookedtimber.org/2006/09/19/attractive-models/

Mayhew's book basically takes apart the whole idea of a realigning election. It's been awhile since I read it, but if I remember correctly, he posits the characteristics that a realigning election would really have to have and then shows, systematically and synthetically, that none of the usual suspects (e.g., 1860, 1896, 1932) meet very many of these criteria. It's definitely one of the better political science books I've read in recent years.

"It's clear that American political journalists act as if the political science underlying realignment theory is strong and sound."

"Realignment theory" isn't really a theory anymore than you could try to speak of "hurricane theory". It's a real and easily observable thing.

It would be difficult to have an even elementary understanding of electoral politics without understanding the realignment concept.

As with any such fundamental concept, there are lots of devils in the details. You can group US political realignments at different time periods than the Wikipedia page does, for one example.

"I've also always felt, based on my philosophical background, that the theory looked like a slightly absurd superstition."

Well, that would certainly explain your incredibly shaky grasp on electoral politics...

"I suppose I should also ask the collective wisdom of the internet to recommend a book making the case for "realignment" as a phenomenon with meaningful explanatory power."

You're asking for a book about light bulbs that would make the case for electricity. All the light bulb books will talk about electricity. And likewise all the political books will talk about realignment.

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I would suspect the Mayhew book would only be of real interest for those who had developed an overly theoretical and ossified understanding of realignments inside political science academia.

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Is this one of those philosophy graduates understand less about things than a bright 10th grader does items? Cuz it's weird...

Or, to try to be more helpful...

In early 2005, we entered the beginning of a potential realigning phase. Between Schiavo, SS privatization, bad news out of Mesopotamia, and Katrina, wide swaths of the GOP electorate because to become fundamentally disgruntled with GOP unified control of government.

This creates an opportunity for Dems in '06, '08, '10, and '12 to take the openings offered by the GOP openings to bring some of their folks into our tent. If we can pull that off successfully, that's a realignment happening right in front of your eyes.

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The reverse parallel is the '66 elections being the opening for the GOP which they played into a better situation in '68, and by '72 had the realignment well under way until Watergate stopped the realignment dead in it's tracks.

But the same pattern developed in '78 and '80, leading to a further stage of Republican realignment that continued unabated until '94.

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Skip the theory. Read a political history book.

I don't know of a book that makes a "convincing" case for realignment theory, because Mayhew has pretty much destroyed realignment theory in its classic political science form, but probably the most iconic representative of the genre is Walter Dean Burnham's "Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics." It was written in the '70s and endured as the best (and most respected) of its genre until Mayhew's refutation, and is still well worth reading. You could also check out works by V.O. Key and James Sundquist (the titles of which fail me now). Happy reading.

"Mayhew has pretty much destroyed realignment theory in its classic political science form,"

Can you unpack that into a couple of paragraphs?

Re. you search for book recommendations, did you ever read Michel Houellebecq?

Hey Matt,

First off, Mayhew didn't "destroy" realignment theory as a general framework. He destroyed it in its current incarnation. Unless you're seriously interested in an inside-baseball account of the history of a very specific theory, I'd avoid this one. Its interesting, but not terribly useful for judging the use of the realignment idea out in the real world.

Second, Matt, if you're truly interested in the cyclical nature of American politics, leave the realignment books alone and head straight for Stephen Skowronek's "Politics Presidents Make." Off all of the books I've read over the course of my seemingly endless effort to earn a political science PhD, none have impressed me as much as this one.

Some elections do matter more than others, and Skowronek's work makes (to my mind, at least) the most convincing case I've ever seen for why. More importantly, it actually has fairly significant predictive power. In many ways, the edition written before Clinton's presidency suggested many of the precise problems Clinton actually faced - including impeachment!

Read it. I promise you that you will not regret it.

I really can't get a handle on whether I accept realignment theory or not, because I can't figure out exactly how strong the theory is supposed to be. Sure, there's the obvious fact that sometimes a large group of people change the way they vote and don't change back. But I'm wondering if the realignment theorists want something stronger, like the idea that this always coincides with a dramatic shift in policymaking, and that things then mostly remain constant until the next realignment. That would be a strong and interesting claim, but my first guess is that it's false. (There's a difference, for example, between Medicare-cutting Newt and Medicare-increasing Bush, both of whom came to power since the last realignment.)

"But I'm wondering if the realignment theorists want something stronger, like the idea that this always coincides with a dramatic shift in policymaking, and that things then mostly remain constant until the next realignment. That would be a strong and interesting claim, but my first guess is that it's false."

Sure it would be false. Any kind of sweeping claim like that is going to be false in this area.

As Tolstoy once said:

Stable coalitions are all alike; every realignment realigns in its own way.

Skip the theory. Read the history. The underlying patterns should become quickly apparent, and then you can start piecing together the proximate causes.

Not a political scientist here and haven't read Mayhew, but Petey, I think you may be confusing realignment with realignment theory. The theory is the sweeping claim that you agree should be rejected.

1)Mayhew's book is brilliant, and just shreds stuff like Schelsinger.

2)As for Petey, he fails to understand the basic point that Meyhew is not arguing that party re-alignments never occur. Of course they do, as anyone who compares the Democratic coalitions in 1990 and 2000 would immediately see. The relevant questions are 1)do they, as is often asserted, happen in predictable cycles (Mayhew demonstrates that they clearly do not), 2)are they gradual and erratic or are they created by certain critical elections (Mayhew demonstrates convincincgly that the former is much more accurate), and 3)are party relaignments the primary cause of political change, or the effects of political change. So, in other words, Petey's arguments are simply non-responsive to anything in Mayhew's book.

If realignment theory posits that voters switch their vote with concrete policy changes in mind, then it cleary rests on V.O. Key's rational voter model--which is shaky ground indeed, as Key's model is bunk.

So, in other words, Petey's arguments are simply non-responsive to anything in Mayhew's book.

I find that hard to believe.

"So, in other words, Petey's arguments are simply non-responsive to anything in Mayhew's book."

I'm just incredibly suspicious of the utility of political theory of this genre.

Beyond familiarizing the reader with the basic specialized terminology, (a not unworthwhile side-project), I believe it ends up demonstrating far less than a pragmatic study of history would demonstrate.

Theory is handy stuff in the fine arts. But in the pop arts, which is rather close to electoral coalition politics, theory just gets in the way of understanding.

"Not a political scientist here and haven't read Mayhew, but Petey, I think you may be confusing realignment with realignment theory. The theory is the sweeping claim that you agree should be rejected."

So, if I understand correctly, Mayhew is proclaiming that realignment theory is dead. If so, godspeed to Mayhew. It should be dead.

And to repeat myself for the third time before I shut up: the learning material here is in political history, not political theory.

This may be the internet-phile in me speaking, but I just find it hard to take seriously this academic work (Mayhew's) that I can't find anything describing without buying the book.

What is the really strong reason that electoral realignment isn't true?

And yeah, statistically it seems very empircally true. There of course may be some bad theories for why it happens and those can be debunked from time to time, but

As others have observed, there's really no book to send you to making the case for realignment because post-Mayhew (and indeed for a while before Mayhew; he just pulled it together in a well-written and accessible form) the only people working with it have defined it so far down it's almost meaningless. But the thing is, realignment is only part of a much bigger literature on large-scale political change. "Realignment" and "political change" get conflated because when Key and Burnham originated the theory, realignment was the literature on political change. But people have since branched out.

Off the top of my head, the only halfway decent short, layman-accessible summary of approaches to political change is the first chapter of Plotke, Building a New Democratic Order. But that doesn't cover all of it. I could give you a reading list, but I don't imagine that's what you want.

Petey, you're an idiot. If we want to be specific -- you know the problem with the three doors, with goats behind two of them and a car behind one? You're the guy who keeps insisting it makes no difference whether you switch doors even after someone explains, slowly and using words of one syllable, why it does. Go read Mayhew. Wrestle with his data. If you can come back with a credible response, I might take you seriously.

Tony V, this Wikipedia article does a pretty good job of summarizing the issues and briefly stating Mayhew's position.

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