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There’s a lot of excellent scholarship about the ideological transformation of American political parties — Hans Noel’s book from a few years back, and more recently, Sam Rosenfeld’s history of responsible party ideas, The Polarizers. Famously incoherent on policy stances, American parties are finally sorted by ideology
But more recently, another strain of literature has emerged questioning the role of ideology in American political life. Donald Kinder and Nathan Kalmoe published a book last year that finds Americans remain about as indifferent to ideology as they were when Philip Converse did his pathbreaking study in the 1960s. They argue that “if anything, ideological identification seems more a reflection of political decisions than a cause: ideological identification as a mere summary.”
On the institutional side, Frances Lee suggests that conflict in the Senate is driven not just by different ideas about policy, but also by the different political interests of senators. In Uncivil Agreement, Lilliana Mason notes the “team” mentality that defines partisan polarization: “Democrats and Republicans have chosen ideological teams, and their sense of belonging to one side has divided them more powerfully than their policy differences have.”
These works all suggest that the differences that divide American political parties are less about worldviews or broad principles of politics, and more about teams, power, and interests. It’s a less redeeming vision of party division than the ideological one, which at least told us that all the rancor was about something. But the mounting evidence is pretty compelling.
As we head into a lively summer of congressional primaries — foreshadowing the presidential nomination contest — it seems worth asking what the implications are for politics within parties. Naturally, a nerd fight has already broken out among political scientists. Seth Masket writes here at Mischiefs of Faction that the debates over which direction to go in 2020 are ideological at their core. Matt Grossmann and Dave Hopkins, who have written about the group-based nature of the Democratic Party, see the emerging debates differently.
My observations of the Democratic primaries so far have been that ideology seems present but often submerged beneath other factors. Discussion of progressive priorities tends to set up “establishment Democrats” or the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee as the key foil, not moderate or centrist views specifically. Sometimes these conversations are about group appeals — to women, African Americans, or, as Grossmann pointed out on Twitter, veterans or teachers.
One of the big questions, I think, is whether the dynamics that appear to shape the tension between the parties are also at work in the conflicts within them. Historically, this has tended to be the case, with major issues — slavery and civil rights come to mind — running through both parties. But elements of our current party situation are unique developments, including having such well-sorted (but organizationally weak) parties.
The frequency with which ideological questions in the Democratic Party seem to hide behind procedural, or sometimes group-based, veneers, also brings to mind an older strain of thought in American politics. In a book published in 1955, political scientist Louis Hartz argued that American politics only featured one major ideological orientation, Lockean liberalism. The defining characteristics were beliefs in individual freedom, private property, and democracy. The country’s lack of a feudal past meant there were no other overarching ideas about how to organize society, achieve self-governance, or define the relationship between the state and the economy. Hartz’s argument offered an answer to the question, “Why no socialism — no workers’ party as a major electoral player — in the United States?”
Although this question has faded from the forefront of political science (occasionally replaced with questions about the relatively meager US welfare state), it might be relevant to the nature of the debate within the Democratic Party. Obviously, as the standard-bearer for the progressive wing of the party, Bernie Sanders has long identified as a Democratic Socialist and has advocated for much greater wealth redistribution than many Americans were used to hearing about. On the other hand, some observers have suggested that Sanders has the policy positions of, more or less, a New Deal Democrat.
There have been lots of critiques of Hartz’s analysis — certainly not everyone was on board with the basic premise. But the basic contours of the argument that American politics doesn’t have much room for dramatic differences in political philosophy, combined with new data on the limited role of ideology in public attitudes, suggest that there may not be a lot of space for progressives to maneuver.
There’s actually some evidence that younger voters are open to alternatives to capitalism. The question is whether candidates, and the various organized groups that support them, might be willing to take the risk of asking serious ideological questions, or offering a distinct ideological alternative to what the Democratic Party currently stands for.
The other problem is race. How do current race issues, which both parties contending with in different ways, fit into a left-right way of understanding ideology that’s rooted in economic considerations? To reduce a whole bunch of complicated history, in the mid-20th century, we could characterize racial liberalism as favoring active government protection of civil rights and racial conservatism as opposing government intervention in that area. For Southern politicians of that era, you could also define it in terms of positions on segregation.
To be sure, we have contemporary definitions of what it means to be racially liberal or conservative. Sean McElwee’s recent analysis relies heavily on questions about whether people believe African Americans’ disadvantages are the product of institutions, historical legacies, and ongoing discrimination, or whether they can be attributed to individual factors like hard work. Differences on these questions have become increasingly predictive of political attitudes and behavior.
What’s less clear is what this might mean for ideological divides within the Democratic Party. (Or the Republicans, but this post is already long enough.) You could maybe see divisions over the extent to which different levels of government might be responsible for righting historical wrongs or protecting citizens from discrimination. But the exact nature of those debates is somewhat difficult to imagine. Once you’ve acknowledged that structural inequality exists, it’s hard to make a good argument for incremental solutions if your primary opponent is offering something stronger.
The economically driven left wing of the party has had some challenges with race, though that’s certainly true of the “establishment” wing as well. There’s no shortage of ideological options that address race directly — see, for example, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s work on race and capitalism, or Michael Dawson’s history of black political thought in the US. But a debate about ideas that seriously challenge the foundations of the status quo would be a much bigger fight than what we’ve seen in this primary cycle.
So as 2020 grows closer, Democrats will probably fight over whether to move to the left or the center, and about how to reconcile the priorities of different groups. It’s less clear how much these debates will be over core governing principles, or how the role of ideology in the broader political arena will shape intraparty contests.
Hartz’s ideas have fallen out of fashion, and perhaps it’s Converse’s observations about ideological innocence and incoherence that really inform what’s going on now. But there’s something worth thinking about there. American politics features plenty of ideas that aren’t totally consistent with a “liberal consensus.” Incentives and opportunities to debate those ideas in mainstream politics are scarcer.
There are good reasons to enforce shared principles and leave some ideas out. But as we keep learning, just because an idea is out of the mainstream doesn’t mean it goes away.
