¹ Ladd, E. C. Jr, and Hadley, C. D., Transformations of the American Party System (New York: Norton, 1975), p. 24.Google Scholar Key's article, ‘A Theory of Critical Elections’, appeared in Journal of Politics, XVII (1955), 3–18Google Scholar, and was followed by ‘Secular Realignment and the Party System’, Journal of Politics, XXI (1959), 198–210.Google Scholar However, Paul David, in a Brookings lecture given within a few weeks of Key's first article, referred to party realignment as having ‘attracted the attention of political scientists almost continuously for at least thirty years’. But the sense was more restrictive, for while it had been happening as long as parties existed ‘Currently, however, the phrase is used primarily to refer to the increasing division between the parties along class and economic lines’. Research Frontiers in Politics and Government (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1955). pp. 189. 192.Google Scholar

² Lubell, S., The Future of American Politics (London: Hamilton, 1952), p. 200.Google Scholar

³ Key, , ‘A Theory of Critical Elections’, pp. 4–11.Google Scholar

⁴ They were elaborated by Burnham, W. D. in Chambers, W. N. and Burnham, W. D., eds, The American Party Systems (London: Oxford University Press. 1967; 2nd edn. 1975). pp. 309–11Google Scholar; and in his own Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics (New York: Norton. 1970), pp. 6–10.Google Scholar They are usefully distinguished by Petrocik, J. R., Party Coalitions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 3–14.Google Scholar Problems of definition are carefully dissected by McMichael, L. G. and Trilling, R. J. in Campbell, B. A. and Trilling, R. J., eds, Realignment in American Politics (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980), Chap. 2, especially pp. 23–32.Google Scholar

⁵ Key, , ‘Secular Realignment and the Party System’, pp. 198–210Google Scholar; Kleppner, Kleppnerin P. et al. , The Evolution of American Electoral Systems (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981), p. 7.Google Scholar Cf. Burnham, , Critical Elections, pp. 99–100Google Scholar; and Campbell, A., Converse, P. E., Miller, W. E. and Stokes, D. E., The American Voter: An Abridgement (New York: Wiley, 1964), p. 277.Google Scholar

⁶ Schattschneider, E. E., The Semisovereign People (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960). p. 86.Google Scholar

⁷ For an early emphasis on the ‘agenda’ concept see Ladd, E. C. Jr., American Political Parties (New York: Norton, 1970), pp. 241–2.Google Scholar

⁸ Elections, other than realigning ones, were labelled in a later work by the authors of The American Voter as ‘Maintaining’ (the majority party won), ‘Deviating’ (it lost), and ‘Reinstating’ (it won after losing): Campbell, A. et al. , Elections and the Political Order (New York: Wiley, 1966), Chapters 3 and 4.Google Scholar G. M. Pomper added ‘Converting’ elections, those (like 1896) which reinforced the stronger party in ‘Classification of Presidential Elections’, Journal of Politics, XXIV (1967), 535–66.Google Scholar Cf. Campbell, et al. , The American Voter, pp. 274–6.Google Scholar Almost every ‘deviating’ election was instantly called ‘realigning’ by eager but premature prophets.

⁹ D. Nixon in Campbell, and Trilling, , Realignment, pp. 56–61Google Scholar; Clubb, J. M., Flanigan, W. H. and Zingale, N. H., Partisan Realignment (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1980), pp. 91 and 98.Google Scholar The main identifying efforts were by Pomper, , ‘Classification of Presidential Elections’Google Scholar and Burnham, , Critical Elections.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Ladd, and Hadley, , Transformations, pp. 257–66Google Scholar; ‘two-tiered’, especially pp. 259, 265–6Google Scholar; ticket-splitting, especially pp. 293–301; Burnham, , Critical Elections, pp. 106–20Google Scholar; De Vries, W. and Tarrance, V. L., The Ticket-Splitter (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W. B. Eerdmans, 1972).Google Scholar

¹¹ Sundquist, J., ‘Whither the American Party System? – Revisited’, Political Science Quarterly, XCVIII (Winter 1983–1984), 573–93, p. 575CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Broder, D. S., The Party's Over (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), pp. 190–3Google Scholar; cf. Burnham, in Chambers, and Burnham, , The American Party Systems, p. 288.Google Scholar

¹² Phillips, K. D., The Emerging Republican Majority (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday- Anchor, 1970)Google Scholar; Phillips, K. D., Post-Conservative America (New York: Random House. 1982; Vintage, 1983), pp. 55–61.Google Scholar His claim that Watergate aborted the change (affecting even the 1972 election) is contradicted by Kelley, S. Jr, Interpreting Elections (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 115–16, 122–3.Google Scholar

¹³ Kelley, , Interpreting Elections, Chapter 9Google Scholar: Kelley's whole book warns against exaggerating the importance of single elections. Also, Pomper, G. et al. , The Election of 1980 (Chatham, N. J.: Chatham House, 1981), pp. 75–6, 85–92, 113–17Google Scholar; Schneider, W. in Ranney, A., ed., The American Elections of 1980 (Washington: American Enterprise Institute, 1981), pp. 240–62Google Scholar; Williams, P. M. and Reilly, S. J., ‘The 1980 U.S. Election and After’, Political Studies, XXX (1982), 371–92, pp. 371–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Abramson, P. R., Aldrich, J. H. and Rohde, D. W., Change and Continuity in the 1980 Elections (Washington: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2nd edn, 1983), pp. 231–40.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Sundquist, J., Dynamics of the Party System (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1973; 2nd edn, 1983).Google Scholar Among earlier studies, see on the 1890s, Burnham, , Critical Elections, pp. 74–90.Google Scholar On the New Deal, Ladd, and Hadley, , Transformations; Chapter 1Google Scholar; Andersen, K., The Creation of a Democratic Majority 1928–1936 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Beck, P. A., ‘A Socialization Theory of Partisan Realignment’ in Niemi, R. G. and Weisberg, H. F., eds. Controversies in American Voting Behaviour (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman. 1976), pp. 398–405Google Scholar; Nie, N. H., Verba, S. and Petrocik, J. R., The Changing American Voter (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976), Chapter 5.Google Scholar On both, Clubb, et al. , Partisan Realignment, pp. 254–62.Google Scholar

¹⁵ The Foreword to Chambers, and Burnham, , The American Party SystemsGoogle Scholar, describes the book as a ‘virtually unique collaboration’ between authors drawn from both disciplines.

¹⁶ Nie, et al. , The Changing American Voter, Chapters 4, 13, 14Google Scholar; Petrocik, , Party Coalitions, Chapters 5 to 7Google Scholar; Sundquist, , Dynamics, 2nd edn, pp. 403–8Google Scholar; Campbell, and Trilling, , Realignment, pp. 76–80. 85–108Google Scholar; Pomper, G., Voters' Choice (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), especially pp. 24–35.Google Scholar For earlier comments, Burnham, , Critical Elections, pp. 120–32.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Price, D. E., Bringing Back the Parties (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly. 1984), p. 11Google Scholar: based on figures from the Michigan Center for Political Studies. Also (less up to date) in Hill, D. B. and Luttbeg, N. R., Trends in American Electoral Behaviour (Itasca, Ill.: F. E. Peacock, 1980). p. 34Google Scholar: Crotty, W. J. and Jacobson, G., American Parties In Decline (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1980), pp. 27–8.Google Scholar

¹⁸ For presidential contests, Crotty, and Jacobson, , American Parties, p. 31Google Scholar (though 1968 and 1980 were notable exceptions: see Abramson, et al. , Change and Continuity, p. 177Google Scholar). For other contests, Petrocik, , Party Coalitions, p. 159Google Scholar, and his paper quoted by Crotty, and Jacobson, , American Parties, pp. 32–3Google Scholar; and, for state and local ticket-splitting 1952–72, Clubb, et al. , Partisan Realignment, p. 130.Google Scholar However, in House elections 1952–80 white voters showed the same pattern as in presidential ones: Abramson, et al. , Change and Continuity, p. 217.Google Scholar (All analyse Michigan figures.) ‘Pure’ Independents confirmed, but ‘leaners’ contradicted, the old view that they were poorly educated and unideological: Schneider, W., ‘Antipartisanship in America’, in Bogdanor, V., ed., Parties and Democracy in Britain and America (New York: Praeger, 1984), pp. 116–17.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Mayhew's, D. R. article, ‘Congressional Elections: The Case of the Vanishing Marginals’, Polity, VI (1974), 295–317CrossRefGoogle Scholar, was a pioneer, like Cummings, M. C., Congressmen and the Electorate (New York: Free Press; and London: Collier Macmillan, 1966).Google ScholarFiorina, M. P., Congress: Keystone of the Washington Establishment (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; Mann, T. E., Unsafe at Any Margin (Washington: American Enterprise Institute, 1978)Google Scholar; and Tufte, E. R., Political Control of the Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978)Google Scholar contributed from different angles to the growing interest. A spate of books and articles followed the collection of extensive data on the 1978 elections. Senatorial contests were not included until Hinckley's, B.Congressional Elections (Washington: Congressional Quarterly, 1981)Google Scholar and Jacobson's, G.The Politics of Congressional Elections (Boston: Little, Brown, 1983).Google Scholar

²⁰ Schneider, in Lipset, S. M., ed., Party Coalitions in the 1980s (San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1981), esp. pp. 226–31Google Scholar; Petrocik, , Party Coalitions, Chapter 2.Google Scholar P. A. Beck shares that view: ‘Context, Choice and Consequence…’ (paper for American Political Science Association annual meeting, 1983), p. 20.Google Scholar Contrast the stress on across-the-board rather than differential change by Clubb, et al. , Partisan Realignment, pp. 102–6, 114–15.Google Scholar

²¹ Burnham, , Critical Elections, pp. 173, 188, 191–3Google Scholar; in Lipset, , Party Coalitions, p. 386Google Scholar; in ‘Eclipse of the Democratic Party’, Democracy, II (1982), 7–17, p. 17; etc.Google Scholar

²² Wattenberg, M. P., ‘The Decline of Political Partisanship in the U.S.’, American Political Science Review, LXXV (1981), 941–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Pomper, , Voters' Choice, p. 183Google Scholar; Schneider's criticism in ‘Antipartisanship’, pp. 105–12.Google Scholar

²³ Hays, S. P., ‘Politics and Society, Beyond the Political Party’Google Scholar, in Kleppner, , The Evolution (quotation on p. 263).Google Scholar

²⁴ On that debate, see Andersen, , The CreationGoogle Scholar; Erikson, R. S. and Tedin, K. L. in American Political Science Review, LXXV (1981), 951–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beck, , ‘Context, Choice and Consequence’, p. 21.Google Scholar

²⁵ Beck, , ‘A Socialization Theory…’, pp. 402–6 and 409Google Scholar on youth; and in American Political Science Review, LXXI (1977), 477–96Google Scholar, on the South; Campbell, and Trilling, , Realignment, pp. 76–80 (youth), pp. 74–6, 85–108Google Scholar (South); Petrocik, , Party Coalitions, pp. 82–7, 102–8 (South)Google Scholar; pp. 98–101, 146–8 (youth). On gradual change and its workings, Clubb, et al. , Partisan Realignment, pp. 105–6, 114–15 and 257Google Scholar; Norpoth, H. and Rusk, J. G., ‘Partisan Dealignment, (1964–76)’, American Political Science Review, LXXVI (1982), 522–37, especially pp. 534–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and particularly Carmines, E. G. and Stimson, J. A., ‘Issue Evolution, Population Replacement and Normal Partisan Change’, American Political Science Review, LXXV (1981), 107–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also, on the South only: Converse, in Campbell, et al. , Elections, Chapter 12Google Scholar; Sundquist, , Dynamics, Chapter 12 and (2nd edn) Chapter 16Google Scholar; Ladd, and Hadley, , Transformations, Chapter 3.Google Scholar

²⁶ Carmines, and Stimson, , ‘Issue Evolution…’Google Scholar; and their unpublished paper (with J. M. McIver), ‘Unrealised Partisanship: a Theory of Dealignment’. Cf. Petrocik, , Party Coalitions pp. 146–53.Google Scholar

²⁷ Burnham, , Critical Elections, pp. 4, 136–7 and 178–83Google Scholar; Beck, P. A., ‘The Electoral Cycle and Patterns of American Politics’, British Journal of Political Science, IX (1979), 129–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar ‘Prescientific’ writers like Schattschneider, The Semisovereign People, had taken the connection for granted.

²⁸ Burnham, , Critical Elections, pp. 9–10Google Scholar; Kleppner, , The Evolution, pp. 9–11.Google Scholar Also Ginsberg, B., ‘Elections and Public Policy’, American Political Science Review, LXX (1976), 41–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, analysing differences between party platforms in both crisis and normal periods.

²⁹ Clubb, et al. , Partisan Realignment, pp. 183–4, 195–204, 212 and 269–70Google Scholar; Kleppner, , The Evolution, pp. 14–16.Google Scholar Also, on Congress only. Beck, , ‘The Electoral Cycle’, pp. 144–52Google Scholar, and ‘Context, Choice and Consequence’, pp. 27–8Google Scholar; Campbell, and Trilling, , Realignment, Chapters 8 and 9Google Scholar; Sinclair, B., Congressional Realignment 1925–1978 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982), especially Chapter 9Google Scholar; Brady, D. with Stewart, J., ‘Congressional Party Realignment and the Transformation of Public Policy’, American Journal of Political Science, XXVI (1982), 332–60.Google Scholar

³⁰ Clubb, et al. , Partisan Realignment, pp. 213, 244–5, 259–60 and 268–9.Google Scholar

³¹ Campbell, and Trilling, . Realignment, Chapters 10Google Scholar (K. Meier and K. Kramer on the bureaucracy) and 11 (D. Adamany on the Court). Cf. Beck, , ‘The Electoral Cycle’, pp. 151–2 on the Court.Google Scholar

³² Kleppner, , The Evolution, p. 12.Google Scholar This view was adumbrated by Burnham, , Critical Elections, pp. 91–2, 132–4, 173–4 and 191–3.Google Scholar and developed by him with growing insistence and alarm: compare the first and second editions of Chambers, and Burnham, , The American Party Systems, Chapter 10, esp. pp. 305–7, and 2nd edn, Chapter 11, pp. 354–5.Google Scholar

³³ Beck, , ‘The Electoral Cycle’, pp. 135–41Google Scholar

³⁴ Beck, , ‘The Electoral Cycle’, pp. 143–55Google Scholar, discusses all but the plebiscitary political appeals. On those, see his ‘Context, Choice and Consequence’, pp. 22 and 28–9Google Scholar; Phillips, K., Post Conservative America, pp. 225–7Google Scholar; Ladd, E. C. Jr, in Political Science Quarterly, XCVI (1981), 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Other features briefly suggested as perhaps specific to dealignment periods include declining turnout (Phillips, pp. 100 and 103), and also both incrementalism in policy-making, and what Theodore Lowi has called ‘interest-group liberalism’ (Beck, , ‘Context, Choice and Consequence’, p. 29).Google Scholar

³⁵ Beck, , ‘Context, Choice and Consequence’, p. 29.Google Scholar

³⁶ In The Deadlock of Democracy: Four-Party Politics in America (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Spectrum edn. 1964)Google Scholar, J. M. Burns argued that Republicans and Democrats each had a conservative wing dominant in Congress, and a liberal wing from which came candidates for executive offices. There never has been anything similar in Britain.

³⁷ On the ideological polarization, evidence in P. M. Williams' chapter in Bogdanor, , Parties and Democracy, pp. 21–5Google Scholar; Schneider, , ‘Antipartisanship’, in Parties and Democracy, pp. 100–1, 117–19.Google Scholar and in Lipset, , Party Coalitions, Chapter 9Google Scholar, For the perception of it, Pomper, , Voters' Choice, Chapter 8.Google Scholar For the growth of issue voting, Pomper, , Voters' Choice, Chapters 7–9Google Scholar; Nie, et al. , Changing American VoterGoogle Scholar, especially Chapters 10. 12, 16 and (2nd edn) 20. For the United Kingdom in 1979, Särlvik, B. and Crewe, I., Decade of Dealignment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), especially pp. 320–5.Google Scholar

³⁸ See for Britain, I. Crewe in Bogdanor, , Parties and Democracy, Chapter 4Google Scholar; for the United States, Schneider, , ‘Antipartisanship’Google Scholar, also in Bogdanor, , Parties and Democracy, pp. 103–14.Google Scholar He argues that trust in government varies as the respondent's party gains or loses power, but has fallen sharply in all categories after ‘a long sequence of events interpreted by the public as “bad news”’ (p. 113). Though Wattenberg's neutrals (fn. 22 above) showed no hostility to Democrats or Republicans, they disliked parties as such (p. 106 ff).

³⁹ Schneider, , ‘Antipartisanship’, pp. 117–21.Google Scholar On cross-cutting issues, Sundquist, , Dynamics, 2nd edn, pp. 403–11 and 437–9Google Scholar; Särlvik, and Crewe, , Decade, Chapter 7.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Broder, D. S. in Lipset, , Party Coalitions, p. 11Google Scholar; Sabato, L. J., The Rise of Political Consultants (New York: Basic Books, 1981), pp. 293–4.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Phillips, , Post-Conservative America, pp. 228–32Google Scholar, stresses how abnormal was Anderson's constituency.

⁴² Because parliamentary voting figures exist only at the constituency level, and local figures, though available by smaller units (wards etc.) are hard to use for comparative purposes because of low turnout and erratic patterns of candidatures in local elections.

⁴³ Ladd, and Hadley, , Transformations, pp. 257–66Google Scholar; the phrase occurs on pp. 259, 265–6 and 271.

⁴⁴ Clubb, et al. , Partisan Realignment, pp. 290–1Google Scholar; Sabato, , The Rise, pp. 290–7 and 333–6.Google Scholar Benjamin Ginsberg, however, argues that the shift from labour-intensive to capital-intensive methods is bound to benefit the Right, and may indeed turn out to be ‘the functional equivalent of a critical electoral realignment’: ‘Electoral Politics and the Redistribution of Political Power’ (paper for the annual meeting of American Political Science Association, 1983), p. 2. The Republicans have adapted far more rapidly and successfully than the Democrats.

⁴⁵ They have been painstakingly catalogued by Norton, P., Dissension in the House of Commons 1945–1974 (London: Macmillan, 1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dissension in the House of Commons 1974–1979 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980)Google Scholar; and more argumentatively, The Commons in Perspective (Oxford: Martin Robertson. 1981), Chapter 9.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Butler, D. and Stokes, D., Political Change in Britain (London: Macmillan, 1969).Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Särlvik, and Crewe, , with Alt, J., also wrote ‘Partisan Dealignment in Britain 1964–74’, British Journal of Political Science, VII (1977), 129–90.Google Scholar In the United States the corresponding revisionist authors were Nie, et al. , The Changing American Voter. They remark (pp. 156–7n)Google Scholar that party identification seemed far less significant in Britain; but cf. Crewe, in Bogdanor, , Parties and Democracy, pp. 76–9.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Finer, S. E., ed., Adversary Politics and Electoral Reform (London: Anthony Wigram, 1975)Google Scholar; Finer, S. E., The Changing British Party System 1945–1979 (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1980)Google Scholar; Johnson, N., In Search of the Constitution (Oxford: Pergamon, 1977)Google Scholar; Butler, D., ed., Coalitions in British Politics (London: Macmillan, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bogdanor, V., The People and the Party System (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981)Google Scholar; and Multi-Party Politics and the Constitution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Beer, S., Britain Against Itself (New York: Norton, 1982)Google Scholar; his more favourable Modern British Politics (London: Faber, 1965)Google Scholar was bravely reissued at the same time. See also the deliberately more descriptive Drucker, H. M., ed., Multi-Party Britain (London: Macmillan, 1979).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁹ Crewe, I., ‘The Electorate: Partisan Dealignment Ten Years On’, in West European Politics, VI (1983), 183–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also in that issue, J. Curtice on the 1983 election and D. T. Denver on the SDP-Liberal Alliance.

⁵⁰ Clarke, P. F., Lancashire and the New Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blewett, N., The Peers, the Parties and the People: The General Elections of 1910 (London: Macmillan, 1972)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for realignment, e.g. pp. 40–2, Chapter 1 note 13, Chapter 2 note 52.

⁵¹ McKibbin, R., The Evolution of the Labour Party 1910–1924 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974).Google Scholar He calls his post-war chapter ‘The end of the party of progress’.

⁵² Wald, K. D., Crosses on the Ballot (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983).CrossRefGoogle Scholar The same influences, he argues, operated later and less strongly against Anglican schools, so that working-class conservatism survived better.

⁵³ Wald, K. D., ‘Realignment Theory and British Party Development: A Critique’, Political Studies, XXX (1982), 207–20, pp. 219–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁴ Burnham, , Critical Elections, p. 176.Google Scholar In ‘The Eclipse’ (p. 8). while denying realignment status to 1980. he accepts that Reagan achieved more sweeping changes than previous leaders unaided by acute crisis or exceptional majorities in Congress.

⁵⁵ Wald, , ‘Realignment Theory’, p. 220.Google Scholar Burnham made much the same point: Critical Elections, pp. 169 and 181–3Google Scholar; and in Chambers, and Burnham, , The American Party Systems, p. 289.Google Scholar Key himself hints at this in his original article: ‘A Theory of Critical Elections’, pp. 17–18.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Wald, , ‘Realignment Theory’, p. 218.Google Scholar By no means all his compatriots agree: high-intensity elections which depress turnout by discouraging supporters of the disadvantaged party are specifically included by McMichael and Trilling (Campbell, and Trilling, , eds, Realignment, p. 47Google Scholar). The 1886 and 1906 elections in Britain, which Wald disqualifies, are examples. Phillips, , The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 100, agrees with Wald.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Crewe, I., ‘Prospects for Party Realignment: An Anglo-American Comparison’, Comparative Politics (1980), especially pp. 394–7.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Wald, , ‘Realignment Theory’, pp. 209–11.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Kelley, , Interpreting Elections, pp. 176–82 and 218–19Google Scholar; Williams, and Reilly, , ‘The 1980 U.S. Election and After’, pp. 374–6Google Scholar; Abramson, et al. , Change and Continuity, Chapter 5Google Scholar; cf. Pomper, , Voters' Choice, pp. 27–8.Google Scholar For Britain, Crewe, , ‘The Electorate’, p. 194.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ However, while this is true in the United Kingdom over the country as a whole, the reverse is the case at the constituency level where each side has consolidated its grip on its own strongholds: Crewe, , ‘The Electorate’ pp. 206–8 and 212.Google Scholar