The Two Majorities: The Issue Context of Modern American Politics (Interpreting American Politics) - Hardcover

Shafer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0801850185 ISBN 13: 9780801850189

Publisher: John Hopkins University Press, 1995

Synopsis

Why do Democratic political candidates avoid the one issue on which the general public is most in agreement with them? Why do Republicans consistently raise the one issue their advisors urge them to avoid? Why do voters so often exhibit patterns of policy preference vastly different from what analysts and strategists predict? And why do these same voters consistently cast ballots that ensure the continuation of "divided government?" This book attempts to resolve many of the seeming contradictions in the contemporary American political scene. Drawing on a large sample of all Americans conducted by the Gallup organization, it argues that the recent turbulence in American politics is in some ways superficial. Below the surface, it contends, the political preferences of the American people remain remarkably stable. The authors find that American public opinion is organized around two clusters of issues, both of which are favoured by a majority of voters: social welfare, social insurance and civil rights, which constitute an economic welfare factor (associated with Democrats); and cultural values, civil liberties and foreign relations, a cultural/national factor (associated with Republicans). They conclude that each party's best strategy for success is not to try to take popular positions on the whole range of issues, but to focus attention on the party's most successful cluster of issues. The failure of either party to do so explains why neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have so far been able to replace the recent period of political turmoil with a new period of political stability.

About this title

About the Authors

Byron E. Shafer is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of American Government at Oxford University. He is the author of Quiet Revolution: The Struggle for the Democratic Party and the Shaping of Post-Reform Politics and Bifurcated Politics: Evolution and Reform in the National Party Convention.

William J. M. Claggett is associate professor of political science at Florida State University.

Edition details

• Publisher: John Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801850185
• ISBN 13: 9780801850189
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256