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Realignment: The Theory That Changed the Way We Think About American Politics

Posted on: Thursday, 24 February 2005, 03:00 CST

Realignment: The Theory That Changed the Way We Think about American Politics. By Theodore Rosenof. (Lanham, Md., and other cities: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc., c. 2003. Pp. xvi, 231. Paper, $26.95, ISBN 0-7425-3105-8; cloth, $75.00, ISBN 0-7425- 3104-X.)

Realignment is a sensible and thorough review of the evolution, application, and ultimate decline of a theory of political behavior that has provided critical insight for both political scientists and historians studying voters, parties, and elections, past and present. The theory is rooted in the post-World War II growth of behavioral analysis in political science and the application of quantitative methods to organize and measure patterns and to discern, with precision, continuity and change in political activity. Out of those efforts grew a range of ways to organize apparently discrete events and open these events to what was believed to be clearer and more coherent analysis. Theodore Rosenof, a historian and self-styled "political junkie," traces the contributions of major figures who developed, fleshed out, and applied the concept (p. 231). Most particularly he examines journalist Samuel Lubell; scholars including V. O. Key and Michigan's Survey Research Center quartet, Angus Campbell, Warren Miller, Philip Coverse, and Donald Stokes; the extraordinarily prolific Walter Dean Burnham; and their students and followers.

The work of these individuals established the centrality of certain patterns in past voting behavior: long periods of hard-rock stability in party support, broken by critical moments of intense change caused by some great national trauma or by significant shifts in demographics that had major political impact. Realignments have been rare, occurring about every thirty years or so (in 1828, 1854- 1860, 1894-1896, and 1928-1936). But they have also been critical, due to the changes they wrought in electoral behavior and the new policy directions they set as one major party dominated in each successive party system, while the other fell back until the next realignment.

Critical realignment theory swept much before it, coming to dominate how analysis understood what had happened, how individual elections fit into broader patterns, and even what was going to happen in future elections, as each fell within the parameters set by well-measured moments of continuity and change. Yet, in the midst of the turmoil of the 1960s, this well-established pattern no longer held; no discernible realignment occurred as voters apparently lost faith in politics and the parties and, instead of realigning, dealigned from their parties to become highly volatile actors at the polls. No party was dominant for very long as their supporters became less faithful and more unpredictable from election to election. The theory seemed to have played out. Still, scholars valiantly tried to refine and adjust their realignment-driven reading of the political world with, as Rosenof argues, quite mixed and often unpersuasive results. The end has been confusion and much uncertainty about what once was a sturdy edifice of political analysis.

Interestingly, in the era when realignment theory no longer seemed adequate to explain a fragmented political landscape, one part of America's electoral world, the South, went through a traditional-style realignment due to the massive trauma caused by the racial revolution. The region's dominant party, the Democrats, consequently declined, and the Republicans accreted power. In traditional fashion, the Republicans became the majority party in the section, thanks to the constant support of a steady body of voters in election after election.

All of this is well covered by Rosenof, who has digested a vast literature and sums it up cogently. The result is a useful primer for anyone interested in the evolution of a major theory that shaped political research for over forty years. Much of what Rosenof has to report and his comments about it will be familiar to scholars working in the field, but others will learn a great deal about American voting and the effective and ineffective use of theory to understand it.

Cornell University JOEL H. SILBEY

Copyright Southern Historical Association Feb 2005

Source: Journal of Southern History, The

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