The Emergence of the New Deal Party System: A Problem in Historical Analysis of Voter Behavior

TLDR: In the last two decades, research in historical voting behavior has revealed striking stability of partisanship over extended periods as measured by relative constancy in the percentages of the vote obtained by the major parties as mentioned in this paper.

Abstract: In the last two decades, research in historical voting behavior has revealed striking stability of partisanship over extended periods as measured by relative constancy in the percentages of the vote obtained by the major parties. Students of electoral history maintain that we have had only five party systems since the founding of the nation: I789-I820, The Experimental System; 1828-1854/60, The Democratizing System; I860-1893, The Civil War System; 1894-1932, The Industrialist System; I932-?, The New Deal System.' Political scientists have developed a typology of elections in their examination of the persistence of party systems and the changes from one system to another, concluding that each transition of this kind embraces a "critical" election. This inquiry considers literature dealing with the shift from the fourth to the fifth party system. This article makes no pretense of breaking new ground in dealing with underlying phenomena but calls existing theory into account. Its author is a historian whose main purpose is to remind his colleagues that they should not be so willing to accept other people's "myths," that, indeed, they must do not only their own pick-and-shovel work but also their own theorizing. This reminder, to be sure, is not appropriate for all historians since some of the studies which undermine the myth in question are the work of historians. There is considerable evidence, however, that many other historians, in accepting the election of 1928 as critical, have overlooked findings by historians and political scientists which vitiate this concept. The primary aim of this essay should be borne in mind, for the contention that the delineation of critical periods weakens the concept of critical elections, for example, is not presumed to be news to political scientists. The point is that it will be news to many historians, particularly those who not only accept the concept of the election of 1928 as a critical election but support this