Regional Variations in the Realignment of American Politics, 1944-2004

Objective. Perennial questions in electoral studies are what constitutes realignment, and when and where do realignments occur? Using the concepts of critical and secular realignments as a framework, we model change in the end product of realignment, election outcomes. We test for secular and critic...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social science quarterly 2006-09, Vol.87 (3), p.494-518
Main Authors: Bullock, Charles S., Hoffman, Donna R., Gaddie, Ronald Keith
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Borderlands
Civil rights movements
Election results
Elections
Electoral results
General studies. Ideologies
Historical perspectives
Paradigms
Partisanship
Party identification
Policy making
Political change
Political elections
Political parties
Political partisanship
Political sociology
Political theory
Politics
Politics and Policy
Post-war history
Presidential elections
Realignment
Regional politics
Regional variations
Regions
Sociology
State elections
Statistical significance
Time series
Trends
U.S.A
United States Senate
USA
Voters
World War II
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Summary:Objective. Perennial questions in electoral studies are what constitutes realignment, and when and where do realignments occur? Using the concepts of critical and secular realignments as a framework, we model change in the end product of realignment, election outcomes. We test for secular and critical changes in partisan strength across six geographic regions of the United States, focusing on officeholding data at both the federal and state legislative level. Methods. Using an interrupted time-series model, we examine evidence for secular realignment and posit five critical interventions that have affected American politics since World War II. Results. Our findings suggest that there are elements of both critical and secular realignments at work with different patterns in each region, and that different regions have been affected by a variety of elections associated with critical events since 1944. Conclusions. The collapse of Republican hegemony in the Northeast and Pacific West has gone largely unnoticed, buried in the intense examination of the growth of the Republican Party in the American South. The 1994 election is the most prominent in terms of its impact on seat holding by the parties at both the state and national level, and constitutes a realigning election.
ISSN:0038-4941
1540-6237
DOI:10.1111/j.1540-6237.2006.00393.x