Party Politics is Transactional Politics

The theory of associational party building, which Didi Kuo and I have written about, started with my in-depth look at the work of Harry Reid in Nevada. It is perhaps not surprising then that of all the commentary on the 2024 Election in the last two weeks, the one that has resonated most with me is that of Adam Jentleson (former Chief of Staff to Harry Reid). Jentleson makes three points:

  1. The electorate is not as polarized we have “been conditioned to think” in our echo chamber.
  2. The 2024 Election indicates the potential for realignment.
  3. The politics of that realignment remain fluid, but for Democrats to succeed in winning that fight, they will have to accept that party politics is transactional politics.

The Democratic Party’s inability to form a supermajority, Jentleson argues, is a result of its failure to perform the essential mediating function of a party: prioritizing winning over placating the demands of the ideological issue-based groups in its partisan network.

The flip side to that is that the problem with the Democratic Party’s partisan network is that it is filled with coalition partners who are fundamentally anti-party and do not get transactional politics. He does not say this, exactly.

He also does not say that a critical difference between the two parties is that while elites dominate both, Republican Party elites are fundamentally transactional in their relationship to the party: “Do what it takes to get into office, and then when you get there, we expect you to do this and that.”

A key measure of party building is the ability to win office, a point Didi and I made at great length. Without power, associational parties cannot deliver for their constituents. What we did not highlight was our slightly different conceptions of party institutions. I have long accepted a broader conception of the party as a partisan network.

The 2024 Election leaves me reconsidering. Perhaps Didi and others are right that networked political parties are fundamentally different institutional beasts than traditional federated parties— profoundly weaker, at least when their partisan network is dominated by groups that do not prioritize political power over ideological purity.

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