{"id":563,"date":"2020-09-01T13:06:13","date_gmt":"2020-09-01T13:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/north-carolina\/articles\/building-democracy-2-0-parties-and-the-challenge-of-voter-engagement\/"},"modified":"2020-09-01T13:06:13","modified_gmt":"2020-09-01T13:06:13","slug":"building-democracy-2-0-parties-and-the-challenge-of-voter-engagement","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/north-carolina\/articles\/building-democracy-2-0-parties-and-the-challenge-of-voter-engagement\/","title":{"rendered":"Building Democracy 2.0: Parties and the Challenge of Voter Engagement"},"template":"","class_list":["post-563","article","type-article","status-publish","hentry","article_type-blog-post"],"acf":{"details":{"summary":"This is part 6 in a multi-part series examining ways to build an inclusive democracy for the 21st century.","featured_image":null,"article_type":162,"authors":["{\"site_id\":\"68\",\"post_type\":\"person\",\"post_id\":555}"],"related_issues":false,"related_work":false,"location":null},"sidebar":{"helper_enable_sidebar":false,"helper_media_contact":{"heading":"Media Contact","manually_enter_person":false,"person":null,"name":"","role":"","phone":"","email":""},"helper_links_downloads":{"heading":"Links & Downloads","links":null}},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_wysiwyg":{"content":"Introduction<\/strong>\r\n\r\nWe have now seen<\/a> the close relationship between political parties and democracy.\u00a0 Within the first decade of this nation\u2019s existence, parties emerged as an effective tool for democracy by clarifying differences on major issues, advancing legislative agendas, demanding accountability on votes and seeking electoral support to create new working majorities.\u00a0 Democracy requires a government capable of managing conflict, which arises from a free-for-all of factions vying for influence.\u00a0 Political parties provide an institutional framework for these factions to coalesce and advance their agendas.\u00a0 The competition among parties ultimately leads to outcomes in the public domain. \u00a0Given our cooperative nature, the idea of banding together into parties to compete in the political realm seemed natural enough, especially in light of the rewards from doing so.\r\n\r\nThe role of parties would continue to grow in the 19th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 As the nation expanded into new territories, it also expanded the franchise to new demographics.\u00a0 Many states began allowing white males over 21 without property to vote.\u00a0 The number of eligible voters increased significantly.\u00a0 With it, the complexity of engaging citizens in the political process became more difficult.\u00a0 In 1788, it was relatively easy to engage a small group of elite property owners.\u00a0 Many knew those standing for election. \u00a0It was a different story for those who lacked economic means, education and an awareness of the candidates.\u00a0 A much larger and economically diverse electorate would test the young nation.\u00a0 How do you engage the broader public in the democratic process when there is no direct, tangible reward for doing so?\r\n\r\nAdam Smith described \u201can invisible hand\u201d at work in the private economic realm where producers and consumers allocate resources to optimize a market of goods and services.\u00a0 However, the public realm is different.\u00a0 With public goods such as the national defense or public education, an individual\u2019s consumption does not diminish the supply.\u00a0 Public goods are available to everyone whether they want it or not.\u00a0 In these circumstances, \u201cconsumers\u201d have little incentive to act because they receive the benefit of public goods regardless of their participation in the political process.\u00a0 This presents the classic \u201cfree rider\u201d problem.\u00a0 To work effectively, public goods require a mechanism for collective action.\u00a0 In other words, individuals must see a reason to participate when they receive the same benefit regardless of their actions.\r\n\r\nThis essay will examine the challenge of collective action and how political parties evolved to solve this problem.\u00a0 It will describe the election of 1828 as a turning point when political parties became \u201cmass parties,\u201d engaging a large audience in the political process.\u00a0 It will consider the advantages and disadvantages of parties playing this role in a democracy.\r\n\r\nThe Theory of Collective Action<\/strong>\r\n\r\nFrom today\u2019s perspective, it can feel strange we celebrate a constitution that, when ratified, recognized the voting rights of such a narrow slice of humanity.\u00a0 As noted, less than 2% of the U.S. population voted in the first election.\u00a0 Each step to expand suffrage took decades \u2013 if not centuries \u2013 marked by reversals with the erection of new barriers.\u00a0 The arc of American history chronicles this important struggle.\u00a0 However, we seldom consider the flip side of the story.\u00a0 Why is it that so many who do have the right to vote choose not to exercise that right?\r\n\r\nOf the dozen or so nations today that practice compulsory voting, the United States is not one of them.\u00a0 The concept never took hold here.\u00a0 So far, our concept of liberty includes the freedom to opt out of the political process if so desired.\u00a0 We have not seriously considered compulsory voting even though allies such as Australia require voting in federal elections.\u00a0 As a voluntary practice, voting in the U.S. is uneven at best.\u00a0 Since the early 20th <\/sup>century, turnout in federal elections typically ranges between 50-60% of eligible voters (between 35-40% of the total population).\u00a0 In other words, a large number of Americans choose not to participate in the democratic process.\r\n\r\nThese low levels of voting reflect the challenge of public goods.\u00a0 There is little chance an election will turn on one person\u2019s vote.\u00a0 Except in extraordinarily rare circumstances, we receive the same product (i.e., the same elected representative and attendant actions) whether we vote or not.\u00a0 And many voters may not like the choices available on the ballot.\u00a0 Finally, there is a cost associated with voting.\u00a0 It takes time to learn about the candidates, who can range from judges, to state auditors to soil and water district commissioners.\u00a0 It also takes time \u2013 often from paid work \u2013 to register and get to the polling site where you may encounter long lines.\r\n\r\nThese factors have produced a theory called the \u201ccalculus of voting.\u201d\u00a0 Similar to the social choice theory mentioned in the last essay, the calculus of voting arose after World War II when academics sought to apply economic models to human behavior.\u00a0 It provides a useful framework when thinking about what factors can affect an individual\u2019s decision whether to vote in an election.\u00a0 The formula is as follows:\r\n

R = PB + D \u2013 C<\/p>\r\nR denotes the anticipated reward to an individual for casting a vote.\u00a0 The formula asserts that a person will vote if R is positive.\u00a0 P represents the probability that a particular vote will impact the outcome of the election.\u00a0 B denotes the differential benefit an individual receives if his\/her preferred candidate prevails.\u00a0 D refers to the intangible satisfaction someone gains from voting such as a sense of civic duty or a show of support for a particular candidate regardless of the outcome.\u00a0 Finally, C represents the costs associated with voting mentioned above. \u00a0In sum, P and B relate directly to the outcome of an election while D and C impact a decision to vote regardless of the outcome.\r\n\r\nThis formula reveals the extent of the collective action challenge with democracy.\u00a0 Since the value of P is usually close to zero, P times B (PB) is low even if the differential in outcome to a voter (i.e., B) is particularly high.\u00a0 As a result, theorists posit that variables D and C have the greatest impact on whether an individual decides to vote.\u00a0 Essentially, do the intrinsic rewards from voting outweigh the costs of voting?\r\n\r\nWe can see this calculus play out at a demographic level.\u00a0 Recall the previous discussion of positive liberty.\u00a0 Robert Putnam\u2019s Making Democracy Work<\/u> concludes that regions in Italy with a richer civic tradition have much higher rates of voter participation.\u00a0 Such traditions happened to correlate with income and access to strong social networks.\u00a0 These same factors are at play in the U.S. \u00a0Over 70% of those with a bachelor\u2019s degree vote while only about half of those with a high school degree turn out.\u00a0 75% of citizens making more than $150,000 per year vote while fewer than 50% of those making less than $50,000 per year manage to vote.\u00a0 Of course, older Americans turn out in much higher numbers than young people.\u00a0 For many, voting feels like a special privilege considering their everyday struggles.\r\n\r\nBased on these factors, we can see why so many opt out of voting.\u00a0 At a societal level, this phenomenon is problematic.\u00a0 As described earlier, one of the great values of democracy is the collective mind.\u00a0 The participation in an election by a diverse population drawing from decentralized and private information creates a valuable signal for those in government.\u00a0 It helps society to perform more efficiently and optimally.\u00a0 Low rates of participation by voters distort governmental decision making, and ultimately, threatens to alienate segments of society because certain viewpoints are not represented.\u00a0 This in turn increases social costs.\u00a0 Therefore, solving the collective action problem and maximizing participation of voters is critical to democracy.\r\n\r\n1828 and Formation of the Mass Party<\/strong>\r\n\r\nPolitical parties came to play a pivotal role in solving the collective action problem.\u00a0 Just as parties helped overcome the disconnect between individual preferences and group outcomes, they also found a way to lower the cost of voting and increase the perceived benefits \u2013 both intrinsic and real.\u00a0 John Aldrich\u2019s Why Parties<\/u> recounts the way parties accomplished this, focusing on the election of 1828.\u00a0 In this election, leaders revived the competitive party system after a period of decline and built a mass operation that turned out voters in historic numbers.\u00a0 Those actions marked a significant step forward in the organization of political parties and would shape the direction of parties in the U.S. going forward.\r\n\r\nAfter the initial party formation in the 1790s, competition waned.\u00a0 Many significant issues related to the Great Principle, as Aldrich called it, were resolved.\u00a0 Hamilton, who drove much of the policy debate with his expansive vision of federal power, met an untimely death in 1804.\u00a0 American politics entered a period known as \u201cthe Era of Good Feelings\u201d (I know, it\u2019s hard to imagine such an era today).\u00a0 The Federalist Party declined \u2013 unable to expand its reach much beyond the business elite in the Northeast.\u00a0 The Democratic-Republican or Jeffersonian Party dominated as one Virginian after another reached the White House. \u00a0Madison and Monroe succeeded Jefferson.\u00a0 All three Virginians served two terms.\r\n\r\nWith no clear successor to Monroe in 1824, several strong candidates emerged, including John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, and William Crawford.\u00a0 They all ran as Democratic-Republicans. Jackson won the popular vote with 41% while Adams came in second. \u00a0It was the first presidential election where the winner did not achieve a plurality of the vote. Since no candidate won the electoral college, the outcome was thrown to the U.S. House of Representatives.\u00a0 Adams ultimately prevailed amid charges of \u201ca corrupt bargain\u201d with Clay, who was named Secretary of State.\u00a0 With this background, the stage was set for a rematch between Adams and Jackson in the 1828 presidential campaign.\r\n\r\nMartin Van Buren, a U.S. Senator from New York at the time and ally of Jackson, proved indispensable in masterminding the 1828 campaign.\u00a0 He began by reviving the two-party system.\u00a0 Jackson would run under a newly formed Democratic Party, and Adams would run under the banner of the National Republican Party.\u00a0 Van Buren recognized that the expansion of the franchise to include those without property as well as the addition of new states to the Union offered fertile ground if voters could be properly mobilized. \u00a0Infrastructure improvements, including new communications and transportation systems, would facilitate such mobilization.\r\n\r\nConstruction of the first mass party flowed from an organizational structure.\u00a0 It began with a nucleus in Congress \u2013 members who were opposed to Adams and saw the benefit of aligning with a potential new president in Jackson.\u00a0 Van Buren spearheaded this step, convening members to form a group known as \u201cthe Caucus.\u201d\u00a0 The Caucus had the ability to raise money and oversee a national campaign from its vantage point in Washington, DC.\u00a0 The next organizational step extended to the states.\u00a0 The Caucus worked relationships with state and local officials to establish an alliance that could orchestrate activities on the ground at the local level.\r\n\r\nLastly, a mass party relied on turning out the vote. Efforts to mobilize voters centered on the calculus of voting by reducing the cost of voting and elevating the value of voting.\u00a0 The Democratic Party achieved this in several ways.\u00a0 It organized mass rallies throughout the country.\u00a0 Those rallies generated enthusiasm for the candidates.\u00a0 They featured bonfires, alcohol and raising hickory poles to advertise \u201cOld Hickory.\u201d\u00a0 The party leadership engaged a sympathetic partisan press and also subsidized a chain of newspapers. \u00a0Charges that Adams gambled in the White House at public expense along with a number of other offenses stoked the rhetoric. \u00a0All of these efforts required significant resources that only a party organization could provide.\u00a0 Ultimately, they paid off with a victory for Jackson.\r\n\r\nScholars have collected data to determine the extent to which party organization impacted the outcome of the 1828 election.\u00a0 The \u201cstrategic party theory\u201d hypothesized that the Democratic Party would expend the greatest resources organizing those states with the greatest return on investment.\u00a0 At this time, New England had the strongest state organizations.\u00a0 However, Adams was likely to win those states based on the outcome in 1824.\u00a0 The South had little party infrastructure so the cost to organize was high and Jackson was likely to win based on the prior election.\u00a0 Therefore, the Democratic Party focused its efforts on the Mid-Atlantic states where there was some existing organization and victory would tip the balance of the Electoral College in Jackson\u2019s favor.\u00a0 The results show that turnout jumped by nearly 42% in those states with a party organization as compared to 18% in states without such a structure.\u00a0 While some have theorized that turnout reflected the popularity of Jackson or recent expansion of suffrage, the comparison among states with mobilization efforts demonstrates the impact of party activity.\r\n\r\nTwo aspects of this period are worth noting.\u00a0 First, the Democratic Party did not emphasize much of a policy agenda. Due to Jackson\u2019s notoriety as a popular war hero, party leaders did not have to expend significant resources educating voters on his brand.\u00a0 It was the party of Jackson.\u00a0 This tactic allowed state and local party leaders to tailor messages specific to their voters.\u00a0 This characteristic of American Parties \u2013 downplaying a central and cohesive policy agenda \u2013 would persist well into the 20th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 Second, turnout increased significantly in the 1828 even though only one party possessed a mass organization.\u00a0 By 1840, turnout hit one of the highest participation rates in American history at 80%.\u00a0 With a competitive two-party system, nearly all segments of the population eligible to vote were engaged by one of the parties.\u00a0 Every voter mattered.\u00a0 These high participation levels would continue until the end of the 19th<\/sup> century.\r\n\r\nThe Leviathan<\/strong>\r\n\r\nVoting, like many other activities associated with public goods, poses a dilemma mostly due to the free rider problem.\u00a0 We have seen how political parties arose in part to resolve the dilemma.\u00a0 While a significant number of voters choose not to vote, many do vote because political parties work hard to lower the cost and raise the satisfaction gained from voting.\u00a0 The hickory poles of 1828 have morphed into bumper stickers, registration drives, phone banks, \u201clit drops,\u201d letter writing, door knocking, rides to the poll, and now relentless texting.\u00a0 Nevertheless, it feels uncomfortable leaving to political parties the job of solving the problem of collective action, especially considering the debates we face over voting in the 21st century. Political parties have a self-interest.\u00a0 A party organizes and expends resources to mobilize those most apt to support its candidates to the exclusion of all others.\r\n\r\nDespite the self-interest, parties are best positioned to play this role for several reasons.\u00a0 The alternative is not particularly attractive. Thomas Hobbs was one of the first political theorists to confront this problem.\u00a0 He considered how a society addresses issues where the optimal outcome depends on collective action.\u00a0 In the absence of trust and a robust civic culture, Hobbs turned to third party enforcement.\u00a0 A third party would require everyone act so that those who spend time and effort doing so would not be \u201cpenalized\u201d relative to those getting a free ride.\u00a0 There are at least two problems with this approach.\u00a0 Utilizing coercive enforcement is expensive and inefficient, requiring an apparatus for such enforcement.\u00a0 This approach also requires a neutral party that is trustworthy.\u00a0 If it falls on the federal government to see that everyone votes, those who control the government could use such authority for their self-interest.\r\n\r\nOn the other hand, political parties fit neatly within the new social construct embodied by democracy.\u00a0 Elections created a market comprised of voters making choices about government.\u00a0 As government grew more complex and required more resources and positions to carry out its actions, the benefits accruing to political actors increased.\u00a0 As within any market, entrepreneurs create enterprises that help them compete for those benefits.\u00a0 Political parties became the enterprise with sufficient resources for politicians to compete and win elections.\u00a0 Such competition ensures that the self-interest of a party in engaging only certain voters is countered by another party that engages other voters.\u00a0 Consequently, consumers in the form of voters are served by a healthy market of producers.\r\n\r\nWhile political parties are a necessary aspect of any healthy democracy, they come with a price.\u00a0 As with any group activity, parties rely on our proclivity for tribalism.\u00a0 As noted earlier, parties can move from soft competition to hard competition under certain circumstances.\u00a0 Democracy relies in large part on behavioral norms.\u00a0 While competition is fierce, participants abide by certain guardrails that ensure reciprocity by opponents.\u00a0 When those guardrails erode, participants no longer follow the unspoken rules of the game.\u00a0 They may even try to undermine the written rules.\u00a0 We have to recognize that competition in a free market carries significant risks.\u00a0 Competitive parties are essential for a robust democracy, but they have the potential to undo democracy.\r\n\r\nConclusion<\/strong>\r\n\r\nPolitical parties emerged as a tool for democracy shortly after this nation\u2019s founding.\u00a0 They provided an antidote to the framers\u2019 concerns about factions by binding disparate groups into a productive force to drive policy and legislative action.\u00a0 As the electorate expanded and the political system grew more complex, democracy faced another challenge \u2013 one of collective action.\u00a0 Political parties helped solve this challenge by working creatively to engage voters who have a marginal incentive to participate in the political process.\u00a0 By the time the U.S. had two parties actively competing to mobilize the masses, voter turnout increased dramatically.\u00a0 High levels of participation by voters is critical.\u00a0 Democracy depends on the input of a diverse electorate to provide a signal for the priorities of society.\u00a0 Although political parties have a self-interest in selectively mobilizing voters, competition among multiple parties ensures a healthy marketplace for voters.\u00a0 The alternative of requiring and enforcing voter participation poses its own problems.\u00a0 Therefore, political parties are the best available vehicle to solve the collective action problem even if our tribalistic nature can threaten democracy if not properly contained.\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\nMack Paul is a member of the state advisory board of Common Cause NC and a founding partner of Morningstar Law Group.<\/em>\r\n\r\nParts in this series:\r\n\r\nIntroduction: Building Democracy 2.0<\/a>\r\n\r\nPart 1: What Is Democracy and Why Is It Important?<\/a>\r\n\r\nPart 2: How the Idea of Freedom Makes the First Innovation Possible<\/a>\r\n\r\nPart 3: The Second Innovation that Gave Rise to Modern Democracy<\/a>\r\n\r\nPart 4: The Rise and Function of Political Parties \u2013 Setting the Record Straight<\/a>\r\n\r\nPart 5: How Political Parties Turned Conflict into a Productive Force<\/a>\r\n\r\nPart 6: Parties and the Challenge of Voter Engagement<\/a>\r\n\r\nPart 7: The Progressive Movement and the Decline of Parties in America<\/a>\r\n\r\nPart 8: Rousseau and \u2018the Will of the People\u2019<\/a>\r\n\r\nPart 9: The Dark Secret of Majority\u00a0Voting<\/a>\r\n\r\nPart 10: The Promise of Proportional\u00a0Voting<\/a>\r\n\r\nPart 11: Majorities, Minorities and Innovation in Electoral\u00a0Design<\/a>\r\n\r\nPart 12: The Misdirected Attempts at Electoral Reform in\u00a0the\u00a0U.S.<\/a>\r\n\r\nPart 13: Building Democracy 2.0: The Uses and Abuses of Redistricting in American Democracy<\/a>"}}]},"yoast_head":"\nBuilding Democracy 2.0: Parties and the Challenge of Voter Engagement - 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