Description
Book SynopsisParty and Nation examines immigration as a means to understand party competition in American history. The rise of Donald Trump reflects an ongoing regime change in the U.S., in which multiculturalism and nationalism have emerged as central aspects of the major parties' ideological and coalitional bases. This phenomenon of a multiculturalist Democratic Party and a nationalist Republican Party, the authors suggest, is a dramatic departure from the first American political regime. That older regime was grounded in the Founding generation's commitment to the principle of natural rights and the shaping of a national culture to support that principle. Partisan debates over immigration set into relief the tensions inherent in that commitment. The authors present the permutations of that first regime amidst the territorial expansion of the country and the tragic conflicts over slavery and segregation.
Table of Contents1 Nationalism, Republicanism and the First Parties 2 Immigration, Expansion and the Mass Parties 3 Slavery, Labor and the New Immigration 4 Parties, Progress and Closing the Open Door 5 The Rise and Fall of the New Deal 6 Ideological Parties and the Return of Mass Immigration 7 Multiculturalism and Nationalism: Obama and Trump
