Description
Book SynopsisDemonstrates that every Republican president since Dwight D Eisenhower worked to build his party into a more durable political organization while every Democratic president refused to do the same. This book offers insights into presidential behavior, party organizational change, and modern American political development.
Trade Review"Galvin's account of all this is disciplined and scholarly, with accordingly focused conclusions."--Charles Homans, Washington Monthly "Conventional wisdom holds that US presidents make the most of the office by either focusing on reelection or building a personal legacy that historians will remember. Presidents are expected to be less interested in building their political parties. Galvin successfully challenges this simplification by demonstrating that Republican presidents since the New Deal consistently and energetically sought to strengthen the organizational capacity of the GOP, using the power of the office to further the goal of making the Republicans the new majority party... The book is an important contribution to the literature on the presidency and offers a fine research design model for qualitative social scientists."--Choice "In an exceptionally well-researched and beautifully written book, Daniel Galvin ... fundamentally alters our understanding of presidents' contributions to the development of political parties. Presidential Party Building will likely become a classic in the field, both for its substantive contributions and for its conceptual and analytical innovations... It will be tremendously illuminating for scholars of the presidency, party politics, American political development, and political organizations."--Jesse H. Rhodes, The Forum "Students of presidential politics since 1960 will encounter important new findings in this book. Daniel Galvin's book explains in careful empirical detail the impact of post-1952 presidents upon their respective political parties. Galvin's method involves comparative case studies based on meticulous research of reliable sources. It is an impressive summary of the actual historical record of president-party interactions."--Steven E. Schier, Political Science Quarterly "Presidential scholars are indebted to Galvin's seminal study not only for the new light it sheds on past presidential party building but also for the way it invites us to think afresh about the future of presidential party building... Whatever the future may hold, however, there can be no doubt that Galvin has given us the finest empirical study yet of presidential-party relations in the latter half of the twentieth century."--Richard J. Ellis, Congress and the Presidency "By comparing and contrasting Republican and Democratic presidents, and by crisply limiting the conceptualization of party-building to strengthening the party-as-organization, Galvin presents a startling contrast between the two parties and their presidents... The spatial model and the convergence result of the median voter theorem naturally incline political scientists to assume that the major parties are inevitably organizationally symmetrical. They're not. Galvin conclusively shows that the assumption, while understandable, is false and has been false for many decades."--Richard M. Valelly, Election Law Journal
Table of ContentsPreface ix Chapter 1: Introduction: A Common Half- Truth 1 Chapter 2: A Theory of Presidential Party Building 17 Part I: The Republicans Chapter 3: Building a Modern Republican Party: Dwight D. Eisenhower 41 Chapter 4: Building the New Majority: Richard Nixon 70 Chapter 5: The Politics of Addition: Gerald R. Ford 99 Chapter 6: Building the Republican Base: Ronald Reagan 120 Chapter 7: Leveling the Playing Field: George H. W. Bush 143 Part II: The Democrats Chapter 8: Operation Support: John F. Kennedy 163 Chapter 9: The President's Club: Lyndon B. Johnson 182 Chapter 10: Alternative Priorities: Jimmy Carter 204 Chapter 11: Culmination and Reversal: Bill Clinton 225 Chapter 12: Conclusion: Presidents, Parties, and the Political System 247 Afterword: George W. Bush and Beyond 255 Appendix: Methods and Sources 263 Abbreviations 267 Notes 269 Index 329
