An environmental theory of party organization.

摘要

What influences the organization and strength of political parties in the American states? Given how important political parties are considered in American politics, surprisingly little research has focused on parties as organizations. In this dissertation, I develop and test a complex theory of party organization. The environmental theory of party organization poses that state party central committees are products not only of their members, but of the political, social, and economic environment in which they are created. Using data on state party central committees, I discuss and test alternative ways to measure differences in party activities and organization. I start by describing and testing the utility of the traditional "party strength" variable using data from the 1960s to 1980 and from 1998 and 2003. I find this unidimensional measure deficient in accounting for valuable variance among parties. I propose and test alternative measures which tap different facets of party organization and activity, finding that party organization can be successfully operationalized through the use of multiple measures capturing distinct characteristics of state central committees. I then use these new measures to test the environmental theory of party organization and find little support for the notion that state central committees are shaped by the political conditions of their home states. I conclude by discussing the implications of these results and potential avenues for future theoretical and empirical efforts to understand variations in political party organizations.