Daniel Schlozman

Daniel Schlozman is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University.

His new book is When Movements Anchor Parties: Electoral Alignments in American History.

From Schlozman's Q & A with Debra Liese at the Princeton University Press blog:

Tell me a bit about the book.

DS: When Movements Anchor Parties is about five social movements across American history that confronted American political parties. Two movements forged long-running alliances with parties: organized labor with the Democrats starting in the New Deal years and the Christian Right with the Republicans starting in the late 1970s. Two movements couldn’t make alliance work, and basically collapsed: the Populists in the 1880s and 1890s and the antiwar movement in the 1960s. And finally the abolitionist movement got inside the Republican Party but, as Reconstruction fell apart, couldn’t stay inside the party.

What’s your argument?

DS: The book does three things at once. First, it narrates the stories of these alliances and would-be alliances. And those stories go a long way to getting us our polarized politics. So much of what we’re arguing about today, about race, about wealth, about work, about war, about values, and so much of what’s politically possible or not, goes back to these confrontations between parties and movements.

Second, and more analytically, the book offers a framework to make sense of why movements do – or do not – get inside parties. Basically parties accept movements inside their coalitions if they prefer them to other paths to majority. Movements need to convince pragmatists inside parties that they’ll be a good electoral bet, and that they won’t upset the apple cart and disrupt the rest of party coalition too much. So movements have got to offer resources to parties that they can’t get elsewhere – votes, and the money, time, and networks needed to get votes. In return, parties will deliver policy for their group allies. That’s the exchange that makes alliance work. But it’s a tall order.

And finally, it’s a new way to understand big moments in...[read on]

Visit Daniel Schlozman's website.

The Page 99 Test: When Movements Anchor Parties.

--Marshal Zeringue