Event Title
Location
University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia
Document Type
Paper
Description
Federalist Paper No. 10 was James Madison's jeremiad against what he called “faction," and what we might call political parties. Nevertheless, just over two decades from Federalist 10’s publication in 1787, Madison ran for president of the United States at the head of the 1808 Democratic-Republican ticket, and thus became the leader of one of the largest factions hitherto known in American politics. Given the allure of party politics, this paper reviews the literature on the attraction and incentive structure of political parties and extends that literature into voting patterns in Virginia's General Assembly. In the aperture of Thomas Shwartz's long coalitions hypothesis, this paper tests whether lawmakers in the Virginia General Assembly cooperate with each more, and thus convey more caucus unity, while they are in the majority, compared to caucus unity in the minority. This paper concludes that caucus unity increases in the majority party and decreases in the minority party, a pattern consistent with the long coalitions hypothesis.
Included in
Long Coalitions in the Old Dominion
University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia
Federalist Paper No. 10 was James Madison's jeremiad against what he called “faction," and what we might call political parties. Nevertheless, just over two decades from Federalist 10’s publication in 1787, Madison ran for president of the United States at the head of the 1808 Democratic-Republican ticket, and thus became the leader of one of the largest factions hitherto known in American politics. Given the allure of party politics, this paper reviews the literature on the attraction and incentive structure of political parties and extends that literature into voting patterns in Virginia's General Assembly. In the aperture of Thomas Shwartz's long coalitions hypothesis, this paper tests whether lawmakers in the Virginia General Assembly cooperate with each more, and thus convey more caucus unity, while they are in the majority, compared to caucus unity in the minority. This paper concludes that caucus unity increases in the majority party and decreases in the minority party, a pattern consistent with the long coalitions hypothesis.
Comments
Department: Political Science
Faculty Mentor: Daniel Palazzolo