On the contrary, a historical state-level analysis links party competition to increased public investment, greater social well-being.
Today, the two major political parties are often blamed for a plethora of problems in American governance. But for most of the last century and a half, political party competition has had positive effects on the welfare of Americans.
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Gerald Gamm and Thad Kousser make the case against one-party-dominated states in an 颈苍听The Hill: 鈥渋t鈥檚 bad for our health.鈥�
That鈥檚 according to new research by , a professor of political science and history at the 人妻少妇专区, and a political science professor at the .
The pair conducted a historical analysis spanning all 50 states for the period 1880鈥�2010. In the study鈥� published in the American Political Science Review鈥攖hey present two related findings:
- A direct link between party competition and increased spending on human capital and infrastructure
- A direct link between this spending and measurable improvements in public welfare
鈥淐ompetition between parties is not just healthy for a political system but for the life prospects of the population,鈥� says Gamm, whose research focuses on Congress, state legislatures, , and modern party politics.
How does party competition lead to better social outcomes?
The data show that states in which the same party won most elections and held an overwhelming majority of seats in the state legislature were likely to have populations with lower life expectancy, levels of education, and income鈥攃oupled with higher infant mortality. But as soon as competition among parties within a state increased and a second party started winning seats and more elections, state spending on infrastructure and human capital went up鈥攁nd with it, literacy, earnings, and longevity.
鈥淲e find that states that spend more鈥攁nd spend more because of party competition鈥攂ecome places where children are more likely to survive infancy, where they learn to read and where they graduate from high school, where adults live longer lives, and, at least in the pre-New Deal era, where people earn higher incomes,鈥� says Kousser, an expert on term limits, governors, and state politics.
How do the researchers explain the data?
According to Gamm and Kousser, when one party holds overwhelming power, it tends to divide into factions. Moreover, legislators have an incentive to push for pork-barrel projects that narrowly target groups of constituents.
By contrast, when two parties closely compete for control of a statehouse, lawmakers find they can improve their individual reputations by helping their parties pursue a statewide program. Democrats have an incentive to show how they differ from Republicans and vice versa. Demonstrating what their party stands for, not through district bills or pork-barrel spending but through statewide policy making, provides a route to electoral success.
In turn, the authors write, 鈥淧arty competition creates bonds between copartisans from across the state and between the executive and legislative branches, leading both parties to work for programs that benefit a broad set of constituents.鈥�
Do the findings still hold true today as political polarization has dramatically increased?
That question has, indeed, hovered over their latest work. Arguably, American politics began changing profoundly in the 1980s. Gamm notes that the last four decades have been a time of 鈥渦nremitting and closely fought party competition in national politics, new social and cultural cleavages, historically high levels of partisan polarization, a collapse in mediating institutions, shifting norms and rules in Congress, geographic sorting, and the growth of social media.鈥� Whereas in the past, voters and elites alike agreed on many policy goals, politics nowadays has increasingly become a zero-sum game, with the two major parties in fundamental conflict on most important issues.
鈥淚n the contemporary environment, we recognize that the historic importance of party competition may be attenuated, negated, or even reversed,鈥� the team writes. They caution that the rise of the Democratic Party in this era as a distinctively liberal party may also mean that the party in control matters more now than it did in the past.
With often a lag of decades between cause and effect, Gamm and Kousser posit that readers in a generation or two may conclude that party competition鈥攁 鈥渉allmark of American politics since the days of Madison, Hamilton, and Jackson and perhaps the nation鈥檚 greatest contribution to modern democracy鈥濃�攃eased to be beneficial in the 1980s. But it鈥檚 too early to know whether the contemporary shift toward party polarization will prove permanent.
That means our generation can鈥檛 (yet) render the verdict.
鈥淲hat we show here,鈥� they conclude, 鈥渄rawing on a full century of data on party competition and spending, as well as data on health, literacy, and prosperity through 2010, is the central importance of two-party competition to the rise of the American state and the flourishing of the American people.鈥�
Data sources and the dataset for the study are accessible at the American Political Science Review Dataverse .
