Partisan approaches to postwar American politics

the long version

In Partisan Approaches to Postwar American Politics, Byron E. Shafer leads a distinguished panel of expert commentators who focus, in parallel chapters, on the dramatic dimensions of political change over the years 1946-1996 as observed in six major elements of parties and partisanship: Randall W. Strahan examines the role of national party officeholders as reflectors as well as agents of political change; Nicol C. Rae analyzes the evolving structure of party factions that link these officeholders to the main social forces of their time; Byron E. Shafer explores the emerging dynamic among partisan elites that translate these shifting social forces into influences on public policymaking; John F. Bibby addresses the radical transformation of party organizations from weak confederacies to modern bureaucracies with a national strategy; William G. Mayer surveys the subtle and complicated shifts in public loyalties that underlie the era's changing patterns of mass partisanship; and Harold F. Bass, Jr. chronicles remarkable developments in the partisan rules that set the conditions of participation for all actors in the electoral system.