Summer '22 - Intro to American Government & Politics

1. Morris Fiorina spends much of his essay discussing whether or not parties are “responsible.” What does he mean by “responsible parties?” What is responsible party theory? And, in your own definition, what does it mean for a party to be responsible?

According to Fiorina, a responsible party is one that makes decisions based on good morals rather than the overarching greater good. He says that you should be able to trust the leadership of the country and have a singular, connected party. That is the job of a responsible party. To me, a responsible party is one that doesn’t allow for large divisions within its people. A responsible party should consider all the opinions of its people and decide from both a moral and practical standpoint what is best. The leader should be both easily trusted and trusting, and they should want what is best for the country as a whole.

2. Why does Fiorina think that the parties today are unable to govern effectively (or, responsibly) and in your opinion, why aren’t parties today able to govern effectively? How might parties change to begin to govern more effectively?

Fiorina believes that parties today are unable to govern effectively because of the massive amounts of division and polarization. Between party lines, there is so much conflict and difference of opinion that it is nearly impossible to get anything done. There is rarely an issue that any political parties can agree upon in terms of issue resolution. If somehow the parties were able to get over their own egos and personal feelings of pride, they would be able to find a middle ground and we could have much less division and overall be much more responsible

3. Why don’t parties die? As Masket points out, we haven’t had a new major party in 160 years, since the Civil War. He offers a number of reasons why parties don’t die. What are some of those, and do you agree with him? Can you come up with some other plausible reasons as to why the Republicans and Democrats have lasted for so long?

Masket says that parties don’t die because of loyalty ties to parties.  He also says that because the two-party system is incredibly long-lasting, it will never die. I fully agree with him on both of these. It seems as though through generations of families, they feel as though they have to vote a certain way because the family is so loyal to a certain party. That in tandem with the longevity of the party system nearly ensures that the parties never fail. It would be incredibly difficult to build a new party from the bottom and try to have it play in the same league as the republicans and the democrats. They both have hundreds of years worth of reputations to uphold, and a new party could never stand up to something like that.