module 2

For this module we are to discuss the way that decentralization affects parties and the challenge that it poses for party discipline. we are asked to examine the following questions:
Is decentralization a response to american political heterogeneity?
does decentralization effeci partisan action?
how does this relate to the recent presidential election?

Decentralization affects political parties in a negative way because you end up with a party that doesnt have a necessarily coherent and organized agenda. The primary goal of parties as per our lecture is that they are first meant to get their members re-elected. after that is satisfied, they then focus on forming a coherent agenda of policy.

On casual inference from a voter's perspective, primary party orientation on re-election of it's members might seem a bit backwards. The things that they vote on are the policies their rep are promising. Operationally for the party, it makes a lot of sense. There is no point in postulating a policy if you have no one in office to implement it. I propose that it is becase of this primary focus of the party structure that we see the development of decentralization. The nature of the districts that the various forms of the parties operate in accounts for the variances of the party's policies in different areas and at different levels. it is for the same reason that decentralization occurs. the national chair of the Democratic Party is most likely less suited to dictate the policy of the local Democratic party in Gary, Indiana. As a result of the party's focus on winning seats, the parties have become more focused on the individual persons running for office.

what then is the impact of this political decentralization on party discipline? furhtermore, what is party discipline? if we go with the definition that party discipline is the operational capacity for the members of a party to show in some form combined support for a person or policy. when you have decentralization, the way that you examine party discipline can be measured in several different ways. we can for examine party discipline along the lines of governmental stratification: natonal state and local. It would make sense if there were different levels of party discipline along different governmental levels. now while i do not have any statistics, I will empirically compare national politics to county politics, primarily because I work at the county.

Nationally we see parties that are highly organized parties that are able to a degree push a policy set around in congress and the executive. we see this when party politics becomes very partisan, the most recent display of this could be seen on the debate over the stimulus package. we could take this as an example of high party discipline, and it seems very high when we compare it to local politics at the county. In milwaukee county we have a board, who are independently elected, and who claim no parties. this is our representative wing in our local government. with no organized party lines, we have no party discipline. the board is an example of what would be a highly decentralized organization, and while it is extreme, it can show how too much decentralization can undercut a party altogether.

Ok, so we have explained at least one spot where decentralization might come from, and some of it's impact of party discipline. we now have to provide an accounting for political heterogeneity. first we should ask what is political heterogeneiety? heterogeneiety, simply put is when something is diverse in it's makeup. When applied to the composition of political parties, we call it political heterogeneiety. In practical terms this is another result of parties trying to get their members re-elected - by trying to appeal to more voters, parties try to didversify themselves.

Heterogeneiety in relationship to decentralization therefore seem to be complementary. Even if we assume for the sake of argument that heterogeneity came first, it is unclear that decentralization would necessarily be a response - if anything it seems like it would a progression of the same logic. in short it is not a response.

Finally, we can examine decentralization in relation to the recent presidential election. considering that the president and his party both won a majority in the government, we can reasonably conclude that the Democratic party fell somewhere in the range of being decentralized enough for the party members to win places in congress and the presidency, but at the same time centralized enough to maintain a party identity and begin to look at setting a policy agenda. In really recent politics we could go even further and examine heterogeneity within the democrats in congress. on the cursory look, both parties have been relatively partisan, which means that in effect the parties have not been displaying much diversity of how they vote. 

Wow! We just stumbled upon something big here! There is a difference in how we can examine heterogeneity: 

• There is a broad heterogeneity when we consider the composition of the party membership. We call this the "big tent" aspect to national parties. Put another way the heterogeneiety comes from the fact that the parties are composed up of a wide range of individuals and groups, all with their own agendas but all also having some common ideals which the party gets it's identity from.
  
• There is a second form of heterogeneity which we have just uncovered. There can be a diversity in how the legislative members of the party behave. We can see this in the way that they vote and in the policy agendas that they push
  

this raises some more questions that can be discussed later: what is the relationship between voting heterogeneity and party discipline and centralization? Put in a more pragmatic way: can a member of congress be a "Maverick" and still be a "team player"? when we examine individuals in politics we can see a interesting dynamic in different types of politicians. this stuff is so cool! I can't wait to explore it further! But im going to stop here, because if you've come this far you probably have the patience of a saint.