Toward The Reasons For Partisan Realignment In The United States Since 1990s

Since the establishment of Republican Party in 1860,the United States' Two Party System has been taking shape.What calls for special attention is that the Two Party System is not specified on the Constitution of the United States;the reason that underlies the system is that both parties keep a relatively stable electoral base.Electorates tend to transfer their sympathy with the party's issue position to their support for the party,and thus,their party identification stays stable as long as the issue remains under debate.However,factors like social change,economic crisis,political maturity of a new generation could possibly fade the issue.If a new dividing issue grabs the eye of the public while the old issue is fading away,a new round of partisan realignment is on the way for a foreseeable future.Since 1860,there were mainly three partisan realignments which took place in 1890s,1930s,and 1960s respectively.In 1990s,such realignment reemerged.Statistics shows that the Democratic Party which has been tabbed as " the party for labors" for half a century has a growing number of professionals in its electoral base,while the Republican Party which gathers capitalists and entrepreneurs starts to collects the votes of white working class.To look into this phenomenon and locate the reason accounting for it,this paper firstly introduces the concept of wedged issue and partisan realignment,and concludes the dynamics that drives the realignment through comparing the three partisan realignment since 1860,secondly analyses the social and economic change in the United States through the perspective of wedged issue to find out the reason why white working class and professionals collide,and thirdly traces the decision-making processes of the two parties respectively to find the path-taking logic of the Democrats and Republicans.This paper believes that there are two incentives contributing to the partisan realignment since 1990s:first,the impact of globalization which objectively highlights the conflicts between white working class and professionals;second,the choice the Democrats and Republicans which subjectively diverge the interest representativeness of the two parties.