Partisan change in southern legislatures, 1946-95

    Authors

    A. W. Jewett

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Legis. Stud. Q.

    Keywords

    AMERICAN-STATES; ELECTIONS; Political Science

    Abstract

    What accounts for partisan change in southern legislatures between 1946 and 1995? I draw my hypotheses from general theories of partisan change and tailor them to the South based on history and previous research to explain the variance in southern Republican legislative strength. I estimate a pooled time series analysis of the eleven former Confederate states to test the path model. The model uses Democratic elite liberalism as an endogenous variable in order to determine the overall effect of several important independent variables including black population, black political influence, urbanization, white northern migration, and wealth. Determinants of state legislative partisan change include the following: secular forces such as wealth, urbanization, and migration; political forces such as presidential midterm losses, party organizational strength, and political scandal; party issue stances on race and general party ideology; changes in national party preferences that precede change at lower levels; and finally, rules governing the structure of political opportunity such as reapportionment and participation.

    Journal Title

    Legislative Studies Quarterly

    Volume

    26

    Issue/Number

    3

    Publication Date

    1-1-2001

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    457

    Last Page

    486

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000170284100005

    ISSN

    0362-9805

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