The focus of this paper is antebellum American politics. But the argument begins in the present.
American politics in 2005 is about ideology. Every question is framed in ideological terms: Is
Supreme Court nominee John Roberts is a “real” conservative, and how liberal is Hillary Clinton? Elected
officials, especially in Congress, are increasingly polarized (Jacobson 2000, 2004, McCarty, Poole and
Rosenthal 2006), and voters, too, may be divided into two ideological camps (Noel 2001, Abramowitz
and Saunders 1998, 2005, Hetherington 2001, but see also Fiorina 2004). But American politics in 2005
is also about partisanship. Party loyalty is critical to the current majority’s success. “We're just following
the old adage of punish your enemies and reward your friends,” House Majority Leader Tom Delay says.
Party unity has increased in government (Bond and Fleisher 2000), and party voting has increased in the
electorate (Bartels 2000).
And so, in 2005, partisanship and ideology get muddled. Conservative activists target RINOs
(Republicans In Name Only), which is to say, Republicans who are insufficiently conservative. Howard
Dean’s “Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party” is its liberal wing. Party and ideology have become
difficult to distinguish.
This difficulty hinders the study of ideology and of parties. Is polarization in Congress due to
party discipline or ideological clarity? Are red states ideologically conservative or just places where
Republicans live? Are voters more polarized, or are elites merely giving them ideologically polarized
options?
Most fundamentally, what is the relationship between party and ideology? Do ideologies drive
party coalitions, or do parties create ideologies to justify themselves? This is the central question of this
research project: Where do the coalitions that define political parties come from? I argue that ideological
thinkers play a central role in shaping party coalitions. To address this question, we need three things.
First, we need conceptual clarity on ideology and on party. The difficulty of distinguishing them
empirically has fed conceptual confusion as well. Second, we need distinct measures of ideology and of
partisanship. Third, we need to find periods in which party and ideology do not overlap one another as
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Convention