The Pattern of Polarization

 The Pattern of Polarization - Anna Mae Walker

 

               The United States has become increasingly politically polarized over the past 20 years. Most would point to the most recent 2020 general election as a uniquely contentious event. The 2020 election cycle hit a new level of contention in the media, in politics, and among American citizens. These political disagreements have led to family and social relationships being fractured and at times ended. Just last week, my husband and I had a conversation with our grandparents in which I was worried that not agreeing with their conservative values would ruin the relationship. Most Americans can relate with similar experiences with highly opinionated citizens. But how does this process or polarization come about?

               Back in the 1950’s the American Political Science Review released a large study (APSA article) about the state of American Politics at the time. They felt that the two parties in the United States were too similar. This left the American public with limited political options. Their solution to this problem was to argue for stronger party identities and essentially greater political polarization. Seeing the situation that we are experiencing today this seems like a counterintuitive suggestion. How did their analysis and recommendations lead us to where we are today?

               Modern political science research is much more wary of the affects of political polarization. From our research and summary of modern political theory, we created a pattern of polarization that responds to the suggestions presented by the APSA article. We think that understanding this pattern of polarization shows the key flaw in the APSA article.

               The pattern of polarization we have developed has three main steps. Polarization starts with a difference in ideologies. As groups start to trend towards ideological extremes, we see ideological polarization. This level of polarization is not attached to individual people or issues but rather just trends conservative or trends liberal. It is simply a difference in opinions. The next step in this pattern of polarization is political polarization. This is when ideological differences are attached to specific parties, people, and issues. This is when we see the political elite and party platforms becoming more divided on key issues. It is important to note that this division can happen with out the level of interpersonal contention we are seeing today. This is an issue of politics and not of relationships. The third step in this pattern of polarization is affective polarization. Affective polarization is the dislike and distrust between Democrats and Republicans. It is not just ideological differences or political differences, but rather a fractured relationship between two groups because of politics. Affective polarization is the phenomenon that makes people so frustrated and uncomfortable with the recent 2020 election. It wasn’t just that there were extreme ideological trends, or strong political opinions. It was that we saw dislike and at times hatred run rampant throughout the 2020 election cycle. Affective polarization, the final step in the pattern of polarization, is the cause of many of the issues we see with political polarization today.

               So how does this pattern of polarization respond to the suggestions in the APSA article? We think that this pattern we have developed from modern literature shows a flawed assumption that the APSA article based its argument on. In the paper, the APSA authors assumed that America was not ideologically divided so political polarization could benefit the American people. After observing this pattern of polarization, we believe that their biggest mistake was not perceiving the ideological polarization that America really had and not understanding the consequences of affective polarization. In the 1950s there were many groups of people who were not represented in American politics. As the United States progressed and more African American or female candidates won office, the true state of American ideology was recognized. The APSA authors did not think there was any ideological divide because they were not looking at the entire American populous. They also failed to predict the contention that would arise from stronger group identities. They didn’t predict this issue of affective polarization where the parties have turned into liked ingroups and disliked outgroups. Understanding polarization in the United States will be key to understanding politics to come.

 

Who (or What) is Actually to Blame for Polarization Within American Politics?

Our paper attempts to show that the current American political climate is complex. It is quite clear that both sides of the American two-party system are quick to blame the other for all of the current (and past) political dilemmas. After decades of escalation, and an intense 2020 election, one can reasonable wonder how the political climate has arrived at such extreme opposition. This question has long been studied by scholars and researchers, and it is evident that the answer to the polarization phenomenon is intricate and complex.

In 1950, the American Political Science Association (APSA) published an article that proposed increasing the divide between the two majority parties. The APSA believed that the American electorate did not have a deep ideological divide, and that more explicitly defined policies and programs would help the voters determine where they better aligned. Unfortunately, the APSA did not provide any evidence to support their claim. This is where the larger polarization problem begins. That being said, it would be unfounded to accuse the APSA of being fully responsible for the polarization. However, the problem seems to materialize with the publication.

There are a few key things that the APSA missed. First, the association did not understand the social attachment that individuals have to their political parties. Although social identity theory was not formally recognized until the late 70s, the implications are obviously noteworthy. Individuals have a desire to be part of a group that thinks, acts, and participates in similar ways. This is often referred to as the “ingroup.” Logically, other individuals that are not in this group are part of the “outgroup.” This creates a distinction between the groups, and a rivalry or animosity is naturally created.

Unfortunately, this idea incorporates politics as well. When certain individuals have similar ideologies, a natural ingroup begins to form. The rivalry between the groups can create hostility and an “us versus them” mentality. In summary, the APSA did not understand the effects of social identity theory and the role it plays in politics.

The second point is a continuation of the first. The APSA overlooked the effects of forcing individuals to align themselves solely between two parties. Unfortunately, assuming that the entire American electorate will be able to align with a total of two parties is an enormous oversimplification. We can clearly tell that there are rivalries that occur even within political parties themselves. The Republican party is great example. Mitt Romney (Utah Senator) was recently speaking at a party convention in Utah, and people began booing him. In short, there was a vote to censor Romney for marching with the Black Lives Matter protest and for his vote to impeach former President Trump. Although the vote failed, it was not a landslide victory. It is evident that many people that consider themselves “republicans” are ideologically very different from their senator that considers himself a “republican.”

Another supporting example is Liz Cheney (representative from Wyoming), and her recent removal from her leadership position within the Republican party. After former President Trump outrageously claimed that the 2020 election was “fraudulent” and “rigged” Rep. Cheney stood up to the lies and deception and determined that she was going to fight this lie from spreading. Ultimately, Cheney ended up losing her position within the party a few days later. The party was unhappy that a party leader would oppose the same-party president and that she would vocalize her dissatisfaction with the party’s endorsement of the lie. Again, Rep. Cheney is not a democrat, or even a moderate. She has a pattern of being conservative. However, it is clear that there is some type of ideological chasm between her and the party generally.

The relevance of these two situations can be hard to see. One of the earlier paragraphs outlined individual ideological polarization and its effects, but the Cheney and Romney examples show this pattern is observable even within parties. This is called intra-party conflict. It is not between parties, but between factions within parties. Inter-party conflict or conflict between parties is easy to identify, but conflict within parties can be harder to recognize. To summarize, the APSA did not recognize that restricting American politics to only two parties would ultimately lead to conflict within parties.

Lastly, the APSA failed to recognize the voting dynamics that were present in the 50s. At the time, women and minority groups did not either have adequate access to voting or were highly discouraged from being involved in politics. Fast forward to 2021, voting rights and access to political involvement has made significant progress. It is important to consider that because the political demographics have changed, it may have had an affect on the political climate. We are not proposing that gender and race are the only two variables responsible for the change in the political climate, however, we are proposing that it certainly has contributed to it.

Ultimately, our paper does not attempt to persuade readers in one direction or another, or to suggest that we have a solution to the problem. The purpose of our paper is to identify some of the flaws in the framework of the original publication that supported increasing political polarization within the American two-party system. Had the APSA considered these critiques, perhaps it would not have published the article, or proposed a different pathway to helping voters align with parties. 

Pacific Islanders, Political Participation and Religious Rhetoric

 I assume you know what an asterisk is. It’s the little star on the keyboard that has multiple functions. Its biggest function is to reference a footnote or annotation that is omitted or not included from the original text. 

It has been noted as of lately that certain ethnic minorities are considered to be “the asterisk.” Asian American, Pacific Islander, Native American, and Spanish American are labeled as an asterisk. The “Asterisk” is basically ethnic minorities who don’t have significant enough percentage in the U.S. to be named on surveys, polls and questionnaires so there is a little asterisk at the bottom of the page coining them all together in the same group. 

            I start with this because the research I plan to tell you about, involves a community labeled as an “Asterisk.” Pacific Islanders have a small percentage of population in the United States, but it does not mean their demographics don’t matter. In this study, we look at Pacific Islanders and assess the influence of religious rhetoric used by politicians on their perceived favorability towards them. This research is significant to existing literature because first, there are not enough studies done on ethnicities labeled as the asterisk and second, there is hardly any existing literature on Pacific Islanders and politics. Generally, you try to choose a topic to research that hasn’t been researched a lot, but there usually is always existing literature on parts of your study. In this case, it really is true, there is not any existing literature on what we are trying to find. While working through our literature review, we had to figure out what was important to add just because there is so little on Pacific Islanders. We were able to look at other studies done about the effect of religious rhetoric used in politics in other ethnicities. This helps show the effect that religious rhetoric has on other ethnicities and that it would be significant to research it on Pacific Islanders. 

            The other important aspect of this study that we included in our literature review is religion and religious rhetoric. Religion is one of the most influential forces in our world’s history and its impact is undeniable. Religion can be a big influencer in all aspects of life, including politics. We felt this was an important variable because religion is especially influential amongst Pacific Islanders. They are heavily influenced by religion because of the origins of religion in the Pacific. Many islands in the pacific are dominantly religious. From our research of different religions within the South Pacific, we hypothesized that using religion in speeches could be statistically significant in relation of their favorability and support of those politicians who used it. 

            For this study, we used a survey and administered it through various social media outlets. We were able to receive a good sample size and got enough responses to analyze what we needed to. We asked questions regarding their specific ethnicity, their religion and religiosity and then their political preferences and parties. For the experimental part of the survey, we presented them with 2 different quotes. Before the quote was presented, we had a description that included one of our control groups. We had four groups: Religious and Republican, Non-religious and Republican, Religious and Democrat and Non-religious and Democrat. 

            Our independent variable was whether the quote was religious or not and what party it was and then the dependent variable was the response to the quotes. Based on review and research of existing literature we had three different hypotheses. The first was that Pacific Islanders would trend Republican. This was mostly because Polynesians were more likely to identify with Christian religions and those religions tend to identify as republicans. Our second hypothesis was that the response amongst pacific islanders would generally trend more favorable to the politician if the quote had religious rhetoric. Finally, to go along with the second hypothesis, we hypothesized that the positive response to religious rhetoric would be amplified if the politician was republican. 

We were able to find support for our first hypothesis. 80% of respondents who were “Very religious” considered themselves to be Strong republican. The Moderate Republican respondents were at 89.5% for the “Very Religious” category. These results were what we were expecting. The more religious they were the more they trended to the end of the spectrum towards Republican. 

We haven’t been able to look at analysis regarding the different blocks from our control groups that the respondents saw because of technical difficulties, but we have collected a lot of data from the different variables that were in the survey. Ultimately, we concluded that religion is a very important part of Pacific Islanders lives and those who were more religious trended more Republican. 

 

 

American Political Influence on Italy After World War II.

    At the beginning of the 20th century, Italy was in a deep crisis. The unification of its territory was late, the wars had lasted between 1859 and 1870, but the political and social problems were not yet over: the Roman papacy refused to submit to the king of Italy; the various regions, historically different, refused to speak Italian, preferring the local dialects (Encyclopedia Britannica)

    In June 1944, the United States took Rome. A few days later, the Partigiani launched attacks on Nazi troops. On April 27, 1945, Mussolini and his lover Clara Petacci, who were trying to flee to Switzerland, were captured by the Partigiani. Quickly tried, they were executed and their bodies exposed in Piazzale Loreto, Milan (Encyclopedia Britannica).

(Adolf Hitler on the left, and Benito Mussolini on the right)

    On May 2, 1945, the Nazis surrendered in Italy. Thus ended the long fascist dictatorship over the Italian people. With the end of the war and Italy and the US strengthened their relationship since it was in the interest of the US that Italy stayed on there since Italy had the largest socialist party outside the Soviet Union (Dosa). The United States did not determine policies in Italy, but it has exercised substantial influence on Italian domestic politics through its political, economic, and military linkages with Italy. The focus of the united states during the postwar period focused on keeping the Left-the Socialist (PSI) and Communist (PCI) parties -from playing a role in government (Platt, 197)

Endorsement and support for Christian Democratic Party:

    Starting in 1948 the US invested large sums of money towards economic aid and military assistance in order to reduce the power of the communist party which was the largest one in Europe outside the Soviet Union. The money went towards strengthening the center coalition lead by the Christian Democrats (DC) (Landa, 2017). The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has acknowledged donating $ 1 million to Italian centrist parties for the 1948 elections. The CIA also published counterfeit letters to discredit the leaders of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). 

(Christian democrats – DC)

Support for specific Candidates:

    In January 1947 the United States invited the leader of the Christian Democratic Party and Prime Minister De Gasperi, to Washington to receive first-hand information about economic progress in Italy and the seriousness of the Left. Italians say these talks promised to be of both real and symbolic value, real in that they would likely lead to increased U.S. economic assistance, and symbolic in that the talks signified acceptance of post-fascist Italy by the major Western power. Soon after these meeting, De Gasperi removed all Communists and Socialists from his Cabinet (Platt, 198)

 

(Alcide De Gasperi)

First Elections Held:

    The legislative elections in Italy in 1946 were held on 2 June and served to elect 556 deputies to the Constituent Assembly. On the same day, a referendum was held on which regime would endure in Italy: republic or monarchy. These were the first elections held after the fall of fascism in Italy and the end of World War II. The election results confirmed the strength of the three main Italian parties: Christian Democracy, with 35.2% of the votes; Italian Socialist Party, which obtained 20.7% of the votes and Italian Communist Party, which stood at 18.9% of the votes. In the institutional referendum of 1947, the monarchy was abolished, with the victory of the Republic with 54.3% of the votes (Harper, 22).

In the 1948 election campaign, the United States significantly intervened politically in Italian internal affairs. At this point, the US  viewed Italy as a crucial battleground between the United States and the Soviet Union. The election transcended national boundaries and it was essential to U.S. interests that the Christian Democrats emerge victorious in the electoral campaign (Platt, 201).

Conclusion:

    The United States has played a significant role in strengthening political parties and individuals in Italy. This was done by giving financial support to political parties or sometimes candidates that shared common ideologies and principles with the United States. The support given by the US was always followed by interests such as geographical position for possible battles during the cold war, and even just to avoid the country’s alignment with the Soviet Union. It is correct to say that these financial incentives were beneficial to certain political parties and to the countries since it helped them to rebuild after World War II. 

Negative Partisanship and Social Salience in Young Voters

 By nature, the youngest generation of voters is arguably the least-studied age group in the realm of political science and media. For equally apparent reasons, their political persuasions are highly impactful on current and future elections. There are several political patterns and social theories that have been formed and applied to the electorate as a whole that have potentially different agents and results for voters ages 18-29. Two of these are the theory of negative partisanship, and social identity theory. 

Social identity theory is defined by Dr. Steven Greene as ‘‘that part of an individual’s self concept which derives from his knowledge of his membership of a group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to the membership” (Greene, 2004, Tajfel 1978), a concept that has direct implications in the two-party American political system. Social identity theory stipulates that intergroup differentiation occurs either as out-group derogation or in-group favoritism. “Out-group derogation, in contrast, is exaggeration of the negative characteristics of relevant out-groups, thereby also making one’s in-group seem superior… In group favoritism simply refers to the tendency for group members to mentally exaggerate and enhance the favorable qualities of the relevant in-group to which they see themselves belonging” (Greene, 2004). In politics, this results in a phenomenon not unlike a positive feedback loop in which as partisan strength increases, so does partisan social identity and individuals then see politics as an “us vs them” zero-sum game. One example of social identity theory at work is the issue of abortion: many individuals form their opinions about abortion policy from their moral or religious standing, resulting in a “super-charged” identity that pervades both their personal and political character. 

Negative partisanship is the idea that a voter is a member of (or leans towards) a party not out of deep ideological affiliation but out of stronger dislike for the alternative, according to political scientist Alan Abramowitz. According to the American National Election Studies (ANES), our recent elections exhibit the highest rates of straight-ticket voting and party loyalty since the organization’s mid 20th century formation. Not only that, but partisan divide is at a historical high in congressional voting and coalition building, on state legislatures, and Supreme Court decisions. However, identification with major parties is at its lowest in recent history (additionally, many Americans are now opting to register as independent so as to avoid negative association with parties and policies they prefer not to support). The 2016 election felt to many like a choice between two poor candidates; many voters who cast a ballot selected their pick not because they were pro-Trump or pro-Hillary, but because they were anti-Trump or anti-Hillary. This is a perfect example of negative partisanship. 

    My research intended to identify if these trends applied specifically to young millennial and Generation Z voters. The survey was conducted to about 300 18-29 year-old Americans through a 21-question, online questionnaire (via Reddit and social media). The vast majority of respondents were white, and many of them Christian. As it turns out, the trends that Professor Greene describes don’t apply forcibly to the respondents I polled. While their data is not necessarily representative of the population as a whole, it is interesting to observe their feelings about the degree to which partisanship is involved in their social identity. Based on several batteries of questioning (both overt and more generalized), I observed that young adults do not feel high levels of attachment to their party, including referring to their party more often as “them” than “we,” feeling low levels of embarrassment as a result of media criticism, and low likelihood to feel like a compliment for the party was a personal compliment. In sum, their social identification with partisan politics in this non-issue-based study is lower than the general population. Dr. Abramowitz’s research is reinforced by this data, however. Because most of the respondents reported having officially registered with this party, and the majority reported that they consider themselves to be regularly up-to-speed with politics, their affiliation can be assumed to be one made out of slight preference. Given the fraught nature of politics today, this is likely a decision informed by policies or candidates they prefer, but also as a result of dislike towards the alternative. We can therefore see negative partisanship at work in young Americans. 

Is a Two-Party System Good For America's Confidence in Government?

 The Problem with American Confidence

It's no secret that the average American's confidence in government has decreased over the past year. The 2020 election showcased stark mistrust in the American electoral system as 33% of Americans and 68% of Republicans found the election to be unfair. Concerns over the government's handling of the coronavirus has caused trust in public health officials to drop to 36% and trust in state and local governments to drop to 26%. At the same time, events associated with the Black Lives Matter movement have caused American confidence in the police to drop to 52%. These numbers make it clear that there is a major problem when it comes to public confidence in America's government and public institutions.

Two-Party Troubles and Multi-Party Solutions

Some people, both within the general public and within political science research have proposed that the solution to this problem of decreased public confidence is the introduction of more political parties into government by moving away from the two-party system that America has had since its inception towards a multi-party system. A party system is a systemic relationship between the viability of political parties, the number of political parties, constitutional law, and electoral law. It's typically named for the number of viable parties within the system. Those who advocate introducing a multi-party system say that America's two-party system has failed to decentralize power, failed to represent the people adequately, and causes political polarization. On the other hand, they claim that a multi-party system will help improve public confidence in government by encouraging greater political competition as more than just two candidates would be viable in elections, discourage partisanship because parties would need to cooperate more to pass bills, and increase representation for people whose positions are not covered under the two-party system. Would a multi-party system really inspire greater public confidence than a Two-party system?

The Analysis

    I wanted to look into this claim that a multi-party system would improve public confidence in government, so I did the research comparing public confidence in various government institutions across different types of party systems. I used election data from the Inter-Parliamentary Union and International Foundation for Electoral Systems in order to categorize every country into five party systems: nations without any viable parties, nations with only one political party, nations with a single dominant political party, nations with two major political parties, and nations with more than two viable parties. I then used polling data from the World Values Survey to receive about nearly 400,000 responses from people around the world to questions about their confidence in the police, civil services, elections, political parties, the legislature, and the government as a whole. Using the public confidence in each government institution separately as a dependent variable and the party systems as independent variables, I ran regressions to see the relationship between public confidence and the party systems, compared to the relationship between public confidence and the two-party system.

    The results of the regressions are included below for the reader's convenience:

  

The data above suggests two major things. The first thing it suggests is that political parties do have a significant impact on the public’s confidence in government. The research also suggests that establishing a multi-party system would not give the desired effect of increased confidence in government, rather it would likely decrease the amount of confidence the average American has in government even more. Multi-party nations reported less confidence in all aspects of government institutions, except elections, than two-party systems and overall was responsible for a 0.413 decrease in public confidence compared to a two-party system. The data also suggests that the more concentrated political power is in smaller amounts of political parties, the more public confidence there would be. 

What does this Mean?

Using this data we can know that the solution to America’s distrust of her public institutions is not the abolition of the two-party system. While it may seem on the surface that more parties would increase confidence in government, there are certain aspects of the multi-party system that make it ineffective at creating confidence. Although the multi-party system would seem to promote less corruption, more competition, and less polarization. In doing so, it also promotes inefficiency, instability, and other avenues for the possible failure of representation as parties negotiate on their campaign promises in order to secure government positions in coalitions. For these reasons, multi-party systems fail to inspire public confidence in government as well as two-party systems currently do.

Native American Voter Mobilization and Election Turnout (Micah Wimmer)

Native American participation in politics

Native American voter turnout and participation in politics are among the lowest of any ethnic group in the United States. While Native Americans make up nearly 1% of the US population, Republican and Democratic parties have largely ignored this underrepresented demographic. However, amidst the flipping of Arizona into a blue state in the November General Election and Biden’s most recent appointment of Deb Haaland to Secretary of the Interior, Native American representation is seemingly increasing and the Native vote has been recognized as a force to be reckoned with. The Democratic party holds a strong lead among Native voters compared to its Republican counterpart. Due to an increased tendency for Native Americans to vote for the Democratic party, I thought it would be important to measure Democratic mobilization efforts among Native Americans to determine whether or not mobilization efforts led to an increase in votes for the Democratic party. I found that because of disproportionately high levels of poverty among Native Americans, many favor liberal economic policies and support for federal aid, thus explaining a tendency to vote for the Democratic Party. With such an advantage over the Republican party, the question remained whether or not the Democratic party valued or sought to increase its voter base among reservation-residing Native Americans within Arizona.

Why Don’t Native Americans vote?

The Native American story is unique, as the original inhabitants of the North American continent, Native Americans are the only ethnic minority to engage in formal relations with the US government. More often than not, Native Americans were forced to relinquish cultural ties or give up precious ancestral lands in order to obtain citizenship or join in politics. It’s not that Native Americans don’t want their voices to be heard, history has taught them that enfranchisement and participation in politics come at a cost. Native Americans are reluctant to participate in politics because they distrust the federal government and doubt the efficacy of their vote. Hundreds of years of inadequate implementation of legislation providing Native Americans with citizenship and voting rights has conditioned many to accept historical disenfranchisement from politics. Native Americans residing on reservations are especially vulnerable to voter disenfranchisement, long distances to polling stations, inadequate information on registering to vote, and high levels of poverty significantly reduce  Native American voter turnout and participation in nation-wide politics. The coronavirus introduced many new challenges to reservations, Native American communities were among the most negatively affected by the pandemic. 

My Research Design

In large part, due to the influential impact of the Native American vote in Arizona and their role in securing a Biden victory, I’ve set out to determine the efficacy of Democratic voter mobilization efforts among Native Americans residing on reservations in Arizona. I selected three counties in Arizona, Pima, Apache, and Navajo county. To control for ethnicity I selected three voter precincts within each county, located within a Native American reservation. I gathered precinct-level election data from the 2016 and 2020 General Elections and recorded the increase of votes for the Democratic and Republican candidates within each precinct. In addition to measuring the increase of votes, I also conducted a qualitative case study investigating Democratic voter outreach initiatives and activity to determine whether or not voter mobilization efforts were responsible for an increase in ballots cast for the Democratic candidates. With no shortage of precincts located on Native American reservations, I’m confident my results accurately represent Native American voting patterns in the state of Arizona. 

Results:

Within each of the voter precincts analyzed I found that the Democratic candidates received a substantial increase of votes from the 2016 to 2020 elections. In all but one precinct, the Democratic candidates held a substantial lead over the Republican candidates and possessed much higher voter shares. When averaging the increase of voter shares among Democratic and Republican candidates in 9 different precincts in Arizona, the Democratic party saw an increase of 2.71% while the Republican party had an increase of 2.52%. While these figures only take into account Republican and Democratic voter shares, a democratic majority of voter shares is consistent throughout both the 2016 and 2020 elections, supporting the theory that Native Americans overwhelmingly cast their ballots for the Democratic party. An increase of over 2% in voter turnout is significant, meaning that mobilization efforts were considered effective given a 2% margin of increase. When conducting an investigation of Democratic outreach and voter mobilization efforts I found that non-partisan voter mobilization organizations were much more prominent and active among Native Americans residing on reservations in Arizona. I believe that the 2.71% increase of voter shares from the 2016 to 2020 elections was less a result of Democratic voting mobilization efforts and more related to the activities of groups such as “RuralUtah” and “Get Out The Vote” rather than efforts on behalf of the Democratic Party. Since I’ve confirmed that Native Americans tend to vote for the Democratic party I can conclude from my results that practically any mobilization efforts among Native Americans would result in higher voter turnout for the Democratic Party as non-partisan organizations were much more active than the Democratic party. 

Building of Political Parties Post-World War 2

                 Our research examines the effects the United States had on the political parties of the Axis powers as they reformed their governments after the end of World War 2. We divide the U.S. actions into several groups: writing of constitutions, promoting a party, promoting a candidate, financial backing, banning parties, and election timing.

In Japan and Germany, the U.S. played a major role in the writing of new constitutions. The U.S. helped dissolve the Japanese Empire and dismantled the feudal system and put a democratic system in place. This allowed for the very existence of political parties in Japan, something that had not ever been seen before. In Germany, political parties were mentioned in the constitution, meaning that the German constitution recognized the importance of political parties in order for democracy to function. This allowed the German political parties to have strong influences on government and maintain good standing in the eyes of the people.

The U.S. also insisted that Germany have single-member districts in its electoral system. Germany had originally proposed a system of proportional representation, where a person votes for a party instead of a candidate. After the votes are tallied, each party gets the same percentage of seats in parliament as the percentage of votes they won. A single-members districts involve voting for a specific candidate and the candidate with the most votes wins. This system means each German got two votes, but more importantly, that candidate selection by parties could be tightly controlled. Parties no longer needed to choose a candidate that could win the majority of votes, but only the most votes. Parties also get to choose who gets in on proportional representation, allowing them to greatly control who is in parliament.

The United States also backed the idea of an article allowing political parties to be banned in the German constitution. This article would be significant in the 1950s as the German constitutional courts banned the Communist Party of Germany as well as the Socialist Reich Party.

Before the formation of the German government, the U.S. already started influencing candidate selection in Germany. As U.S. forces liberated Cologne, the U.S. military appointed Konrad Adenauer as mayor. Adenauer, who had been the mayor before the reign of the Nazis, had long been an outspoken critic of the Adolf Hitler and his Nation Socialists. By appointing Adenauer as mayor of a large German city gave him a prominent role in German politics and exposed him to the public eye. Although the U.S. never endorsed him in later campaigns as Chancellor, it is hard to imagine that appointing him as mayor of Cologne did not give him the public exposure he has on his way to being Chancellor for 14 years.

Likewise, the first Japanese prime ministers were appointed by U.S. military leaders. Yoshida Shigeru was selected by his previous experience with the United States and his pro-American policy. The U.S. set the precedent of the governing party being pro-American and would only choose prime ministers from parties that would work with the U.S.

In Italy and Japan, the U.S. backed specific parties in elections. U.S. government agencies, in particular the CIA, funneled millions of dollars into parties’ coffers to ensure that they could win elections. The Christian Democrats in Italy were given supplies by the U.S. that they could then disperse among the Italian population to gain popularity and support from the Italian people. In Japan, the U.S. gave the Liberal Democratic Party millions of dollars. Both of these parties dominated politics in their respective countries for decades.

The only party banned in Germany were the Nazis, although a ban on the communist party was considered. The process of denazification in Germany ensured that there would be no support for far-right parties in the German population. The U.S. also led campaigns against communism, especially out of fear of the Soviet Union in the east. This led to politics being dominated by center-right and center-left parties for decades. The U.S. did not proactively ban any parties in Japan or Italy.

The last effect America had on German politics is the timing of the first elections. The U.S. had received millions of applications from German refugees to return to the country after the war ended. Out of fear that the refugees might vote for undesirable parties, the U.S. purposely delayed accepting the applications until after the election. Doing so allowed the U.S. to help guarantee a win for Konrad Adenauer and his CDU.

Although the types of interference by the United States were different, an analysis shows that different forms of interference still lead to stable democracies, particularly in the Germany and Japan. The analysis shows potential rebuilding policies for the U.S. in the future as it attempts to build democracies in other countries.