Abstract
Platforms provide a guide to a party's ideological location at a particular time. As such, they can be a useful tool for comparing interparty and intraparty differences over policy alternatives at the subnational level. This analysis of the recent platforms of 40 state Democratic parties and 34 state Republican parties, patterned after Ginsberg’s (1972. 1976) framework, revealed considerable ideological decentralization (across-state intraparty differences) within both parties. Further analysis of platform contents in relationship to Erikson. Wright, and Mclver's (1993) research revealed weak correlations between the ideological content of platforms and the ideological orientations of state electorates, state elected officials, state party activists, and party identifiers, respectively.
Department(s)
Political Science
Document Type
Article
DOI
https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2374-7781.1994.15.0.291-303
Rights Information
American Review of Politics is open to the public and reusable under the terms of a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-SA license.
Publication Date
6-1-1994
Recommended Citation
Paddock, Joel. "A Comparative Analysis of the Policy Development Function of State Party Organizations." American Review of Politics 15 (1994): 291-303.
Journal Title
American Review of Politics
