Political science - Term Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages... 3.) The party system exacerbates, and further marginalizes the position of a historically disadvantage minority group like the African-American through the forwarding of the political agenda of the party. Counter Evidence 1.) There have been black American politicians who are members of political parties long before and they could have done something to help and present black Americans’/minorities’ interests in the legislative arena. Response: 1.) The minority is often excluded in terms of involvement in a great deal of substantive decision making. This aside from party leaders distancing themselves from any black leaders attempting to raise issues associated in subtle ways with African Americans such as contemporary welfare politics, crime, or social spending in inner cities. Name Professor Subject Date American Politics and the Marginalized Groups I. Introduction In today’s American society, politicians and their policies greatly affect the poor, or the marginalized group as evidenced by income and social inequality. The rich become richer and the poor become poorer with control over policy being forwarded and enacted by the leading political parties. In his book, Paul Frymer defined electoral capture as the result of party leaders’ resistance on mobilizing and incorporating blacks into the political system to the point of denying black Americans their democratic rights completely in their parties’ efforts to win elections (p. 6). It is my belief that Bartels’ position on representation and economic equality in the country is supported by Frymer’s position that “the most important single influence on the changing United States income distribution over the past half century is the contrasting policy choices (made by the elected) Democratic and Republican presidents” (p. 30). This paper presents and discusses Frymer’s theory regarding electoral capture and then presents and discusses Bartels’ findings about economic inequality and representation. In the end, the paper will try to prove how Frymer’s theory explains and supports it. II. Frymer’s Electoral Capture and key empirical findings Frymer defines and explains his electoral capture theory, where black voters are often considered a minority and ignored that Democratic Party leaders refuse to acknowledge the numerical support cast by black voters. He observes that the party does not give due recognition to black votes even though their votes “have often been crucial in (winning) national elections” (p. 10). He added that “opposition party leaders have generally been reluctant to even make general political appeals to blacks” (p. 10) even when they have expressed interests in transferring membership to the opposition. Marginalization starts with party leaders. Frymer argued that for party leaders, there is a negative effect on appealing to black voters and that, “public appeals to black voters will result to national electoral defeats”. This for him is the primary reason for electoral capture, where marginalized groups become even more marginalized as their interests are not represented in the legislative arena. Frymer cited several examples in the country’s political campaign and election history to support his statements. One is the November 1992 elections, where the Democratic ...Download file to see next pagesRead More