Today at a meeting of the American Politics Research Group (a joint UNC-Duke polisci department venture), I heard an interesting lecture on decentralization of power and its effects on third parties. It turns out that government centralization destroys third parties nationally and at every other level.
Kenneth Kollman of the University of Michigan explains these findings in his forthcoming book, The Formation of National Party Systems: Federalism and Party Competition in Canada, Great Britain, India, and the United States, which promises to be a good read for anyone interested in choice in government. Amongst his findings were the interesting details that the period in U.S. history with the most party choice was 1800-1854 (the Jeffersonian Era) and the period with the least party choice quickly succeeded FDR’s presidency.
