Title: The Politics of Prohibition: American Governance and the Prohibition Party, 1869–1933
Abstract:The Prohibition party has been derided as the most rigid and insignificant expression of a failed social movement. But by analyzing the Prohibition party within the context of American political struc...The Prohibition party has been derided as the most rigid and insignificant expression of a failed social movement. But by analyzing the Prohibition party within the context of American political structures and party mechanisms between the Civil War and the Progressive Era drive to constitutional prohibition, Lisa M. F. Andersen places partisan Prohibitionists at the center of vital struggles that reshaped and curtailed democratic political expression during the party age. Andersen argues that more than stubborn devotion to a hopeless cause motivated Prohibitionists to resist the domination of the Republican and Democratic parties in electoral politics. Prohibitionists insisted “that minor parties protected the right of all citizens to vote in a way that clearly expressed their interests” (pp. 133–34). The major parties centralized decision making, minimized input from rank-and-file partisans, and ignored divisive or minor issues. Despite causing the defection of some of its members, the Prohibition party even criticized as undemocratic the nonpartisan pressure tactics of the Anti-Saloon League that produced national prohibition in 1920. Without a single-minded party commitment to enforcement and unsupported by direct voter participation in its adoption, constitutional prohibition seemed unwise and unworkable to Prohibition party loyalists.Read More
Publication Year: 2016
Publication Date: 2016-12-14
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 55
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