Party and Nation: Immigration and Regime Politics in American History

Party and Nation examines immigration as a means to understand party competition in American history. The rise of Donald Trump reflects an ongoing regime change in the U.S., in which multiculturalism and nationalism have emerged as central aspects of the major parties’ ideological and coalitional bases. This phenomenon of a multiculturalist Democratic Party and a nationalist Republican Party, the authors suggest, is a dramatic departure from the first American political regime. That older regime was grounded in the Founding generation’s commitment to the principle of natural rights and the shaping of a national culture to support that principle. Partisan debates over immigration set into relief the tensions inherent in that commitment. The authors present the permutations of that first regime amidst the territorial expansion of the country and the tragic conflicts over slavery and segregation. With industrialization, the great immigrant wave at the turn of the 20th century, and the rise of the progressive administrative state, the parties began their century-long transformation into the plebiscitary institutions they are today. This new political reality, it is argued, brought with it a situation in which the debate over immigration not only illuminates party differences, but has begun to define them.

Table of Contents:
1 Nationalism, Republicanism and the First Parties 2 Immigration, Expansion and the Mass Parties 3 Slavery, Labor and the New Immigration 4 Parties, Progress and Closing the Open Door 5 The Rise and Fall of the New Deal 6 Ideological Parties and the Return of Mass Immigration 7 Multiculturalism and Nationalism: Obama and Trump

About the Author :
Scot J. Zentner is professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino. Michael C. LeMay is professor emeritus at California State University, San Bernardino.

Review :
This book could not be more timely. It is a must-read for anyone who seeks to understand the role of immigration in American party politics. Michael LeMay and Scot Zentner offer a careful, clear, and candid assessment of where we are, as a nation, in our political life today. Party and Nation: Immigration and Regime Politics in American History is an illuminating and uniquely valuable study examining the role of immigration as an issue in partisan electoral competition in U.S. history. Zentner and LeMay provide a sweeping, incisive treatment of the interplay between political parties and immigration in the country’s history. In doing so, the authors cast brilliant light on how Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election should be viewed in the context of American history, and offer penetrating insights into some of the deepest debates in contemporary American political life.