{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/82592"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/82592","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Aggregate Electoral Change in United States Presidential Elections, 1828--1992: A Reevaluation of Realignment Theory","abstract":"Since the time V. O. Key introduced the notion of realignment theory, it has been the dominant conceptual picture for understanding the history of American electoral politics. Recently, however, that dominant picture has come under attack from critics who argue that the theory is predictively inaccurate or is no longer relevant in an era of dealignment and should, therefore, be abandoned. Rather than abandoning the theory, I argue that realignment theory is a good case study of inductive science gone bad. There has been too much emphasis on using aggregate electoral returns in an attempt to identify critical elections and then building a theoretical structure to explain the findings. I attempt to cut through this dense theoretical structure and place the theory on a more deductive footing in four ways. First, I clarify the concept by identifying the necessary and sufficient conditions for a realignment to occur. Second, I demonstrate that the major criticisms of realignment theory do not apply to a clarified, more deductive version of the theory. I argue that the realignment process is stochastic and that, as a result, realignments cannot occur with any regularity. I also argue that realignment and dealignment are not inversely related phenomena but can and do occur together. Third, I identify methodological problems with the major studies that provide evidence of the occurrence of realignments. These problems stem primarily from the fact that all of them conduct atheoretical searches through series of aggregate election returns, asking of each and every election, Was this a realignment? Once these problems are corrected, the conclusions drawn by these scholars about the timing of realignments are no longer supported by the evidence. Therefore, the theoretical structure built upon these facts is tenuous. Finally, because a hypothesis testing approach is warranted, I test the conventional wisdom about the timing of realignments in a more appropriate way, one that recognizes the special problems of using aggregate historical election returns: pooled time-series intervention analysis. Indeed, the method provides efficient tests of the hypotheses because it corrects for both autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity and reduces the amount of aggregation bias significantly.","abstract_html":"Since the time V. O. Key introduced the notion of realignment theory, it has been the dominant conceptual picture for understanding the history of American electoral politics. Recently, however, that dominant picture has come under attack from critics who argue that the theory is predictively inaccurate or is no longer relevant in an era of dealignment and should, therefore, be abandoned. Rather than abandoning the theory, I argue that realignment theory is a good case study of inductive science gone bad. There has been too much emphasis on using aggregate electoral returns in an attempt to identify critical elections and then building a theoretical structure to explain the findings. I attempt to cut through this dense theoretical structure and place the theory on a more deductive footing in four ways. First, I clarify the concept by identifying the necessary and sufficient conditions for a realignment to occur. Second, I demonstrate that the major criticisms of realignment theory do not apply to a clarified, more deductive version of the theory. I argue that the realignment process is stochastic and that, as a result, realignments cannot occur with any regularity. I also argue that realignment and dealignment are not inversely related phenomena but can and do occur together. Third, I identify methodological problems with the major studies that provide evidence of the occurrence of realignments. These problems stem primarily from the fact that all of them conduct atheoretical searches through series of aggregate election returns, asking of each and every election, Was this a realignment? Once these problems are corrected, the conclusions drawn by these scholars about the timing of realignments are no longer supported by the evidence. Therefore, the theoretical structure built upon these facts is tenuous. Finally, because a hypothesis testing approach is warranted, I test the conventional wisdom about the timing of realignments in a more appropriate way, one that recognizes the special problems of using aggregate historical election returns: pooled time-series intervention analysis. Indeed, the method provides efficient tests of the hypotheses because it corrects for both autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity and reduces the amount of aggregation bias significantly.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Frank, Michael William"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Political Science","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Nardulli, Peter F."],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2015,"date_issued":"2015-09-25T20:49:32Z","date_published":"2015-09-25T20:49:32Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:26:18Z","subjects":["History, United States"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["(MiAaPQ)AAI9712270"],"render_values":[{"text":"(MiAaPQ)AAI9712270","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/82592","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Nardulli, Peter F."]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Frank, Michael William"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2015-09-25T20:49:32Z","10000-01-01","1996"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Political Science"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["History, United States"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/82592","(MiAaPQ)AAI9712270"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Since the time V. O. Key introduced the notion of realignment theory, it has been the dominant conceptual picture for understanding the history of American electoral politics. Recently, however, that dominant picture has come under attack from critics who argue that the theory is predictively inaccurate or is no longer relevant in an era of dealignment and should, therefore, be abandoned. Rather than abandoning the theory, I argue that realignment theory is a good case study of inductive science gone bad. There has been too much emphasis on using aggregate electoral returns in an attempt to identify critical elections and then building a theoretical structure to explain the findings. I attempt to cut through this dense theoretical structure and place the theory on a more deductive footing in four ways. First, I clarify the concept by identifying the necessary and sufficient conditions for a realignment to occur. Second, I demonstrate that the major criticisms of realignment theory do not apply to a clarified, more deductive version of the theory. I argue that the realignment process is stochastic and that, as a result, realignments cannot occur with any regularity. I also argue that realignment and dealignment are not inversely related phenomena but can and do occur together. Third, I identify methodological problems with the major studies that provide evidence of the occurrence of realignments. These problems stem primarily from the fact that all of them conduct atheoretical searches through series of aggregate election returns, asking of each and every election, Was this a realignment? Once these problems are corrected, the conclusions drawn by these scholars about the timing of realignments are no longer supported by the evidence. Therefore, the theoretical structure built upon these facts is tenuous. Finally, because a hypothesis testing approach is warranted, I test the conventional wisdom about the timing of realignments in a more appropriate way, one that recognizes the special problems of using aggregate historical election returns: pooled time-series intervention analysis. Indeed, the method provides efficient tests of the hypotheses because it corrects for both autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity and reduces the amount of aggregation bias significantly.","Made available in DSpace on 2015-09-25T20:49:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4848 bytes, checksum: 96035ab3f5e1c23cc7138a224ce498bd (MD5) 9712270.pdf: 11414972 bytes, checksum: c71122e2767d4677f25c6de9489f256a (MD5) Previous issue date: 1996","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 83873 Lift date: Forever Reason: Restricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETDs","Restricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETDs","U of I Only","267 p.","Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1996."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Aggregate Electoral Change in United States Presidential Elections, 1828--1992: A Reevaluation of Realignment Theory"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Nardulli, Peter F."],"dc:creator":["Frank, Michael William"],"dc:date":["2015-09-25T20:49:32Z","10000-01-01","1996"],"dc:description":["Since the time V. O. Key introduced the notion of realignment theory, it has been the dominant conceptual picture for understanding the history of American electoral politics. Recently, however, that dominant picture has come under attack from critics who argue that the theory is predictively inaccurate or is no longer relevant in an era of dealignment and should, therefore, be abandoned. Rather than abandoning the theory, I argue that realignment theory is a good case study of inductive science gone bad. There has been too much emphasis on using aggregate electoral returns in an attempt to identify critical elections and then building a theoretical structure to explain the findings. I attempt to cut through this dense theoretical structure and place the theory on a more deductive footing in four ways. First, I clarify the concept by identifying the necessary and sufficient conditions for a realignment to occur. Second, I demonstrate that the major criticisms of realignment theory do not apply to a clarified, more deductive version of the theory. I argue that the realignment process is stochastic and that, as a result, realignments cannot occur with any regularity. I also argue that realignment and dealignment are not inversely related phenomena but can and do occur together. Third, I identify methodological problems with the major studies that provide evidence of the occurrence of realignments. These problems stem primarily from the fact that all of them conduct atheoretical searches through series of aggregate election returns, asking of each and every election, Was this a realignment? Once these problems are corrected, the conclusions drawn by these scholars about the timing of realignments are no longer supported by the evidence. Therefore, the theoretical structure built upon these facts is tenuous. Finally, because a hypothesis testing approach is warranted, I test the conventional wisdom about the timing of realignments in a more appropriate way, one that recognizes the special problems of using aggregate historical election returns: pooled time-series intervention analysis. Indeed, the method provides efficient tests of the hypotheses because it corrects for both autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity and reduces the amount of aggregation bias significantly.","Made available in DSpace on 2015-09-25T20:49:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4848 bytes, checksum: 96035ab3f5e1c23cc7138a224ce498bd (MD5) 9712270.pdf: 11414972 bytes, checksum: c71122e2767d4677f25c6de9489f256a (MD5) Previous issue date: 1996","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 83873 Lift date: Forever Reason: Restricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETDs","Restricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETDs","U of I Only","267 p.","Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1996."],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/82592","(MiAaPQ)AAI9712270"],"dc:language":["eng"],"dc:subject":["History, United States"],"dc:title":["Aggregate Electoral Change in United States Presidential Elections, 1828--1992: A Reevaluation of Realignment Theory"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Political Science"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:26:18Z"}