Page 84 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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The Roots of Pluralism 10:39
1920, the total was 650,000, with the post office no longer dominating
the ranks. 90
The complexity of political communication was affected also by the
evolving electoral arena. The primaries, which spread steadily following
the 1904 debut in Wisconsin, doubled the number of occasions in which
citizens were called to the polls. At roughly the same time, the spread
across states of mechanisms for tying Senate appointments to the out-
come of popular votes increased electoral options. By the time the rat-
ification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913 finalized the process,
citizens had to choose three rather than two national officials, as well as
contend with the primary and general election. The rise of ballot propo-
sitions in the same period added to the intricacy of elections, beginning
withtheinitiativeinSouthDakotain1898andthereferenduminOregon
in 1902. Even the adoption of the Australian ballot added incrementally
to political complexity, since it eliminated the automatic straight-ticket
vote and provided citizens more degrees of freedom at the ballot box. The
electoral process had become substantially more information-intensive
than it had been during the previous information regime.
A final contributor to complexity was the multiplication of private and
public actors with an interest in politics. In civil society, a comparatively
homogeneous nation, characterized mainly by regional divisions on a
few major issues, had mutated into a complex, heterogeneous society
of groups with specialized interests that did not overlay neatly on old
regional patterns. At the heart of this new body of political interests
were private associations. The period 1880 to 1920 was characterized by
a massive, nationwide frenzy of association formation – what Elizabeth
Clemens calls a “mania” for the creation of new organized groups. 91
The variety and vibrancy of new associations would likely have aston-
ished even Tocqueville. New women’s groups formed, some for Jewish
women, some for all business and professional women, others for fe-
male artists, one for women in universities. Some groups focused on
historical connections, such as the Daughters of the American Revo-
lution and the Daughters of the Confederacy. Social improvement and
health-related associations included the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the

90
Hays, The Response to Industrialism; Stanley and Niemi, Vital Statistics on American
Politics.
91
Elizabeth Stephanie Clemens, The People’s Lobby: Organizational Innovation and the
Rise of Interest Group Politics in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1997). Also see: Schudson, The Good Citizen; Wiebe, The Search for Order; Truman,
The Governmental Process.

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