Elmer E. Schattschneider Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Elmer Eric (E. E.) Schattschneider (1892–1971) was an American political scientist who wrote about political parties.

Schattschneider was born in Bethany, Minnesota. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1915. He then worked for the Young Men’s Christian Association from 1916 to 1918 and joined the U.S. Navy in 1918. After leaving the military at the end of World War I (1914–1918), Schattschneider taught at the senior high school in Butler, Pennsylvania, from 1919 to 1926. He then entered the University of Pittsburgh and was awarded his master’s degree in 1927. In 1935 he received his doctorate from Columbia University.

Schattschneider taught at Columbia (1927–1930), the New Jersey College for Women (1928–1930), and Wesleyan University (1930–1960). After his retirement, he continued to teach as a professor emeritus of government at Wesleyan until 1970. He also was a visiting professor at Syracuse University (1949– 1950), where he supervised visiting German students.

Schattschneider was active in public service. He served on the Connecticut City Council of Middletown (1938–1940), as a member of the Connecticut State Board of Mediation and Arbitration (1940–1946), as a “visiting expert” in Germany for the U.S. Army of Occupation (1949), as chair of the Governor’s Commission on Community Adjustment Problems (1951), and as a member of the Old Saybrook (Connecticut) Charter Study Commission (1967–1968).

Schattschneider was vice president (1953–1954) and president (1956–1957) of the American Political Science Association. In 1949 he chaired the association’s Committee on Political Parties, which published “Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System” in 1950.

Schattschneider’s books include Party Government (1942), Equilibrium and Change in American Politics (1958), The Semisovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America (1960), Political Parties and Democracy (1964), and Two Hundred Million Americans in Search of a Government (1969). The Semisovereign People is significant because Schattschneider wrote about the transformation of American politics from a set of regional political systems to a truly national political one.

Schattschneider’s work on parties and interest groups made him influential in political science. His observation in Party Government that, because people are torn between their interests, there can never be 100 percent mobilization of an interest helped frame the understanding of the workings of interest groups in American politics. In the same work he writes that “A political party is first of all an organized attempt to get power. Power is here defined as control of the government. That is the objective of party organization. The fact that the party aims at control of the government as a whole distinguishes it from pressure groups” (2004, 35) A few lines later he adds that “Since control of a government is one of the most important things imaginable, it follows that a real party is one of the most significant organizations in society.”

Bibliography:

Schattschneider, Elmer E. Party Government: American Government in Action. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1942. Rev. ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2004.
Political Parties and Democracy. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1964.
Politics, Pressures, and the Tariff: A Study of Free Enterprise in Pressure Politics, as Shown in the 1929–1930 Revision of the Tariff. New York: Prentice Hall, 1935.
The Semisovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1960.
The Struggle for Party Government. College Park: Program in American Civilization, University of Maryland, 1948.
Two Hundred Million Americans in Search of a Government. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1969.

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