When movements anchor parties: Electoral alignments in American history

In When Movements Anchor Parties, Daniel Schlozman engages a broad swath of American history, discussing the relationship between political parties and social movements from the abolition of slavery to Occupy Wall Street. While this work addresses a wide range of issues across the disciplines of political science, sociology, history, and law, I focus this review on the implications of Schlozman’s book for interest groups and advocacy. One of Schlozman’s significant contributions is that he offers an historical examination of numerous interest groups and the leaders that guided them. Some of these actors often escape the attention of contemporary scholars, such as John L. Lewis in the Congress of Industrial Organizations, Richard Viguerie at Young Americans for Freedom, Charles McCune in the People’s Party, and Andy Stern in the Service Employees International Union. In conducting this examination, Schlozman adds markedly to our understanding of interest groups in historical context. This contribution is notable, in part, because the study of interest groups has strong bias toward research on contemporary politics. Scholzman offers a greater appreciation of how interest groups fit into the larger story of the American polity, while at the same time stimulating questions worthy of new research. Schlozman’s core argument is that party-movement alliances depend crucially what he calls ‘‘anchoring groups.’’ In using this concept, Schlozman is referring to something in the nexus between an interest group and a social movement. An anchoring group need not necessarily be confined to a single, formal interest group. It may be an amalgam of several groups in a social movement. It must include formal organizations that have resources they are able to devote to politics. For example, Scholzman does not see the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) acting alone as the anchoring group for the labor-Democratic alliance. Rather, he reports that different groups in the labor movement have played the role of anchor. Sometimes, it was AFL-CIO, but other times, it was the United Mine Workers (UMW), the United Auto Workers (UAW),