Representation without Parties: Reconsidering the One-Party South.

The conventional wisdom presents the one-party South as an authoritarian regime ruled by a narrow economic elite, whose dominance was guaranteed as much by lack of partisan competition as by widespread disenfranchisement. I argue instead that Democratic primaries created a "selectoral connection" that induced office-holder to represent the eligible electorate, which was all-white but economically diverse. I support this argument with data on congressional voting patterns, primary elections, and opinion polls from the 1930s-50s. Focusing on economic issues, where whites' preferences were most diverse, I show that Southern MCs were broadly in step with the Southern white public. Southern MCs were also responsive to cross-sectional differences in their selectorates' preferences, and in the Senate responsiveness was at least as strong as in the non-South. In sum, the South's lack of partisan competition did not obviously inhibit congressional representation of the white public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]