## Learning Outcomes

- Define **linkage institutions** and explain why they matter in AP U.S. Government and Politics
- Identify how political parties connect citizens to government
- Explain the major functions of parties in elections and in governing
- Distinguish clearly between political parties and interest groups
- Understand how **party identification** shapes voting behavior
- Explain **realignment**, **dealignment**, and the **responsible party model**
- Apply these ideas to multiple-choice and free-response questions

## AP United States Government and Politics Syllabus

For the AP United States Government and Politics, you are expected to understand political parties as linkage institutions, with a focus on the following syllabus points:

- Know that linkage institutions are channels that allow individuals to communicate their preferences to policymakers
- Identify the four main linkage institutions: political parties, elections, interest groups, and the media
- Explain how political parties link citizens to government through candidate recruitment, voter mobilization, policy cues, and organization of government
- Understand the difference between political parties and interest groups
- Know that party identification is a long-term psychological attachment and a strong predictor of voting behavior
- Explain **party realignment** and **dealignment**, including the **New Deal realignment of 1932** and the long-term Southern realignment
- Understand the **responsible party model** and why it is difficult to achieve in the United States
- Be able to apply these ideas in concept application, comparison, and argument questions

## Test Your Knowledge

_Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, look more closely at that area during your revision._

1. What is a linkage institution, and why are political parties one example?
2. How do political parties differ from interest groups?
3. What is the difference between **party identification** and a person’s vote in one election?
4. How is **realignment** different from **dealignment**?
5. Why is the **responsible party model** harder to achieve in the United States than in some other systems?

## Introduction

Political participation is not just about casting a ballot. In AP U.S. Government and Politics, students need to understand the channels through which ordinary people communicate preferences to government. These channels are called linkage institutions. Political parties are one of the most important because they do more than express opinions: they try to win elections, control government, and turn broad public preferences into public policy.

This topic matters because it appears in several ways on the AP exam. You may be asked to define a linkage institution, explain how a party connects voters to policymakers, compare parties with interest groups, or use party identification, realignment, or dealignment to explain voting patterns. To score well, you need more than a definition. You need to explain how these institutions work and why they sometimes work imperfectly.

> **Key Term: linkage institutions**
> Channels that allow individuals to communicate their preferences to policymakers.

### What political parties do as linkage institutions

Political parties are **organized groups** that seek to influence government by getting their members elected to office and shaping policy once those members are in power. That goal makes parties different from most other political organizations.

> **Key Term: political party**
> An organized group that seeks to influence government by electing its members to office and shaping public policy.

As linkage institutions, parties connect citizens to government in several distinct ways.

First, they **recruit and nominate candidates**. This matters because most voters do not run for office themselves. Parties give politically active citizens a path into government. In practice, this means parties help identify potential candidates, support them through primaries, and place them on general election ballots. On the AP exam, if a question asks how parties connect citizens to institutions, candidate recruitment is one of the clearest answers.

Second, parties **mobilize voters**. They register voters, contact likely supporters, run advertisements, hold rallies, and build turnout operations. This is a direct linkage function because it turns passive preference into active participation. A citizen may lean toward one party, but unless that person registers and votes, the preference has not entered the policymaking system in a meaningful way.

Third, parties give voters **policy cues**. Most voters do not study every issue in full detail. Party labels act as shortcuts. If a candidate runs as a Democrat or Republican, many voters infer likely positions on taxes, health care, environmental regulation, abortion, gun policy, or immigration. This does not mean all party members agree on every issue. It means the party label helps voters make decisions when they lack time or information.

Fourth, parties **organize government once elections are over**. This is often missed by students. Parties do not stop mattering after Election Day. In Congress, party affiliation helps determine leadership positions, committee control, and the legislative agenda. In the executive branch, the president acts as party leader and often tries to move policy through allied lawmakers. So parties link citizens not only to campaigns, but also to governing institutions.

A useful AP-safe summary is this: parties connect citizens to government by nominating candidates, mobilizing participation, simplifying political choices, and coordinating governing action.

> **Key Term: party platform**
> A statement of a party’s policy positions, goals, and priorities.
>
> **Test Tip:** If an FRQ asks you to “describe” how parties act as linkage institutions, give one concrete function such as recruiting candidates or mobilizing voters. If it asks you to “explain,” add the cause-and-effect step: how that function connects citizens to policymakers.

### How parties differ from other linkage institutions

Students often confuse parties with interest groups because both try to influence public policy. The difference is basic but essential: **political parties seek to win elections and govern**, while **interest groups seek to influence policy without nominating candidates**.

> **Key Term: interest group**
> An organization that seeks to influence public policy, usually without nominating candidates for office.

That distinction changes everything.

Political parties must build **broad coalitions**. Since they want to win elections in many offices and appeal to many voters, parties often become “big tent” organizations. They include groups that do not agree on every issue. For example, a party may contain business-friendly members, social conservatives, moderates, racial minority groups, labor supporters, or environmental voters. To stay electorally competitive, party leaders try to hold these groups together.

Interest groups are narrower. They are usually organized around a specific issue or limited set of concerns. Because they do not need to win major elections directly, they can take more exact positions. A gun-rights group, environmental organization, teachers’ union, or anti-tax organization can focus on a small number of goals and pressure whichever party is in office.

This also explains why parties and interest groups use different methods. Parties nominate candidates, run campaigns, and seek control of governing institutions. Interest groups lobby, litigate, endorse, fund ads, submit **amicus curiae** briefs, and pressure officeholders. Both are linkage institutions, but they occupy different roles.

You should also distinguish parties from **elections** and **the media**. Elections are linkage institutions because they give citizens a way to choose representatives and hold officials accountable. The media are linkage institutions because they inform citizens, shape the agenda, and influence how issues are framed. Parties overlap with both, but they are not the same thing.

> **Test Tip:** Comparison questions often reward one clean distinction. A strong answer is: “Political parties nominate candidates and seek to control government, whereas interest groups try to influence policy without nominating candidates.”

### The three parts of a political party

AP Gov often treats parties in three connected forms:

- the **party organization**
- the **party in the electorate**
- the **party in government**

The **party organization** is the formal structure: national committees, state committees, local committees, leaders, staff, and activists. This part raises money, recruits candidates, and coordinates campaign activity.

The **party in the electorate** consists of voters and supporters. This includes strong party loyalists, weak party identifiers, and people who usually vote for one party even if they are not formally committed.

The **party in government** refers to the elected officials who belong to that party. These are the presidents, governors, senators, representatives, and state legislators who try to turn party goals into policy.

This three-part structure helps explain why parties are often less unified than students expect. The national party might want one thing, local party leaders another, and officeholders still another. A candidate may rely on the party label but still run a candidate-centered campaign. That is one reason American parties can look weaker and more decentralized than parties in parliamentary systems.

### Party identification and voting behavior

One of the most tested ideas in Unit 5 is **party identification**.

> **Key Term: party identification**
> A voter’s long-term psychological attachment to a political party.

Party identification is not the same as voter registration, and it is not the same as one vote in one election. A voter may identify as an independent yet usually vote for one party. Another voter may register with a party but occasionally support the other side in a specific race. Party identification is deeper and more stable than a single election choice.

Why does it matter? Because party identification is one of the strongest predictors of voting behavior. Voters who strongly identify with a party are more likely to support that party’s candidates across multiple offices. This is the basis of **party-line voting**.

> **Key Term: party-line voting**
> Voting for candidates from the same political party across offices in an election.

Strong party identification also helps explain why modern elections are highly polarized. If many voters see politics through party identity first, then candidate evaluation often begins with party labels rather than detailed policy analysis. This does not eliminate other voting models, though. Voters may also act through **retrospective voting** by judging past performance, **prospective voting** by judging future promises, or **rational choice voting** by asking what seems best for their own interests. But party identification often shapes how voters interpret all of those things.

A common AP error is to assume independents are truly neutral. Many are not. Many self-identified independents are actually partisan leaners who usually support one side. On the exam, it is safer to say that dealignment has increased independent identification, but many independents still lean toward one major party.

### Realignment, dealignment, and changing party coalitions

Political parties do not stay fixed forever. Their coalitions change, sometimes slowly and sometimes dramatically.

> **Key Term: party realignment**
> A major and lasting shift in party coalition support, often associated with a critical election.

A classic example is the **New Deal realignment of 1932**. In the Great Depression, many voters shifted toward the Democratic Party under Franklin D. Roosevelt. The resulting **New Deal coalition** included urban workers, labor unions, immigrants, Catholics, Jews, many Black voters in northern cities, farmers, and white Southerners. This was not just a one-election event. It reshaped party support for decades.

Another key example is the long **Southern realignment** from the 1960s onward. For much of earlier U.S. history, the South had strong Democratic ties. Over time, especially after the civil rights era, many Southern white voters moved toward the Republican Party. This helps explain why regional party patterns today differ from earlier periods.

Realignment means a durable shift from one party to another. **Dealignment** is different.

> **Key Term: dealignment**
> A weakening of voter loyalty to political parties, often shown by increased independent identification and weaker party attachment.

In dealignment, voters do not necessarily move cleanly to the other party. Instead, many become less loyal overall. Signs include more self-identified independents, weaker psychological attachment, and sometimes more **ticket splitting**, where voters choose candidates from different parties in the same election.

> **Key Term: ticket splitting**
> Voting for candidates of different parties for different offices in the same election.

Why does this distinction matter? Because AP questions often test whether you know that **realignment = shift to another party**, while **dealignment = weakening attachment to either party**. Students who blur the two lose easy points.

### The responsible party model and its limits

The **responsible party model** is an ideal of what political parties should be.

> **Key Term: responsible party model**
> The idea that parties should present clear platforms, maintain internal discipline, govern according to those platforms, and be held accountable by voters.

Under this model, parties should do four things well:

1. offer voters clear policy choices
2. win elections on those choices
3. govern as a unified team
4. accept accountability at the next election

This sounds neat, but the United States often falls short of it. Why?

First, American parties are **decentralized**. National, state, and local organizations all matter, and no single leader fully controls them.

Second, elections are often **candidate-centered**. Candidates build personal brands, raise their own money, and may not closely follow national party leaders.

Third, the Constitution’s **separation of powers** makes party discipline harder. Even if one party controls Congress and the presidency, lawmakers answer to different states and districts. Senators have different incentives from House members, and presidents have a separate national electoral base.

Fourth, **divided government** can block party agendas entirely, making it hard for voters to know whom to hold responsible.

So the responsible party model remains useful for analysis, but it describes an ideal more than a perfect description of real American politics.

## Key Point Checklist

_This article has covered the following key knowledge points:_

- Linkage institutions are channels that allow individuals to communicate their preferences to policymakers
- The four main linkage institutions in AP Gov are political parties, elections, interest groups, and the media
- Political parties act as linkage institutions by recruiting candidates, mobilizing voters, giving policy cues, and organizing government
- Political parties differ from interest groups because parties nominate candidates and seek control of government
- Parties can be understood as the party organization, the party in the electorate, and the party in government
- Party identification is a long-term psychological attachment and is a strong predictor of voting behavior
- Party-line voting means voting for candidates from the same party across offices
- Party realignment is a lasting shift in support from one party to another
- The **New Deal realignment of 1932** is a major example of realignment
- Dealignment means weakened party loyalty, often shown by more independents and weaker attachments
- Ticket splitting is often linked to dealignment
- The responsible party model says parties should offer clear choices, govern as teams, and be accountable, but U.S. parties are too decentralized for this to work fully

## Key Terms and Concepts

- linkage institutions
- political party
- party platform
- interest group
- party identification
- party-line voting
- party realignment
- dealignment
- ticket splitting
- responsible party model


Political Parties - Linkage institutions channels