Problems of Democratic Consolidation in the American Deep South, 1976-1980

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K12717
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 06010:Politics-related
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo (2021-2023); Nanzan University (2018-2020)
• Principal Investigator: Hiramatsu Ayako 東京大学, 大学院総合文化研究科, 准教授 (00803884)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 米国の南部民主党 / マックガヴァン・フレーザー改革 / 投票権 / 民主化過程

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The project examined the state-level compliance processes of Democratic Party's McGovern Fraser reform in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina in the United States from 1968 to 1972. Of those three states, the PI had found that the reform process rendered Alabama's state Democratic Party splinter into two major factions, one of which launched a third-party presidential campaign for its renegade state governor, while Georgia and South Carolina accepted the reform mandates in relatively unified manners. Arguably, one of the reasons that created these starkly different political outcomes across the three states was the uneven, and highly selective, federal interventions the Justice Department made through litigations and administrative decisions for enforcing the voting rights of black southerners through the 1960s, before the party reform process started.

Free Research Field

政治学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

１９６０年代から７０年代にかけてのアメリカ合衆国南部地域における民主化の過程について、これまで用いられることのなかった政党史料や司法省内部文書に基づき、政党規則改正を行なった時期や、改革をめぐる賛成および反対勢力の所在、また司法省の投票権保護のための介入の実態について、新たな事実が明らかになった。国家の行政介入、また政党の改革と変容の様相は、アメリカにおける民主化過程との特異性と今日まで続く政党制の特徴を物語っており、これを解明したことに学術的な意義がある。