Elections, Policy, and Reform in Twentieth-Century History
August 8th, 2012
Historically election results have not had a significant impact on the policies of the state. The rhetoric it uses can change dramatically as a result of election results, but what it does not what it says does not change due to elections. That doesn’t mean it never changes, just that those changes are not the result of one candidate winning the election over another. Historically, the actions of the state are contingent on factors other than who wins the election, such as the status of the economy, the use of direct action by popular movements, interaction with other states, the needs & desires of the 1%, technological changes, etc.
Take President Wilson. When he won in 1912, the second place contestant was Theodore Roosevelt of the Progressive (Bull Moose) Party. Roosevelt was committed to a platform broadly similar to Wilson's - progressive reform at home and imperialism abroad. Roosevelt also had a record of reform to back it up. In third place was the incumbent, Taft, of the Republican party. He also had a record of reform at home (especially trustbusting) and imperialism abroad. Except for Eugene Debs, the election of 1912 was fought over who could better lead the reform of capitalism. That progressive reforms would be implemented was literally a forgone conclusion; all major candidates were reform candidates. You could point to Wilson's record on race as a potential difference - Wilson segregated the federal government and was the most racist President of the 20th century - but that was not a campaign issue in 1912. That's why many northern Blacks voted for him. Given the general expansion of segregation throughout the U.S. in that time period it was very likely that the Federal government would eventually do the same thing, no matter who won.
When Wilson ran for reelection in 1916 he made his record of keeping the U.S. out of World War One a major plank of his campaign. The slogan was "he kept us out of war." In early 1917 he broke that campaign pledge, took the US into the war, and proceeded to imprison many people who opposed the war - including anarchists & socialists. So the election of someone else would not have made much of a difference in Wilson's case.
The same is true of FDR. As the depression wore on, before FDR came to office, the state (including the Hoover administration) gradually increased its involvement in the economy in a quasi-Keynesian manner. States increased spending on public works and Hoover eventually set up the reconstruction finance corporation. FDR had few clear campaign promises, he merely pledged to do something about the economy. He did promise to maintain a balanced budget, yet did not have a balanced budget for a single year of his extremely long presidency. FDR had no real plans initially; he was just going to try something and if it helped the economy keep doing it, otherwise terminate it and try something else. When he took office the economy had just hit rock bottom, and so he just expanded on the already existing trend for the state to intervene in the economy more. Had Hoover and the Republicans been in office they likely would have carried out similar actions - they were already trending that way the previous 4 years. Hoover's philosophy was to first attempt voluntary measures (in a capitalist sense) and then resort to state action after that had failed. Since those measures obviously failed, Hoover would also have ultimately resorted to similar quasi-Keynesian measures. He had actually been an advocate of reform when he was younger.
Originally the New Deal had a pro-business slant, much as Hoover's policies did. Then, beginning in 1934, a huge strike wave erupted and left-wing radical movements grew by leaps and bounds. The state responded to this with a series of concessions to the working class designed to restore the perception that the system is legitimate and prevent further unrest. That's why the parts of the New Deal that benefitted workers, like Social Security and the Wagner Act, came from 1935-37 while the more pro-business policies, like the National Recovery Administration, came before and after that period. The election of 1936 actually played a role in restoring stability to the system and containing the popular unrest of the period by diverting discontent into the electoral system and reinforcing workers loyalty to the state. Who was elected didn't really made much of a difference, but the existence of elections did help coopt dissent.
The same is true in other countries. In the case of the UK, after WW2, both political parties were committed to reform and an extensive welfare state by the end of the war. The key document was the Beveridge report, issued during the war, which laid out the goal of a comprehensive welfare state and had broad bipartisan support. The main debate was whether to implement it during the war or wait until its end - the later course won out. The post-war welfare state in Britain was a response to the long term growth of socialist and labor movements, and to fascism. British elites realized allowing poverty and high levels of economic inequality to fester created the conditions under which revolutionary movements could grow, and also make labor unrest more likely. It could also provide the conditions under which fascist movements could grow.
The welfare state was an attempt to ensure the system would remain stable. You could vote labor and get a welfare state in the name of democratic socialism, or you could vote conservative and get a welfare state in the name of order and stability. Labour had been in power twice before, so the welfare state couldn't have been merely the result of electing them to office. Similarly, when the Conservatives got back in office during the 1950s they not only left the welfare state in place, they expanded public housing.
The importance of election results in swaying public policy is drastically overstated. What the state does is based on what is going on at the time, not who won the last election. Winning elections can create cosmetic changes and shift the kind of rhetoric the government uses, but it won’t actually change what the state does.