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The New Deal, Administrative Reform, and the Transcendence of Partisan Politics

Brandeis University

This study examines the relationship between party politics and administrative reform during the 1930s. The basic thesis of this article is that the politics of the Democratic party and the executive department converged in such a way during the genesis of the New Deal so that the presidency is institutionalized and strengthened while the traditional party system is weakened. In effect, Franklin D. Roosevelt's party leadership and the policies that gave shape to the New Deal transformed the Democratic party into a party of administration, which extensively displaced party politics with executive administration. This suggests that the postwar decline of political parties grew out of a party program of administrative reform, which was directed to lessening the importance of traditional party politics in favor of nonpartisan, albeit progressive, administration.

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