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The distinction between political realignments and policy realignments is an interesting one. Essentially, the evidence that our elections undergo enduring realignments is fairly weak, but it does seem to be the case that there are policy breakthroughs which produce torrents of similar legislation, from both Democratic and Republican administration. Via Henry Farrell, Paul Pierson offers the argument:
If you look at regulation, there’s a huge expansion in government regulatory activity, especially with respect to consumer protection and the environment during the same period. Again, it doesn’t slow down when Nixon comes into the White House. If you look at Mayhew’s list of landmark pieces of legislation and look at the regulatory ones, there are twice as many major regulatory laws passed between 1964 and 1977 as there are if you combine the thirteen year period before that and the twenty five year period after that. More than twice as much regulatory legislation in about a third of the time. This is when it was all happening. The Nixon presidency is right in the middle of it. When does it stop? It doesn’t stop in 1981. Roughly, it stops in 1978. The defeat of key domestic initiatives like industrial relations reform and health care reform; the passage of a completely different kind of tax bill, much more oriented towards business and the affluent than the tax bills that had come previously, but a tax bill that would look very familiar to more recent discussions in American politics. You see also the beginnings of a deregulatory push that would eventually remake government and the connection between government and the economy. And all this comes after the huge Democratic electoral victory of 1974, and the recapture of the White House in 1976.That seems right, and it explains the facts better than who is in the White House at any given time -- it's how Nixon can now be seen as a liberal and Clinton as the "progressive steward" of the Reagan revolution. That said, I'd like to see some speculation on mechanisms. Does the electorate begin to coherently reward advocates of these policies and punish obstructors? Does the center of the media shift and politicians fear retribution? Do contribution from industries realign? In any case, Henry suggests we're on the cusp of just such a realignment, and that feels like it might be right. But it's hard to know. We need more theory!
