Laboratories against Democracy: How National Parties Transformed State Politics

by Jacob Grumbach

As national political fights are waged at the state level, democracy itself pays the price

Over the past generation, the Democratic and Republican parties have each become nationally coordinated political teams. American political institutions, on the other hand, remain highly decentralized. Laboratories against Democracy shows how national political conflicts are increasingly flowing through the subnational institutions of state politics—with profound consequences for public policy and American democracy.

Jacob Grumbach argues that as Congress has become more gridlocked, national partisan and activist groups have shifted their sights to the state level, nationalizing state politics in the process and transforming state governments into the engines of American policymaking. He shows how this has had the ironic consequence of making policy more varied across the states as red and blue party coalitions implement increasingly distinct agendas in areas like health care, reproductive rights, and climate change. The consequences don’t stop there, however. Drawing on a wealth of new data on state policy, public opinion, money in politics, and democratic performance, Grumbach traces how national groups are using state governmental authority to suppress the vote, gerrymander districts, and erode the very foundations of democracy itself.

Required reading for this precarious moment in our politics, Laboratories against Democracy reveals how the pursuit of national partisan agendas at the state level has intensified the challenges facing American democracy, and asks whether today’s state governments are mitigating the political crises of our time—or accelerating them.

Genres: Politics, Political Science, Nonfiction

275 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 19, 2022

Reviews

[Bridget · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book for my American democracy class. I was disappointed because I really enjoyed the lecture from Grumach I attended but didn’t love the way information was presented in this book. I agreed with the thesis but found that it would have worked better as a paper rather than a book.

[Walter Horn · Rating 2 out of 5]

While most of what can be found in this book about the changes in the relationship between national parties and state activism is true, Grumbach's book suffers from a severe lack of historical perspective--and the conviction that such changes are of recent vintage. As Sam Rosenfeld's much deeper and broader narrative (The Polarizers: Postwar Architects of Our Partisan Era) shows, the current extreme partisanship was a long time coming, actually born in the wake of the New Deal and E.E. Schattschneider's works--including the famous APSA report of 1950 on which he had so great an influence.

One can assume that Grumbach's study reads much like the 2015 dissertation from which it was developed. Again, it doesn't seem to me that he's particularly inaccurate anywhere, except about when and why things have happened as they have. I had considered writing something on this book in my Hornbook of Democracy Book Reviews, but I think it isn't really worth the trouble. Read the Rosenfeld instead!

[Nick]

While too political science-heavy for my tastes and not totally what I was hoping for, I'm not giving a rating because Grumbach is great and I still appreciated much of the book.

The author does a great job at laying out the various widely-accepted theories of why American Federalism is so great and then critiquing each one. So many policy domains are left up to the states--this is due to both constitutional design and to the decentralization of the last 50 years that came from gridlock at the federal level and from a lack of ambitious administrations (Biden is the first since LBJ, in my view, to actually propose any kind of coherent vision, if still obviously insufficient)--and Grumbach clearly demonstrates how bad this state variation is for quality of life and small-d democratic outcomes.

U.S. Federalism has made it so much easier for the [nationalized] right to take over the entire system. The title of the book and its play on that famous Brandeis quote shows how even some of the better figures in American history have been so seemingly blind to how bad of an idea decentralization can be. America is large and diverse, yes--I often do believe its size will inhibit any great governance--but intergovernmental relationships between local-state-federal agencies, etc. are a nightmare and our decentralization does not actually protect a resident of Massachusetts from the authoritarianism of deep-red states or a Trump administration.

[Drew Penrose · Rating 4 out of 5]

This books makes several excellent points that people should understand better about how our federalist system interacts with nationalized politics, creating some truly dysfunctional dynamics. It also raises important points about the inability of politicians to address issues of police corruption/misconduct and failing educational systems. My only issue with it is that every chapter reads a lot like an academic paper, with a "methods" section, a "results" section, and so on. Many of these are quite technical, and those parts of it are pretty inaccessible to untrained readers (like myself).

[Hunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good stuff! I agree with other reviewers saying the format is a little dull but I appreciate some fact and stats-based analysis of modern politics, especially state-level.

[Glenn Harden · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a work of political science with all of its attendant statistical charts and so may not be accessible to the lay reader, but the research is substantial and the argument sound. One of the disturbing conclusions is that, in its current state, the Republican party is anti-democracy coalition of plutocrats and populists which wish to see democratic access restricted in order to preserve their economic or social power.

[Ava Stern · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ughhh i hate qualitative research. Me when i have to read a political science book for my political science major. Anyway tho i appreciate that the book wasn’t blandly bipartisan but grumbach thought he was such a baddie for mentioning the Republican Party by name like ok silent majority!!!!

[Nicole McMillan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for my class

[Rebekah · Rating 2 out of 5]

BORING. Really not helping me get out of my SEVERE reading slump.

[Salem · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great research and insight, but I was expecting more narrative based on the recommendation I received.