Caucus (politics)

Caucus is a term for a meeting of a political party, or like-minded supporters of a movement or cause, originating in American politics before spreading to other parts of the world. In the United States, a caucus is (1) a voting practice relying on deliberative democratic processes, as opposed to balloting, which is used to nominate presidential candidates in several US states, or (2) a broad term to designate a group of legislative officials with shared ideals or goals.

The variety of such caucuses is very broad and may range from organized bodies of legislators whose members vote collectively (such as the Congressional Democratic or Republican Caucus) to bipartisan groups associated with cultural affiliation (such as the Congressional Black Caucus or Congressional Hispanic Caucus) to affiliations within wider political groups (such as the Progressive Caucus). The popularity of caucus forms of voting or political organizing is rooted in the American political tradition and while the term is used in some other countries, the meanings often diverge. In particular, the first meaning of the term is specific to the US context.

Background

The etymological origin of the term caucus is unknown; however, it is rooted in American culture and was in use by the beginning of the nineteenth century. The caucus is a quintessentially American political institution that formed the basis of electoral politics in the early US republic, and it bears the hallmarks of its early origin. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, political party organization did not exist either in the United States or anywhere else in the world. Indeed, the Framers of the US Constitution did not anticipate the development of political parties within the new republic.

Politics in this pre-party era was dominated by personal cliques, local magnates, and town hall meetings. In the early New England colonies, which were characterized by sparse populations and a relatively high degree of opportunities for personal freedom in comparison to Europe, governance relied to a substantial extent on town hall meetings and other localized face-to-face interactions. However, as an institution, the early caucus bears the hallmarks not only of this republican impulse but also of the elite politics which predate modern political parties.

In an era before the development of modern organized political parties, in which the franchise was extremely limited, political factions and groups were able to organize based on personal, negotiated pacts between elites and local cliques of power brokers. Within the US Congress (which held substantially more authority than the presidency in the early republic), there were no official leadership positions.

Early political parties were loosely organized at every level in small gatherings, or caucuses, that comprised groups of elites, power holders, and political leaders who made policy through association and debate. For instance, until 1820, the Democratic-Republican party and the Federalists would select their presidential candidate through a caucus system of congressional deputies. This system collapsed in the 1824 election, and from 1830 onward, the parties, which were evolving into more structured bodies, began to select presidential candidates through national conventions. However, as a nominating process at a local level and as an organizing model within congressional bodies, the caucus has proved enduring.

Until the early twentieth century, delegates to the national conventions of the two major parties were selected in caucuses, and these delegates then selected party presidential candidates at the convention. In the early twentieth century, under the influence of progressive reformers, primary voting was introduced. Although the United States is often said to have seen the development of the world's first modern political parties, such US parties in the twenty-first century have remained loosely structured in comparison to those of most other developed countries.

Topic Today

Though the closed-ballot primary election is the most common form of nominating a political party's candidate, a small number of states, notably Iowa, hold caucuses either instead of or in addition to primary balloting. The other most common modern use of caucus in modern American politics is the Congressional caucus. Several groups of affiliated Congressional representatives have become important; among the bipartisan caucuses, for instance, the Congressional Black Caucus was founded in 1971 and has been active in causes affecting Black Americans. In 2015, the Freedom Caucus was founded by conservative Republicans to restrain government spending and immigration.

The term caucus is not commonly used in the modern United Kingdom, but in other Commonwealth countries, it is sometimes used to refer collectively to the Members of Parliament belonging to a particular party. This usage corresponds to the Congressional caucus sense of the term in the United States, though the political import of such caucuses differs, given the structural differences in government. For instance, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, three of the countries that use the term caucus in this sense, have Westminster-system parliaments, meaning they are modeled after that of the United Kingdom, where Parliament meets in the Palace of Westminster.

In the Westminster system, the caucus of the party winning the most seats in the recent election is the one with the power to elect members to the Cabinet and hold enhanced powers over certain policy matters and parliamentary procedures. Caucuses of the opposition party, meanwhile, form what is termed a shadow cabinet of senior members who assist in critiquing the actions and policies of the party in power. This is in stark contrast with the powers of Congress in the United States, where it is common for the executive branch and the legislative branch to be controlled by opposing political parties.

Although the term caucus tends not to be used in modern UK politics, it was a common term in nineteenth-century British political discourse. The term, when used pejoratively, had connotations both of an overly complex system of resolving an election or nomination and also of a system subject to corruption. This sense of caucus is preserved in Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which features a "Caucus Race" with everyone assembled running in a circle, no clear winner, and Alice's own possession awarded back to her as a prize.

Bibliography

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Maisel, L. Sandy. American Political Parties and Elections: A Very Short Introduction. 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, 2016.

Owen, James.Labour and the Caucus: Working-Class Radicalism and Organised Liberalism in England, 1868–88. Liverpool University Press, 2014.

“Presidential Primaries and Caucuses.” USA.gov, 22 Aug. 2024, www.usa.gov/primaries-caucuses. Accessed 6 Jan. 2025.

Redlawsk, David P., et al. Why Iowa? How Caucuses and Sequential Elections Improve the Presidential Nominating Process. University of Chicago Press, 2011.

Streb, Matthew J. Rethinking American Electoral Democracy: Controversies in Electoral Democracy and Representation. 3rd ed., Routledge, 2015.