The Origins of the Southern Strategy: Two-Party Competition in South Carolina, 1950-1972

This is a study of the rise of two-party competition in South Carolina during the mid-20th century. In 1950, when the study begins, there was for all practical purposes no functioning Republican party in that state. During the two decades covered by this study, the interplay between two clear factions - economic and racial conservatives - shaped the growth of the party. In this text, the author demonstrates the implications of these developments for the rightward shift in national politics and charts their effect on the resurgence of assertive economic conservatism, as a new southern base became the core of the Republican party’s presidential strategies after 1968.