Using a functional definition of political party, local party systems may be typed according to conventional concepts of one-, tow-, and multiparty systems. They may then be analyzed to determine the effect of national party identifications, social structure, and legal institutional prescriptions upon local political alignments. A case analysis of a local two-party system demonstrated the strong relationship between national party identifications and local party preferences despite legal provisions calculated to eradicate that relationship. The effect of a strong religious cleavage also suggested that, insofar as legal devices might have reduced the national-local party relationship, this major social division in the community was enhanced as a foundation for a continuing local two-party system.
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Jo Freeman (1958) studied this question.