A review of Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Party Politics in America, by John H. Aldrich.
About the Author
Seymour Martin Lipset is Hazel Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Progressive Policy Institute, and the Woodrow Wilson Center. His many books include Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (1960), American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (1996), and It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States (2000).
Recent survey research suggests that most voters disapprove of antidemocratic acts by elected leaders. Yet there are critical exceptions when a significant minority of voters are sympathetic to or even…