What Are Parties For?

Issue Date January 1996
Volume 7
Issue 1
Page Numbers 169-75
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Read the full essay here.

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).

View all work by Seymour Martin Lipset

Further Reading

Volume 35, Issue 4

The Rise of Multicultural Nationalism

Some liberals attribute the origins of our polarized political era to “identity politics.” But multiculturalism need not provoke majoritarian anxieties — not if national identities can open ways for all…

Volume 2, Issue 4

Democracy & Foreign Policy

A review of Exporting Democracy: Fulfilling America’s Destiny, by Joshua Muravchik and Exporting Democracy: The United States and Latin America, edited by Abraham F. Lowenthal.

Volume 35, Issue 2

A Reply to My Critics

A liberal society must reckon the demands of the common good, while offering what we most crave—something worth sacrificing for.