This is the first major study of the origins of direct primary elections in the U.S. since the 1920s. It rejects the widely held view that primaries resulted from a conflict between anti-party reformers and so-called party "regulars." Instead, it shows that the direct primary was the result of an attempt, starting in the late 1880s, by mainstream party politicians to subject their previously informal procedures to formal rules. Politicians turned to the direct primary because it proved impossible to make effective changes to the caucus-convention system of nominating candidates.

This book examines the dynamics of the American party system and explores how contemporary American politics was formed. Specifically, it asks how the Democrats could become sufficiently competitive in the American North as to be able to construct a national political majority. It rejects the conventional account, based on 'realignment theory', that between the end of Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Revolution, the base level of support for the Democratic party varied greatly from one era to another. Instead, by distinguishing between the 'building blocks' available to the Democrats in...

This book examines the role played by the parties themselves in two-party systems. It rejects the argument that the behavior of the parties is determined largely by social forces or by the supposed logic of the electoral market. Instead, it shows that both structure and agency can matter. It focuses on three major aspects of change in two-party systems: (i) why occasionally major parties (such as the British Liberals) collapse; (ii) why collapsed parties sometimes survive as minor parties, and sometimes do not; and (iii) what determines why, and how, major parties will ally themselves with...