“Why Parties Matter takes on an ambitious task: charting the development of political party competition in the United States with a special focus on how the South lagged behind the rest of the country for most of American history. The breadth of time covered by this analysis is unprecedented, and the two major topics covered here—party development and the politics of the South—are both deeply important to the theoretical, empirical, and normative literature in American politics.”
— Jason M. Roberts, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
“Why Parties Matter argues that democracy fosters party competition, resulting in the greater well-being of citizens who are able to hold their representatives accountable at the ballot box. The American South, with its remarkable political transformation, is an excellent case to prove this extremely important thesis. Now, as Aldrich and Griffin demonstrate, with the presence of a genuine two-party system, we see that even in Dixie, democracy has led to political outputs that better the interests of its citizenry because of politicians who face the real possibility of losing their next election.”
— Seth McKee, Texas Tech University