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Does populism threaten American democracy, and if so, what is the nature of that threat? In dialogue with the comparative literature on populism, this article considers the opportunity structure available to populist parties and candidates in the American political system. I argue that compared to most other democracies, the US system offers much less opportunity for organized populistpartiesbut more opportunity for populistcandidacies. Today's major parties may also be more vulnerable to populist insurgency than at other points in US history because of (1) changes in communications technology, (2) the unpopularity of mainstream parties and party leaders, and (3) representation gaps created by an increasingly racialized party system. Although no democratic system is immune to deterioration, the US constitutional system impedes authoritarian populism, just as it obstructs party power generally. But the vulnerability of the major parties to populist insurgency poses a threat to liberal democratic norms in the United States, just as it does elsewhere.

According to the quantitative indicators scholars use to measure political polarization, the Gilded Age stands out for some of the most party-polarized Congresses of all time. By contrast, historians of the era depict the two major parties as presenting few programmatic alternatives to one another. I argue that a large share of the party-line votes in the Congress of this period are poorly suited to the standard conceptualization as "polarization," meaning wide divergence on an ideological continuum structuring alternative views on national policy. Specifically, the era's continuous battles over the distribution of particularized benefits, patronage, and control of political office make little sense conceived as stemming from individual members' preferences on an underlying ideological dimension. They are better understood as fights between two long coalitions competing for power and distributive gains. In short, the Gilded Age illustrates that political parties are fully capable of waging ferocious warfare over spoils and office, even despite a relative lack of sharp party differences over national policy.

Majority rule is a hallmark of modern liberal democracy. It is also a complicated, and contentious, idea. It has been subjected to extensive criticism by a range of philosophers, political theorists, and constitutional scholars ever since Plato. And it has been subjected to a range of qualifications and constraints by political elites and constitutional engineers intent on instituting supermajoritarian requirements. Melissa Schwartzberg's Counting the Many: The Origins and Limits of Supermajority Rule (Cambridge University Press, 2014) is a careful historical and analytic critique of supermajority rule. As Schwartzberg argues: "Although supermajority rules ostensibly aim to reduce the purported risks associated with majority decision making, they do so at the cost of introducing new liabilities associated with the biased judgments they generate and secure." This is an important argument, of relevance to normative and empirical scholars of democracy and democratization. And so we have invited a range of scholars working on these topics to review the book. — Jeffrey C. Isaac

The purpose of this review is to take stock of how party polarization affects governance in the United States. The article begins by defining polarization and discussing the means by which it can be measured. It is undeniable that the two parties have grown more sharply differentiated. Some evidence suggests that the substantive policy preferences of liberals and conservatives diverge more widely, but the case for ideological polarization in the spatial sense is not definitive. Effects on the institutional processes of US government have entailed a hardening of party divisions and a tendency toward centralization of power. Nevertheless, these more cohesive parties are not more effective than their predecessors at enacting policies or managing routine governing responsibilities. The consequences for public policy seem best characterized as "drift" ( Hacker 2004 , p. 246). There is little evidence that party polarization has promoted ideologically extreme policy outcomes or has systematically advantaged either liberalism or conservatism.

The purpose of this review is to take stock of how party polarization affects governance in the United States. The article begins by defining polarization and discussing the means by which it can be measured. It is undeniable that the two parties have grown more sharply differentiated. Some evidence suggests that the substantive policy preferences of liberals and conservatives diverge more widely, but the case for ideological polarization in the spatial sense is not definitive. Effects on the institutional processes of US government have entailed a hardening of party divisions and a tendency toward centralization of power. Nevertheless, these more cohesive parties are not more effective than their predecessors at enacting policies or managing routine governing responsibilities. The consequences for public policy seem best characterized as 'drift' (Hacker 2004, p. 246). There is little evidence that party polarization has promoted ideologically extreme policy outcomes or has systematically advantaged either liberalism or conservatism. Adapted from the source document.

This article analyzes the president's leadership predicament in light of purely partisan considerations in Congress, meaning members' interests in winning and holding control of national institutions. I examine congressional votes to raise the debt limit, which are highly dependent upon patterns of institutional party control. I also examine high‐profile congressional charges of administration misdoing, another arena in which members of the president's party behave starkly differently from members of the president's opposition. These differences have consequences for presidential leadership, no matter the configuration of party control of national institutions.