ABSTRACT

Political parties are a vehicle for political participation that is central to American democracy, yet they are entirely unmentioned in the Constitution. Indeed, James Madison, in Federalist 10, famously warned against the “mischief of faction” in which groups pursuing their own goals undermine the collective good. Yet it would be hard to imagine how the U.S. political system would function in the absence of political parties to provide broad alternatives to the electorate-indeed, there cannot truly be said to be a single functioning democracy in the world that does not have at least two political parties that compete for power via free and fair elections.