by Jack Santucci

Americans want electoral reforms so that they can have more choice in elections. Recent surveys show that 20 to 50 percent of Americans are open to a new electoral system, while demand for a third party has crept upward since Gallup began asking in 2003. More Americans now call themselves "independent" than identify with either of the major parties, but what happens when Americans try to reform their way out of a two-party system?

So far, demand for reform has found footing in a push for ranked-choice voting. In More Parties or No Parties, Jack Santucci traces the origins and performance of proportional representation in US cities, the reasons for repeal in all but one case, and discusses the implications of this history for current reform movements in US cities and states, as well as at the national level. In a two-party system, reform requires appealing to the group that wants to "get the parties out of politics" (or, in modern terms, to "reduce polarization"). This leads to ostensibly nonpartisan reform packages, yet party-like formations emerge anyway, as voters and governments need to be organized. However, such reform is not stable and has tended to make voting difficult for everyday people.

Introducing a new shifting-coalitions theory, Santucci argues that electoral reform is likely in periods of party-system instability. The players, according to this theory, are politicians and allied interest groups, motivated to get or keep control of government. Reform can be used to insulate a coalition, dislodge a coalition in power, or deal with noncommittal "centrists." The theory also suggests why reform happens, illuminates why reforms take the shapes that they do, and shows what it might take to make a government reform itself. Using roll-call, election, and other archival data, the book answers several questions: why electoral reforms were adopted, how they worked in practice, why they were repealed, and why only "ranked-choice" was considered in the first place. Drawing on extensive research in cities with experience of proportional representation, Santucci provides a timely and insightful theory of electoral reform with advice for the next generation of reformers.

by Lee Drutman

American democracy is at an impasse. After years of zero-sum partisan trench warfare, our political institutions are deteriorating. Our norms are collapsing. Democrats and Republicans no longer merely argue; they cut off contact with each other. In short, the two-party system is breaking our democracy, and driving us all crazy.

Deftly weaving together history, democratic theory, and cutting edge political science research, Drutman tells the story of how American politics became so toxic, why the country is trapped in a doom loop of escalating two-party warfare, and why it is destroying the shared sense of fairness and legitimacy on which democracy depends. He argues that the only way out is to have more partisanship-more parties, to short-circuit the zero-sum nature of binary partisan conflict. American democracy was once stable because the two parties held within them multiple factions, which made it possible to assemble flexible majorities and kept the temperature of political combat from overheating. But as conservative Southern Democrats and liberal Northeastern Republicans disappeared, partisan conflict flattened and pulled apart. Once the parties fully separated, toxic partisanship took over. With the two parties divided over competing visions of national identity, Democrats and Republicans no longer see each other as opponents, but as enemies. And the more the conflict escalates, the shakier our democracy feels.

Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop makes a compelling case for large-scale electoral reform--importantly, reform not requiring a constitutional amendment-that would give America more parties, making American democracy more representative, more responsive, and ultimately more stable.