Breaking the two-party doom loop The case for multiparty democracy in America

Drutman (Center for Advanced Governmental Studies, Johns Hopkins Univ.) has two goals in this sophisticated yet accessible volume: identify key structural problems of the contemporary American political system and propose comprehensive reforms. The book's considerable strength lies in the author's fulfillment of his first goal. Early on, Drutman diagnoses the problem: "a fully divided two-party system is decidedly unworkable in America, given [the country's] political institutions" (p. 3). The US is trapped in a "doom loop" of "toxic partisanship" (p. 27): the two parties are now thoroughly sorted ideologically, which leads to an unending cycle of destructive rivalry. Thus, "today's party system is fundamentally at odds with America's compromise-oriented governing institutions" (p. 33). In lively prose, Drutman explains the Founders' successes and mistakes and how the party system evolved into destructive partisanship in the 1990s. His list of structural reforms is extensive and daunting: ranked-choice voting, public financing of elections, enlarging the House of Representatives, and abolishing Congressional primaries. His systemic transformation requires the active support of incumbents who benefit from the current electoral and campaign finance systems and are likely to engineer partisan biases into their reform plans. Thus, Drutman's reforms have their own "doom loop" from which there seems to be no escape. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. --Steven E M Schier, emeritus, Carleton College