John H. Aldrich is Pfizer-Pratt University Professor of Political Science at Duke University. He is author of Why Parties? A Second Look (2011) and Before the Convention (1980) and coeditor of Positive Changes in Political Science (2007), and he has also published numerous articles, chapters, and edited collections. He is past president of the Southern Political Science Association, the Midwest Political Science Association, and the American Political Science Association.