"The study of electoral realignments is one of the most influential and intellectually stimulating enterprises undertaken by American political scientists. Realignment theory has been seen as a science able to predict changes, and generations of students, journalists, pundits, and political scientists have been trained to be on the lookout for "signs" of new electoral realignments. Now a major political scientist argues that the essential claims of realignment theory are wrong - that American elections, parties, and policy making are not (and never were) reconfigured according to the realignment calendar. David R. Mayhew is Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University."--BOOK JACKET.