American politics seems constantly surprising even to many of its most attentive domestic observers. It seems nearly unfathomable to many of their foreign counterparts. Is there something about American politics which really is distinct, even unique, in world perspective? Something which implies that this politics can be understood only in terms of the peculiar characteristics of the larger political system in which it occurs? Something which justifies the old term for such nearly untranslatable peculiarity—something “exceptional”?

If there is an exceptionalism to American politics, it must by definition be found in one or more of three areas. It must be found in the public attitudes at the base of that politics, especially in what people want from politics or in how they think about the process of politicking. It must be found in the key organizations in the middle of that politics, those which link individual citizens to the institutions of government, especially political parties and interest groups. And/or it must be found at the very top in those institutions of government themselves, in distinctive conformations or distinctive operation.

To anticipate the analysis here: I believe that the array of American national institutions of government qualifies as exceptional. I am sure that the key arrangement structuring the nature and behavior of our parties qualifies. And I suspect that a peculiar and wide-spread attitude toward politics is additionally distinctive, though I am least confident about this.