Overview
The Pfizer-Pratt University Professor of Political Science, John Aldrich specializes in American politics and behavior, formal theory, and methodology.
Books he has authored or co-authored include Why Parties; Why Parties Matter; Before the Convention; Linear Probability, Logit and Probit Models; Interdisciplinarity: Its Role in a Discipline-based Academy and a series of books on elections, the most recent of which is Change and Continuity in the 2020 Elections.
His articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Public Choice, and other journals and edited volumes.
He has received grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and has served as co-editor of the American Journal of Political Science and as a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and the Rockefeller Center, Bellagio, Italy. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He has served as President of the Southern Political Science association, Midwest Political Science Association, and the American Political Science Association.
Current Duke Appointments & Affiliations
Recent Scholarly Works
Conditional Party Government: Its Relationship to the Party in the Electorate and in Governance
Book section · January 1, 2026 CitePrimaries, caucuses, and momentum: theory and evidence from 48 years of presidential nomination campaigns
Journal article Public Choice · January 1, 2026 An original formal model of “momentum” in presidential nomination contests (Aldrich 1980a, b) proved that the then-new nomination system of primaries and caucuses, spread over the first half of the year, was decisive and considered the implications for sel ... Full text CiteThe fundamental voter: American electoral democracy, 1952-2020
Book · June 20, 2024 This book asks three questions. How have American national elections changed in the last seventy years? Why have they changed as they did? What are the consequences of these changes for democracy in America? Chapter 1 shows that elections up through 1984 d ... Full text CiteRecent Grants
DDRIG: The Political Consequences of Loneliness
Inst. Training Prgm or CMEPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by American Political Science Association · 2024 - 2025Preparing for the Future of Survey Research
ConferencePrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2020 - 20212019 Jiangsu College Student Summer Camp at Duke
ConferencePrincipal Investigator · Awarded by Jiangsu Education Services for International Exchange · 2019 - 2019View All Grants