Although most incumbent members of Congress succeed in being re-elected, American politicians are in fact more subject to the vicissitudes of electoral politics than are the politicians of any other major democracy. They face re-election more often. They face the possibility of having to contest primaries. They have to raise most of their own money. They are not given a large measure of protective cover by strong political parties. The consequences for American government and politics are profound. They include such familiar and well-documented phenomena as particularism, ‘pork’ and the power of special interests; but they also include the high incidence in America of purely symbolic politics, the drastic foreshortening of American politicians' time horizons and the difficulty that the American system often has in taking tough decisions.