This introductory chapter lays down the groundwork for the argument that the white polyarchy model provides the best account of congressional representation in the one-party South. This framework characterizes the South as an exclusionary one-party enclave, which departed from normal democratic politics in three major respects: its exclusion of many citizens from the franchise, its lack of partisan competition, and its embeddedness within a national democratic regime. Each of these features had important implications for Southern politics. The argument here is that white polyarchy provides the best description of congressional politics in the South, but this argument also rests on a number of empirical premises. To that end, the chapter outlines a focus on the issues of regulation, redistribution, and social welfare at the core of the New Deal agenda, largely bracketing explicitly racial issues except insofar as they intersected with economic policymaking. Finally, it outlines the major implications set out by this argument for our understanding of the character and persistence of the South's exclusionary one-party enclaves.