Journal Articles
The adoption of direct primaries in the United States
This article asks why, and when, the process of nominating candidates in the United States changed from conventions to direct primaries. We conduct an event history analysis to investigate rival explanations for why the rules governing nominations changed. One credits reformist pressures that were largely external to the interests of the major political parties. Another proposes that party elites adopted direct primaries to protect their internal interests. We produce some results consistent with each explanation, but find the weight of our evidence supports the idea that rules changed in response to anti-party reform pressures.
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