Primary Elections Research Articles

Show issue Year 2022 Volume 14 Issue 3 The Development of Legal Institutions Related to Primary Elections in Hungary

Show issue Year 2022 Volume 14 Issue 3 The Development of Legal Institutions Related to Primary Elections in Hungary

The Downside of Ranking Systems: Qualified Contenders May Quit

Ranking systems may deter qualified but lower ranked contenders from persisting or re-entering competitions (“ranking effect”). Using archival data from the U.S. Primary elections to the House of Representatives, we find that ranking one position lower is associated with a 22% decrease in the likelihood of the candidate running again in the next electoral cycle, even after controlling for differences in the percentage of votes, the level of funding and other potential confounders. Experimental evidence confirms that lower rankings, even when performance is similar to that of higher ranked contenders, undermines confidence in future success, discouraging lower ranked individuals from re-entering competitions. We extend the prior research that has focused on the positive consequences of ranking systems and show that rankings can have detrimental consequences for retaining talent. If ranking systems discourage competent and talented individuals from re-entering competitions, this could lead to significant losses for both individuals and organizations.

Political Question Doctrine and Judicial Attitude to Political Controversies in Nigeria: Implications for Constitutionalism

The political question doctrine has become one of the jurisprudential issues in a constitutional democracy, as the courts may not want to exercise judicial review to determine the constitutionality of the action of the other organs of government or a statute before it. As a legal instrument, judicial review has been used to expand or reduce the powers of the governments, but the courts decide to exercise this power discretionarily on the ground that it falls within the province of politics. This study aimed to analyze 'political question' and judicial attitude to political controversies in Nigeria by unraveling how the doctrine of political question has been applied in three main areas–impeachment proceedings, political parties' primary elections, and post-election matters. It also analyzed the judiciary's attitudes to political controversies and evaluated the implications of the political question doctrine to constitutionalism. The study argued that this attitude negates the principle of constitutionalism as it contends that the courts' deliberate avoidance of a political question is typical of the judiciary in Nigeria in most political controversies. Consequently, the courts abuse the issues of discretion and non-justiciable, so that it is imperative to unravel the intricacies of the political question doctrine by undertaking a comprehensive jurisprudential analysis by highlighting the most controversial aspects and how the court's attitude in political controversies undermines its commitment to constitutionalism. Furthermore, it contradicted checks and balances, fundamental human rights, and the rule of law. This study concluded that the doctrine of political question would be judiciously used by the court and not to avoid determining contentious political issues that may likely derail Nigeria's democratic process and stability.

No Experience Required: Early Donations and Amateur Candidate Success in Primary Elections

The electoral dominance of “quality” candidates—political insiders with a history of holding office—is well‐established. However, research on the recent rise in successful political neophytes is less studied. Despite longstanding trends in the predominance of experienced candidates in primary elections, nearly half of all quality candidates who ran in non‐incumbent races lost to a candidate without prior electoral experience in 2018. In this article, we investigate the success of political newcomers in elections for the U.S. House of Representatives by examining a topic often overlooked in the growing literature on primaries: campaign finance. We show that, from 2016 to 2020, political newcomers saw (1) greater success in future fundraising, and (2) an increased likelihood of primary election victory when they garnered more early contributions from outside their district. This contrasts with prior elections, where early money from inside a candidate's own congressional district served as the strongest predictor of future fundraising and electoral success.

Inspiring visibility: Exploring the roles of identification and solidarity for alleviating Black women’s invisibility in politics

We explored whether a Black female politician would alleviate feelings of invisibility among Black women even when they believed the politician deviated from the ingroup prototype by not supporting ingroup interests or by being low in ingroup solidarity. Study 1 demonstrated that relative to Black men and White men and women, Black women identified the most with Vice-President Kamala Harris and reported feeling the highest invisibility in politics immediately after Harris exited the Democratic primary election, but did not report higher support for Harris’s political platform. Study 2 further showed that a Black female politician who supported a policy that is viewed as harmful to Black Americans still helped alleviate feelings of invisibility for Black women because they strongly identified with the politician. However, a Black female politician opposing this policy was the most beneficial, demonstrating the importance of both identification and solidarity for inspiring visibility.

Do Ideological Attacks Change How Voters Evaluate Primary Election Candidates?

Partisan polarization in the United States has increased the ideological uniformity of the Democratic and Republican parties, and therefore the usefulness of party identification as an indicator of candidates’ ideology. However, candidates – especially during primary elections – often attack their opponents for being insufficiently conservative or progressive, explicitly signaling to voters that they should put less faith in their stereotypes about the party’s ideology when evaluating candidates. To assess the effects of these ideological attacks, we conduct a Dynamic Process Tracing Environment experiment that simulates a primary election campaign. We find mixed evidence that participants, when exposed to an ideological attack ad, lower their ratings of the attacked candidate’s ideological extremity, overall favorability, qualification for office, and trustworthiness. However, we observe no differences between experimental conditions in terms of information search, suggesting that ideological attacks are generally accepted at face value and not independently verified by voters.

Political polarization and primary elections

I provide a causal test of the impact of primary elections on political polarization. I exploit the staggered introduction of primary elections for US senators and representatives in Indiana and New York State. Using a difference-in-differences design, I show that primaries deliver less-polarized politicians, reducing the ideological gap between parties that existed before the reform by one-fifth. I interpret the results in light of a conceptual framework in which primaries reduce the cost of participating in the candidate selection processes, thereby also giving moderate voters incentives to participate. The findings suggest that primary elections are an institution able to reduce the welfare costs associated with polarization.

한국 정당 공천에서 ‘토의 민주주의(Deliberative Democracy)’ 적용 가능성 연구

Candidate selection is an important issue that determines the quality of representative democracy. The final candidates selected by the people in the election are those who have passed the nomination process of the political party. In other words, the representatives chosen by the people cannot exceed the quality of party nominations. Therefore, the demand for “democratization” of candidate selection methods must now enter a new stage. It is not just democratization that returns the right of nomination to the people, but rather how the decision can be connected with a higher quality choice. In this respect, the problematic awareness of this study is focused on how to improve the quality of Korean party nominations. In this article, I focus on deliberative democracy in order to ensure that deliberation can be ensured in a thoughtful discussion, rather than a party's primary election being reduced to a 'survey democracy' based on opinion polls. If institutional planning is carried out in the candidate selection process in the future, it attempts to make an exploratory proposal on whether deliberative democracy can work.

An Assessment of the Influence of Political Godfatherism on Nigeria’s Politics: Implications for Socio-Economic and Political Development

In contemporary democracy, politics of godfatherism has become a universal issue in the political development of many countries, Nigeria inclusive. This paper studied the implication of politics of godfatherism on the socio-economic and political development of Nigeria. Obviously, godfatherism has permeated every fabric of the country and has seriously affected the political system. This paper is qualitative in nature; data were obtained from secondary sources where numerous articles, newspapers, magazines, books reports, and archives were systematically reviewed. In elucidating the topic under examination, the researcher used Elite theory. This theory was advocated by Vilfredo Pareto in 1935. The postulation of the theory is that elites are replaced by another group of elites, meaning that the majority are unavoidably governed by the minority. The study found that the politics of godfatherism has a negative impact on the socio-economic and political development of the nation by confining power in the hands of the few elites at the expense of the masses (electorates). This has affected the socio-economic and political development of the nation, and by extension led to inter-party and intra-party defections, decampings and conflicts among the party members. Therefore, the study recommends the implementation of the direct primary election in selecting candidates into elective positions. In addition to that, INEC should make a law that will discourage money politics and should as well punish culprits involved in such an illegal political act.

Judicialising party primaries : contemporary developments in Nigeria

This article explores the judicialisation of party primaries in contemporary Nigeria, which is a defining feature of the country’s electoral politics. Since the inception of the Fourth Republic, the lack of internal democracy within the parties has been the source of protracted crises during nomination, and this often gravitates to the serenity of the court(s). Dominant disquisitions in legal theory contend that disputed primaries are internal party affairs; hence, they are non-justiciable. Drawing on primary and secondary data – YouTube interviews, the Constitution, the Electoral Act, judicial ruling, media reports, and personal observation – this article argues that to the extent that political parties are juridical entities, disputed primary elections are justiciable, hence a legal question to be resolved by the judiciary. To validate our argument, the article draws on Raphael’s (1970) notion of universal and compulsory jurisdiction. Our enquiry reveals that the failure of the internal mechanisms of the parties to resolve disputed party primaries accounts for aggrieved aspirants’ reliance on legal redress. While this approach has been questioned from a legalistic point of view, the constitutionality of seeking legal redress has its provenance in the change of legal regime regulating party primaries, which has shaped, reshaped, and positively impacted electoral democracy in Nigeria.

Primary Divisions: How Voters Evaluate Policy and Group Differences in Intraparty Contests

While central to theories of polarization and primary elections, surprisingly little evidence shows that partisans favor candidates who take ideologically consistent issue positions, above other considerations, in intraparty contests. In this study, we investigate how voters weigh policy and nonpolicy differences when evaluating same-party politicians, using novel conjoint experiments that manipulate the demographic, biographical, and issue information of congressional candidates. We recruit 4,093 participants in the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, assigning half to either rate same-party candidates on an ideological scale or choose between them in primary-like settings. We find that voters place candidates along coherent policy lines and give greater support to those taking party-consistent issue positions. We also find evidence of affinity voting on shared racial, gender, and religious characteristics, though effects are typically smaller. Our results underscore how informed partisans’ policy attitudes can drive choices in primary elections, including which candidates contest them.

The Primary Path for Turning Legislative Effectiveness into Electoral Success

Effective lawmakers are the workhorses of the US Congress, yet we know little about the electoral payoffs of their efforts. Are effective lawmakers better at warding off challengers in the next election? Do they win at a greater rate? To answer these questions, we draw on original data on congressional primary elections from 1980 to 2016, allowing us to focus on elections that lack partisan cues and where voters tend to be highly knowledgeable about politics. We find that incumbents receive an electoral boost in congressional primaries from their legislative work in Congress. Ineffective lawmakers are more likely to face quality challengers, and they lose their primaries at a greater rate than do more effective lawmakers. These differences diminish in the complex informational environment of a primary with multiple challengers. These findings provide important insights into the conditions under which voters hold their elected representatives accountable for their legislative successes and failures.

The System of US Presidential Election: Particularities, Problems of Functioning and Prospects for Transformation.

The article examines the level of democracy of the US presidential electoral system and the prospects for its transformation. In order to do this examination, considerable attention is paying on the main procedural aspects of the US presidential election, in particular, on the features of the organization of primary elections, popular voting and the expression of will of the Electoral College. Using general scientific, logical and empirical research methods, the weaknesses and strengths of the US presidential electoral system are analyzed. For instance, the disproportion of the representation of American states in the Electoral College, as well as the disproportion between the number of votes and the number of electors as a factor of two-level electoral distortions are considered. The authors argue that the issue is relevant due to the emergence of political instability in the United States, which is related to the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and its non-recognition by part of American society and the defeated candidate, which provoked domestic social and political instability and negatively affected the international image of the USA. The study concluded that the electoral system used during the US presidential election, despite some positive aspects, can be partially interpreted as undemocratic, with the existing disproportion of representation, and therefore needs to be reformed and has enough prospects and ways for it. Ways to minimize shortcomings and prospects for the transformation of the US presidential electoral system are identified. The authors emphasize that the main problem is the choice of the most rational option for reforming the US presidential electoral system, which will not lead to an even greater socio-political crisis in the United States.

Parliamentary Primaries After Democratic Transitions: Explaining Reforms To Candidate Selection In Ghana

Abstract Candidate selection procedures play a crucial role in shaping parliaments and influencing the quality of democracy. Yet, our understanding of what motivates parties to reform candidate selection mechanisms at specific points in time is limited. To address this gap, we examine the experience of Ghana’s National Democratic Congress (NDC), which reformed its selection procedures in 2015 allowing all party members to vote in primary elections for parliamentary candidates. We ask what triggered these reforms and identify four motivations—the confluence of which explains why the reforms were adopted in 2015. These motivations were: making the party more democratic by expanding participation, reducing the cost of the primary process, building the party’s organizational capacity, and keeping up with the party’s main competitor. Together, these led NDC leaders to believe that reforms would benefit the party. However, a divergence between actual and intended effects meant some of these benefits were not realized, so the NDC reversed its reforms. This case suggests that the current shift towards more inclusive candidate selection mechanisms across parts of Africa will not be linear: party leaders will adopt such reforms when they believe it is in their party’s interest.

From Home Base to Swing States: The Evolution of Digital Advertising Strategies during the 2020 US Presidential Primary

Political advertising on digital platforms has grown dramatically in recent years as campaigns embrace new ways of targeting supporters and potential voters. We examine how political campaign dynamics have evolved in response to the growth of digital media by analyzing the advertising strategies of US presidential election campaigns during the 2020 primary cycle. To identify geographic and temporal trends, we employ regression analyses of campaign spending across nearly 600,000 advertisements published on Facebook. We show that campaigns employed a new strategy of targeting voters in candidates’ home states during the “invisible primary.” In contrast to earlier studies, we find that home state targeting is a key strategy for all campaigns, rather than just for politicians with existing political and financial networks. While all candidates advertised to their home state, those who dropped out during the invisible primary tended to spend disproportionately more than the candidates who outlasted them. We also find that as the first wave of state caucuses and primary elections approach, campaigns shift digital ad expenditures to states with early primaries such as Iowa and New Hampshire and, to a lesser extent, swing states.

Divisions in the Big Tent: Group Sentiments and Candidate Preferences within the Democratic Party

Work in political psychology has found that the two major political parties are sorted based on individual’s group attachments. This sorting has resulted in the Democratic Party’s electorate and elites being made up of members from various racial, religious, and social groups. Given this heterogeneity, how do social group identities impact voter preferences in the Democratic primary? Based on social identity theory, I hypothesize that an individual’s feelings toward racial or gender groups should be associated with their candidate preference in the primary election, but only when a candidate’s group identities are known. Using the 2018 American National Elections Studies (ANES) pilot and a nationally diverse survey of 2020 Democratic primary voters, I find that the strength of sentiments toward racial or gender identities is associated with candidate preference and this association is conditioned by the ability to link the candidates to racial or gender groups. This paper shows that the effects of group identity extend beyond simply sorting individuals into one of the two major parties and have the potential to create group-based divisions within the “big tent” of the Democratic Party.

There’s No Women’s Mafia: Women’s Donor Groups in State Legislative Elections

ABSTRACT Little is known about the presence of women’s donor groups in state legislative elections. This work investigates their role in both primary and general election contests. As an exploratory analysis, it utilizes elite interviews to probe new questions about gender and campaign finance. Women’s donor groups are not solely a congressional election phenomenon. They are active in state legislative races, provide resources other than money, and impact the perceptions of female candidates. This study offers insights to practitioners and scholars concerned with women’s representation. For practitioners, it highlights opportunities for strategic behavior to maximize the impact of women’s donor groups of all political affiliations. For scholars, it suggests new pathways for research on Republican women’s groups specifically as well as the impact of these organizations in general, especially during primary elections and regarding candidates of color.

Ingroup Bias, Partisanship, and Gendered Voting

This study uses a novel experimental approach to isolate “expressive” or “noninstrumental” payoffs to voting along identity lines, separating them from “substantive” motivations. Applying social identity theory to the case of gender in U.S. elections, the study answers the question: Do some men and women receive a purely expressive payoff from preferring same‐gender candidates? A series of experiments test whether a purely expressive payoff from voting along gender lines is stronger among certain voters. Employing a self‐affirmation treatment and measures of group‐identity attachment, as well as a voting vignette, the evidence shows that Republican men receive a purely expressive payoff from voting for male over female candidates. That is, Republican men’s preference for a male over a female candidate can be reduced by a self‐affirmation treatment that has subjects focus on their individuating characteristics, thereby temporarily “detaching” them from their group attachments. Women and Democratic men are not affected by the self‐affirmation treatment. This study deepens our understanding of voter gender bias in the United States, with a particular focus on the implications of ingroup bias among certain partisan voters for the supply of female candidates within party primary elections.

Does Union Canvassing Affect Voter Turnout Under Conditions of Political Constraint? Empirical Evidence from Illinois

The positive effects of union canvassing on individual-level union member voter turnout within union-friendly environments have been well documented. Yet, whether unions increase turnout among their membership under constrained circumstances has remained unexamined. Furthermore, there is little consensus on whether union canvassing effects are generalizable to populations with heterogeneous political attributes and individual characteristics. This paper identifies the mechanisms that might explain how union canvassing can be effective under conditions characterized by anti-union legislative actions, adversarial judicial decisions, and right-wing populist rhetoric. We use canvassing and turnout data taken from the 2016 Democratic state and Cook County primary election in Illinois, and our results show that, despite constrained political circumstances relative to those found in previous studies, union canvassing achieved positive union membership turnout effects. This study also tests the moderating effects of individual political attributes (ideology and vote propensity) and voter characteristics (income and ethnicity). The most salient finding is that the effects are more potent for ideologically conservative registered Democrat voters, highlighting the imperative of recognizing the ideological heterogeneity among union members and suggesting specific resource allocation strategies under politically constrained conditions.

Voters Use Campaign Finance Transparency and Compliance Information

AbstractCampaign finance compliance and transparency reveal important non-policy attributes that voters care about. Using vignette and conjoint survey experiments, I show that voters in primary elections incorporate transparency and compliance considerations into candidate selection. This effect persists even where the candidate shares the respondents’ preferred policy positions. The findings bring campaign finance transparency and compliance into the scholarly conversation about candidate valence. They also have implications for our campaign finance jurisprudence and suggest that courts should expand their understanding of the informational benefits of campaign finance disclosures and compliance information.