- ホーム
- > 洋書
- > 英文書
- > Politics / International Relations
Full Description
The direct primary, in which voters rather than party leaders or convention delegates select party nominees for state and federal offices, was one of the most widely adopted political reforms of the early twentieth century. Yet after decades of practice and study, scholars have found little clear evidence that direct primaries changed the outcomes of party nominations. The conventional wisdom has always been that once the Progressive movement declined and voters became distracted by more pressing issues, parties slowly reasserted their control over candidate selection. This book shows that the conventional wisdom is wrong.
Exploring changes in American primary election laws from the 1920s to the 1970s, Robert G. Boatright argues in Reform and Retrenchment that the introduction of the direct primary created far more chaos in American elections than most scholars realize. As he shows, political parties, factions, and reform groups manipulated primary election laws in order to gain an advantage over their opponents, often under the guise of enhancing democracy. Today there is widespread dissatisfaction with primaries, and we are again in a period of experimentation. Boatright looks at how this history can help us understand the reform ideas before us today, ultimately suggesting that, for all of its flaws, there is likely little that can be done to improve primaries, and those who would seek to change American politics are best off exploring reforms to other areas of elections and governance.
Contents
List of Tables and Figures
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
Part I: The Middle Years: Primary Election Reforms, 1928-1970
2. Reform or Retrenchment? An Overview of Changes in Primary Election Laws, 1928-1970
3. The Direct Primary and the Decline of the Progressive Movement
4. Hostile Takeover: Nonparty Group Capture of Primaries
5. Defective Primary Laws
6. Primaries and Partisan Advantage
7. Are Southern Primaries Different?
Part II: What the History of Primary Elections can Tell us About Contemporary Reform Ideas
8. Contemporary Primary Reform Efforts
9. Why Primary Reforms Rarely Work
10. The Future of the Direct Primary
Notes
Bibliography
Index
