Representation and Presidential Primaries: The Democratic Party in the Post-Reform Era

Front Cover
Bloomsbury Academic, Jun 30, 1981 - Political Science - 150 pages
This is the first major study of the origins of direct primary elections in the U.S. since the 1920s. It rejects the widely held view that primaries resulted from a conflict between anti-party reformers and so-called party "regulars." Instead, it shows that the direct primary was the result of an attempt, starting in the late 1880s, by mainstream party politicians to subject their previously informal procedures to formal rules. Politicians turned to the direct primary because it proved impossible to make effective changes to the caucus-convention system of nominating candidates.

From inside the book

Contents

Demographic Representation in Presidential Primaries
17
The 1972 California
52
Further Explorations 2
82
Copyright

2 other sections not shown

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Bibliographic information