Primaries Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Primaries are preliminary elections to select a political party’s candidate or candidates for public office. Primaries are a form of candidate selection with an inclusive selectorate, the body that selects candidates for an election. This contrasts with more exclusive selectorates, common in many longstanding European democracies, where the party organizations, such as party leadership bodies or activists, typically select the candidates. Primaries are common in the United States where they are used to select legislative and executive candidates; while not the norm in the rest of the world, they are increasingly apparent.

Types Of Primaries

There are several types of primaries, and can be distinguished by who is allowed to participate. Participation in closed primaries is restricted to members of a particular political party. In this case, for example, only registered Democrats would be able to participate in the Democratic Party primary. Open primaries allow voters to participate in any political party’s primary regardless of formal party affiliation or lack thereof, and voters need not publicly declare in which primary they will participate. Using the U.S. example again, an independent or registered Republican could opt in the polling booth to participate in the Democratic Party primary, but would not be allowed to participate in another party’s primary.

There are further variations in these procedures. Semi closed primaries allow party members and voters who are unaffiliated with a party to participate, or allow voters to change their party affiliation on primary election day. Semi open primaries require that primary voters publicly declare their choice of party ballot on primary election day.

The second important distinction is between direct and indirect primaries. In indirect primaries, like those for the U.S. presidency, eligible primary voters select delegates who have typically declared their commitment to a candidate and in some cases are legally bound to support that candidate. These delegates subsequently select the candidate at a party meeting or convention. Eligible primary voters directly determine the candidate or candidates for the general election in direct primaries. This is more common in Latin American presidential primaries.

Use Of Primaries

Primaries are generally associated with candidate selection in the United States, where they have been employed the longest. However, while still not the rule, primaries are now used in a variety of countries, and there is evidence of their use increasing worldwide, particularly for selecting presidential candidates.

The trend toward presidential primaries is evident in Latin America. Presidential primaries have been held by at least one party in countries as diverse as Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Uruguay. South Korea and Taiwan have also employed primaries to select presidential candidates, and in the Spanish parliamentary system, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) allows party members in some instances to select candidates for executive offices.

Primaries have also been employed to select legislative candidates in countries such as Argentina and Israel, and many European democracies, including the Labour Party and Conservative Party in the United Kingdom, have employed some form of membership vote to select legislative candidates. However, party membership in Europe, which requires paying membership dues and implies a stronger partisan commitment and perhaps activity, contrasts significantly with the limited requirements and obligations of party registration in the United States. Therefore, membership ballots and primaries in Europe to date tend to be less inclusive and more controlled by the party organizations than are primaries in the United States.

Effects Of Primaries

Because primaries permit more people to participate in candidate selection, they are often characterized as enhancing political transparency and openness and strengthening internal party democracy. Primaries open an additional arena to broader participation of citizens opposed to having candidate selection controlled by party activists or a more limited group of party leaders. In this way, primaries may also increase the legitimacy of those selected. Proponents of primaries argue that this broader selectorate makes public officials (successful candidates) more responsive to citizens. Some also argue that presenting a greater array of precandidates to the primary electorate produces better candidates in the general election; in effect the primary process rewards, or punishes, candidates based on their campaigning skills, political positions, and their ability to appeal to a large pool of voters.

On the other hand, primaries lengthen the electoral process and can prove expensive and exhausting for both the electorate and the candidates. Also because candidates from the same party compete with one another, primaries can divide the party and make it difficult for it to unite prior to the general election or to present a unified party platform. The primary process can also make representatives more beholden to campaign donors who candidates may need to win the primary election, and can make representatives less loyal to their political parties; the less the political party organization controls candidate selection, the less it may be able to count on elected officials’ support for party positions, and party discipline in the legislature accordingly weakens. Primaries may thus create a style of politics that focuses on the individual characteristics of candidates opposed to party platforms and policies.

There is also much debate in the United States about whether primaries polarize politics. Despite allowing a greater degree of participation in candidate selection, voter participation in primaries tends to be low, and those who participate may be more extreme than the average party voter in the electorate as a whole. For example, more conservative than-average Republicans may participate in the Republican Party primaries and more liberal-than-average Democrats may participate in the Democratic Party primaries, which can lead to candidates in the general election who are more extreme than the average citizen. Open primaries may better reflect the general electorate, but they can also give rise to strategic voting whereby voters support the perceived weakest candidate of another party to enhance the electability of their preferred party and candidate in the general election.

Bibliography:

Bibby, John F., and Brian F. Schaffner. Politics, Parties, and Elections in America. 6th ed. Boston:Wadsworth, 2008.
Carey, John M., and John Polga-Hecimovich. “Primary Elections and Candidate Strength in Latin America.” Journal of Politics 68, no. 3 (2006): 530–543.
Epstein, Leon D. Political Parties in Western Democracies. New York: Praeger, 1967.
Gallagher, Michael, and Michael Marsh, eds. Candidate Selection in Comparative Perspective:The Secret Garden of Politics. London: Sage Publications, 1988.
Kaufmann, Karen M., James G. Gimpel, and Adam H. Hoffman. “A Promise Fulfilled? Open Primaries and Representation.” Journal of Politics 65, no. 2 (2003): 457–476.
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Pennings, Paul, and Reuven Y. Hazan, eds. “Special Issue: Democratizing Candidate Selection: Causes and Consequences.” Party Politics 7, no. 3 (2001).
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