Party Primaries in Comparative Perspective

Primary elections for choosing party leaders and candidates are now becoming commonplace in Europe, Asia and America but questions as to how much they hinder a party’s organizational strength and cohesion or affect electoral performance have largely been ignored outside of the USA. Party Primaries in Comparative Perspective gives a much-needed conceptualization to this topic, describing the function and nature of primary elections and providing a comparative analytical framework to the impact of primaries on the internal and external functioning of political parties. Elaborating on the analytical tools developed to study the US experience this framework engages with primary elections in Europe and Asia offering a theoretical, comparative and empirical account of the emergence of party primaries and an invaluable guide to internal electoral processes and their impact.

Giulia Sandri is Assistant Professor at the European School of Political and Social Sciences of the Catholic University of Lille. Antonella Seddone is currently Research Fellow at the University of Cagliari and she is lecturer in Opinion polls and Public Opinion at the Department of Culture, Politics and Society of the University of Turin. Fulvio Venturino is currently Associate Professor at the University of Cagliari and was previously a Research Fellow at the University of Genoa.