Intra-party Conflict and Primary Elections

• In Event: Electoral Rules and Legislative Politics

Abstract

This paper examines why party leaders choose primaries in some districts and party elite-driven centralized methods in others. Despite the benefits to party leaders from a centralized procedure, party leaders increasingly turn the decision over to voters and implement primaries as a method to select candidates. I argue that party leaders choose primaries in safe districts where competition for nomination will be high. Party leaders choose to use decentralized methods to avoid defection of unselected candidates. The hypothesis is tested using original data on congressional elections in South Korea from 2012-2020. The findings show that safe districts attract more applicants and confirms the theoretical expectation that parties choose primary elections in safe districts.

Author

• Heewon Yoon, Columbia University