Research Group Session 3: Research Collaborative on Studying Political Party Conventions & Meetings Comparatively (Invite Only)

Session Submission Type: Research Group

Abstract

Are political party conventions (and other party meetings) a dinosaur past their time, merely a balloon drop and a campaign media opportunity -- or possibly a critical intermediary organizing and agenda-setting meeting that represents an untapped research and professional opportunity? Launched in 2023, the Research Collaborative on Studying Political Party Conventions & Meetings Comparatively starts with this question: What can political scientists offer and learn by collaborating on convention and party meeting observational and delegate research based on best practices and new challenges in the post-COVID and post-January 6th context where the American model of democracy is increasingly questioned?

This Research Group is focused on the political science challenge that the study of American politics is isolated from comparative politics. This challenge is increasingly problematic given the multiple global democracy crises that are faced both in the U.S. and abroad. The United States does have different and even unique constitutional and structural features, but party meetings, campaigns, party agendas and partisan agenda setting, and governance and party functions are ubiquitous across the globe. Sadly most comparative studies and databases exclude the U.S. as an “outlier” while America politics researchers continue to operate on a dated and narrow conceptualization of party accountability (do parties enact their platforms?) based upon a “textbook” understanding of how parliaments and cabinets theoretically work. This excludes the edging of American congressional polarization more akin to parliamentary parties and the “presidentialization” of prime minister elections and growing challenges of failed cabinet coalitions in Britain and the European Union (EU). Ironically, the EU parliamentary/consensus model alone is used to comparatively study the range of hybrid regimes in the development context which combine elements of both the presidential and the parliamentary systems often combining the worst features of both systems. Moreover, distinctive features of party systems in developing countries not commonly found in the global North are rarely studied comparatively (e.g., parastatals/state-owned enterprises/limited and skewed private/civil society sector; parties that own businesses; ex-single parties; post-conflict contexts, role of external expatriates; others).

As a Research Group, our focus is both substantive and methodological and emphasizes how political science can use collaborative research to expand research and knowledge (e.g., much more common as in the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) Core Group of Political Party Scholars or the Comparative Study of Election Systems (CSES) among others).

While this Research Group is focused on an initial study of the 2024 American political party conventions, this Research Group aims at truly comparative work and welcomes comparative researchers interested in innovating new research methodologies and conceptual/theoretical approaches that deepen our collective knowledge around political parties and democratic governance based upon grassroots collective action (which informs public opinion) versus authoritarian misuses of political party structures (which breeds corruption and manipulates public opinion).

We are especially interested in mixed methods that link high quality surveys and other bridging/external quantitative data with ethical participant observation, rigorous designs, and new theoretical conceptualizations that go beyond left-right comparisons to encompass political party organizations as institutions in both their “permanent” and “temporary” party intermediary structures. Political parties connect executives, legislators/parliaments, members, and activists at all levels of government, and conventions are the one meeting that brings them all together to govern the national party. How can we better study the “lymphatic system” of political parties in meaningful ways that allow comparisons across time, context(s) and regime structures?

Given the multiple access, methodological and theoretical challenges in participant/ethnographic observation and research at what is essentially a private event, sadly, too many prior convention and party meeting research efforts in the U.S. involved political scientists who only attended one convention, which raised partisanship and bias concerns or whose research aspirations over-reached their capacity to collect data onsite. Conventions in the U.S. since the 1960s have seen political scientists episodically appear in one year, produce a book and disappear in the next cycle. While previous political science convention collaborative efforts did not seek to develop common and/or complementary approaches, the democracy challenges in 2024 and going forward call for greater social science insights and perspectives that can only be realized by cross-researcher collaboration for multi-site case study research.

Our goal is to consider multiple research entry points (events, groups, party leaders, elected officials, delegates, platforms, etc.), changes in American political party organizations and functions (e.g., party machines to state utility parties and party institutionalization post-1960s/70s reforms to more recent polarization and the presidentialization of politics since the 1990s?), and the ebb and flow and intermediary capacity of various groups and factions present at political party conventions over time. We believe that this approach will inform how to better study conventions and party meetings comparatively.

The goals of the Research Group are: 1) early identification of the pool of likely on-site political science/sociology/other researchers at the 2024 conventions, 2) building consensus over common research paradigms for studying conventions & delegates and other party meetings, 3) supporting increased research quality and rigor in the study of party organizations, conventions and meetings, 4) establishing a better foundation for political science engagement and community of knowledge building contributing to useful intellectual and evidence-based insights for reform, and 5) collaborating to obtain shared funding for research.

Research Group members and leads will share their expertise at the in-depth sessions, and proposals and inquiries welcomed.

Sub Unit

• Research Groups / Research Collaborative on Studying Political Party Conventions & Meetings Comparatively

Participants

• Robert Jr Anstett University of Missouri

• Onsel Gurel Bayrali Binghamton University

• David Brooks Ebner Sweet Briar College

• E.J. Fagan University of Illinois at Chicago

• Matthew James Geras University of Illinois Springfield

• Selin Bengi Gumrukcu Rutgers University, New Brunswick

• Eric S. Heberlig University of North Carolina, Charlotte

• Caitlin E. Jewitt Virginia Tech

• Petia A. Kostadinova University of Illinois at Chicago

• Patrick Rewa McSweeney Georgetown University

• Zim Nwokora Deakin University

• Harley Roe Florida State University

• Khadijeh Salimi Old Dominion University

• Karen Denice Sebold University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

• Zachary R Thomas Bergen Community College

• Linda Trautman Ohio University

• Barbara Trish

• Jiajia Zhou University of Toronto

• Suzanne Leland University of North Carolina, Charlotte

• Makda Maru Delaware State University

• Kenneth Janda Northwestern University

• Michael T. Heaney University of Glasgow

Session Organizers

• Denise L. Baer Strategic Research Concepts

• Karen Denice Sebold University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

• Robert G. Boatright Clark University

• Barry C. Burden University of Wisconsin

• Seth E. Masket University of Denver

• Hans Noel Georgetown University