Chapman Rackaway & Joseph Romance 
Primary Elections and American Politics 
The Unintended Consequences of Progressive Era Reform

The last twenty years has seen a series of changes to American party politics: polarization, negative partisanship, decreasing voter turnout, and decreasing faith in elections and government. In
Primary Elections and American Politics, Chapman Rackaway and Joseph Romance trace the origins of these and other problems to one of the most controversial reforms in American political history: the direct partisan primary election. With a comprehensive history of the primary election, the authors link the rise of primaries to the many political ills the nation faces today. They argue that the Progressives who created the primaries mistook direct democratic reforms, like the primary, for participatory democratic reforms like deliberative polling or participatory budgeting.

Table of Content

1. Making Parties into Machines



2. Parties Ascendant



3. What the Progressives Were For



4. Why the Machines Were Targeted



5. The Early Primary Era



6. The Pivotal 1968 Democratic National Convention



7. What Direct Primaries Have Done



8. The Problem with Primaries



9. Conclusion



Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the author

Chapman Rackaway is Professor and Chair of Political Science at Radford University. His many books include
The Unorthodox Presidency of Donald J. Trump (coedited with Paul Rutledge) and
American Political Parties Under Pressure: Strategic Adaptations for a Changing Electorate (coedited with Laurie L. Rice).
Joseph Romance is Instructor of Political Science at Grand Canyon University. His many books include
The Challenge of Politics: An Introduction to Political Science, Seventh Edition (coauthored with Douglas W. Simon) and
Democracy and Excellence: Concord or Conflict? (coauthored with Neal Riemer).