Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T06:13:30.299Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Crashing the party: advocacy coalitions and the nonpartisan primary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2017

J. Andrew Sinclair ,
Ian O’Grady ,
Brock McIntosh  and
Carrie Nordlund
J. Andrew Sinclair
Affiliation:
Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University, USA E-mail: j.andrew.sinclair@nyu.edu
Ian O’Grady
Affiliation:
Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, UK E-mail: ogrady.ian@gmail.com
Brock McIntosh
Affiliation:
Logistics Management Institute, USA E-mail: brockmcintosh@gmail.com
Carrie Nordlund
Affiliation:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University, USA E-mail: carrie_nordlund@brown.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

California and Washington recently replaced traditional partisan elections with nonpartisan “top-two” election procedures. Some reform advocates hoped that voters would behave in a way to support moderate candidates in the primary stage; the limited evidence for this behaviour has led some scholars to conclude that the reform has little chance to change meaningful policy outcomes. Yet we find that the nonpartisan procedure has predictable and disparate political consequences: the general elections between two candidates of the same party, called copartisan general elections, tend to occur in districts without any meaningful crossparty competition. Furthermore, copartisan elections are more likely to occur with open seats, when a new legislator will begin building a network of relationships. The results, viewed through the lens of the Advocacy Coalition Framework, suggest that opportunities exist for coalitional rearrangement over time.

Keywords

electionsinstitutionsprimary electionpolicy processtop-two
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Public Policy , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , September 2018 , pp. 329 - 360
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press, 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahler, D. J., Citrin, J. and Lenz, G. S. (2016) Do Open Primaries Improve Representation? An Experimental Test of California’s Top-Two Primary. Legislative Studies Quarterly 41(2): 237–268.Google Scholar
Aldrich, J. H. (1995) Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Political Parties in America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Alvarez, R. M. and Sinclair, J. A. (2015) Nonpartisan Primary Election Reform: Mitigating Mischief. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Barabak, M. Z. (2015) Top-Two Primary System Hasn’t Worked as Proponents Promised. Los Angeles Times, 8 February, http://tinyurl.com/qfzokhu (accessed 18 May 2016).Google Scholar
Bawn, K., Cohen, M., Karol, D., Masket, S., Noel, H. and Zaller, J. (2006) A Theory of Parties: Policy Demanders, Long Coalitions, and the Electoral Blind Spot. Manuscript, http://tinyurl.com/j9k9bhe (accessed 18 May 2016).Google Scholar
Beyers, J. and Braun, C. (2014) Ties That Count: Explaining Interest Group Access to Policymakers. Journal of Public Policy 34(1): 93–121.Google Scholar
Bullock, C. S. III and Johnson, L. K. (1992) Runoff Elections in the United States. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Cain, B. and Gerber, E. R. (2002) Voting at the Political Fault Line: California’s Experiment with the Blanket Primary. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Cobb, R. W. and Elder, C. D. (1971) The Politics of Agenda-Building: An Alternative Perspective for Modern Democratic Theory. The Journal of Politics 33(4): 892–915.Google Scholar
Cohen, M., Karol, D., Noel, H. and Zaller, J. (2008) The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Donovan, T. (2012) The Top Two Primary: What Can California Learn from Washington? California Journal of Politics & Policy 4(1): 1–23.Google Scholar
Downs, A. (1957) An Economic Theory of Democracy. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Fiorina, M. P. (2002) Parties and Partisanship: A 40-Year Retrospective. Political Behavior 24(2): 93–115.Google Scholar
Freudenburg, W. R. and Gramling, R. (2002) How Crude: Advocacy Coalitions, Offshore Oil, and the Self-Negating Belief. Policy Sciences 35(1): 17–41.Google Scholar
Geranios, N. K. (2014) House Candidate Clint Didier Offers to Give Away Three Guns. The Seattle Times, 18 June, http://tinyurl.com/h359jlp (accessed 22 May 2015).Google Scholar
Gerber, E. R. and Morton, R. B. (1998) Primary Election Systems and Representation. Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization 14(2): 304–324.Google Scholar
Grose, C. R. (2014) The Adoption of Electoral Reforms and Ideological Change in the California State Legislature. USC Schwarzenegger Institute, Los Angeles. Working paper.Google Scholar
Hill, S. J. (2015) Institution of Nomination and the Policy Ideology of Primary Electorates. Quarterly Journal of Political Science 10(4): 461–487.Google Scholar
Hill, S. J. and Kousser, T. (2016) Turning Out Unlikely Voters? A Field Experiment in the Top-Two Primary. Political Behavior 38(2): 413–432.Google Scholar
Jenkins-Smith, H. and Sabatier, P. A. (1994) Evaluating the Advocacy Coalition Framework. Journal of Public Policy 14(2): 175–203.Google Scholar
John, P. (2012) Analyzing Public Policy, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kanthak, K. and Morton, R. B. (2001) Congressional Primaries. In Galderisi Peter F., Ezra M. and Lyons M. (eds.), Congressional Primaries and the Politics of Representation. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 116–131.Google Scholar
Key, V. O. Jr. ([1949] 1984) Southern Politics in State and Nation. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, Reprint.Google Scholar
Key, V. O. Jr. ([1956] 1966) American State Politics: An Introduction. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Key, V. O. Jr. (1966) The Responsible Electorate: Rationality in Presidential Voting, 1936--1960. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kingdon, J. W. (1995) Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Kousser, T., Lucas, S., Masket, S. and McGhee, E. (2015) Kingmakers of Cheerleaders? Party Power and the Causal Effects of Endorsements. Political Research Quarterly 68(3): 443–456.Google Scholar
Kousser, T., Phillips, J. and Shor, B. (2016) Reform and Representation: A New Method Applied to Recent Electoral Changes. Political Science Research and Methods, 1–19. doi:10.1017/psrm.2016.43.Google Scholar
Lugg, C. A. and Robinson, M. N. (2009) Religion, Advocacy Coalitions, and the Politics of U.S. Public Schooling. Educational Policy 23(1): 242–266.Google Scholar
Masket, S. (2011) No Middle Ground: How Informal Party Organizations Control Nominations and Polarize Legislatures. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Masket, S. (2013) It’s Top-Two Friday!. www.mischiefsoffaction.com, 18 October, http://www.mischiefsoffaction.com/2013/10/its-top-two-friday.html (accessed 18 May 2016).Google Scholar
Mason, M. (2014) Neophyte Patty Lopez Takes Raul Bocanegra’s California Assembly seat. Los Angeles Times, 24 November, http://tinyurl.com/jpk8sfg (accessed 10 June 2015).Google Scholar
McGhee, E. (2010) At Issue: Open Primaries. San Francisco, CA: Public Policy Institute of California.Google Scholar
McGhee, E. (2015) California’s Top Two Primary and the Business Agenda. California Journal of Politics & Policy 7(1): 1–16.Google Scholar
McGhee, E. and Krimm, D. (2012) Test Driving California’s Election Reform. San Francisco, CA: Public Policy Institute of California.Google Scholar
McGhee, E., Masket, S., Shor, B., Rogers, S. and McCarty, N. (2014) A Primary Cause of Partisanship? Nomination Systems and Legislator Ideology. American Journal of Political Science 58(2): 337–351.Google Scholar
Nagler, J. (2015) Voter Behavior in California’s Top Two Primary. California Journal of Politics & Policy 7(1): 1–14.Google Scholar
North, D. C. (1998) Five Propositions About Institutional Change. In Knight J. and Sened I. (eds.), Explaining Social Institutions. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 15–26.Google Scholar
O’Grady, I. (2014) Parties Against the State: The Top-Two Primary and State Solutions to Political Partisanship, Undergraduate Thesis, Claremont McKenna College, Claremont.Google Scholar
Prill, S., Crider, B., Purdy, F. and Troianello, K. (2014) Ballots Due Tuesday; Recommendations on How to Vote. Yakima Herald, 2 November, http://tinyurl.com/j8tow8b (accessed 22 May 2016).Google Scholar
Runquist, J. (2014) It’s a Race After all in 14th District: Incumbent Johnson has Challenger in Brumback. The Columbian, 28 August, http://tinyurl.com/h686czx (accessed 22 May 2016).Google Scholar
Sabatier, P. A. and Jenkins-Smith, H. C. (1988) Symposium Editors’ Introduction. Policy Sciences 21(2/3): 123–127.Google Scholar
Sinclair, B. and Wray, M. (2015) Googling the Top Two: Information Search in California’s Top Two Primary. California Journal of Politics & Policy 7(1): 1–12.Google Scholar
Sinclair, J. A. (2015) Winning from the Center: Frank Bigelow and California’s Nonpartisan Primary. California Journal of Politics & Policy 7(1): 1–33.Google Scholar
Schattschneider, E. E. ([1960] 1975) The Semisovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Schlager, E. (1995) Policy Making and Collective Action: Defining Coalitions Within the Advocacy Coalition Framework. Policy Sciences 28(3): 243–270.Google Scholar
Song, K. M. (2014) Clint Didier Slams Doc Hastings’ Endorsement of Rival for Congress. The Seattle Times, 3 September, http://tinyurl.com/m697udj (accessed 22 May 2016).Google Scholar
Tocqueville, A. de ([1966] 1969) The Real Advantages Derived By American Society from Democratic Government. Translated by G. Lawrence. In Mayer J. P. (ed.), Democracy in America, Part II, Ch. 6. New York, NY: Doubleday & Co, 231–245.Google Scholar
Weible, C. M. (2005) Beliefs and Perceived Influence in a Natural Resource Conflict: An Advocacy Coalition Approach to Policy Networks. Political Research Quarterly 53(3): 461–475.Google Scholar
Weible, C. M. (2007) An Advocacy Coalition Framework Approach to Stakeholder Analysis: Understanding the Political Context of California Marine Protected Area Policy. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 17(1): 95–117.Google Scholar
Weible, C. M., Sabatier, P. A. and McQueen, K. (2009) Themes and Variations: Taking Stock of the Advocacy Coalition Framework. The Policy Studies Journal 37(1): 121–140.Google Scholar
Weingast, B. R., Shepsle, K. A. and Johnsen, C. (1981) The Political Economy of Benefits and Costs: A Neoclassical Approach to Distributive Politics. Journal of Political Economy 89(4): 642–664.Google Scholar