Reform and Retrenchment

Robert G. Boatright is Professor of Political Science at Clark University and the Director of Research for the National Institute for Civil Discourse at the University of Arizona. His research focuses on the effects of campaign and election laws on the behavior of politicians and interest groups, with a particular emphasis on primary elections and campaign finance laws. He is the author or editor of nine books, including The Deregulatory Moment? A Comparative Perspective on Changing Campaign Finance Laws (2016); Getting Primaried: The Causes and Consequences of Congressional Primary Challenges (2013); and Interest Groups and Campaign Finance Reform in the United States and Canada (2011). He has served on many different task forces studying political reform, campaign finance, and primary elections, including the Bipartisan Policy Center's Task Force on Campaign Finance, and the Campaign Finance Institute's advisory board.

• List of Tables and Figures Acknowledgments 1. Introduction Part I: The Middle Years: Primary Election Reforms, 1928-1970 2. Reform or Retrenchment? An Overview of Changes in Primary Election Laws, 1928-1970 3. The Direct Primary and the Decline of the Progressive Movement 4. Hostile Takeover: Nonparty Group Capture of Primaries 5. Defective Primary Laws 6. Primaries and Partisan Advantage 7. Are Southern Primaries Different? Part II: What the History of Primary Elections can Tell us About Contemporary Reform Ideas 8. Contemporary Primary Reform Efforts 9. Why Primary Reforms Rarely Work 10. The Future of the Direct Primary Notes Bibliography Index

Despite the fact that much of our political leadership today is selected through primaries rather than general elections, we have far too little knowledge about them. Thankfully we now have Rob's Boatright's superb book, which gives a highly readable history and analysis of this uniquely American institution. Not only does this work illustrate the challenges of making democracy better through primary reforms, but he uses the past to help us think clearly about contemporary efforts at reform of all kinds.