Voting at the Political Fault Line
California's Experiment with the Blanket Primary
Bruce E Cain editor Elizabeth R Gerber editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University of California Press
Published:28th Mar '02
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
California's adoption of the blanket primary in 1996 presented a unique natural experiment on the impact that election rules have on politics. Billed as a measure that would increase voter participation and end ideological polarization, Proposition 198 placed California voters once again on the frontier of political reform. Employing a variety of data sources and methodologies, the contributors to Voting at the Political Fault Line apply their wide-ranging expertise to understand how this change in political institutions affected electoral behavior and outcomes. This authoritative study analyzes the consequences of California's experiment with the blanket primary, including the incidence of, motivations behind, and persistence of crossover voting; the behavior of candidates and donors; the effects on candidate positions and party platforms; and the consequences for women, minorities, and minor-party candidates. Published in association with the Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley
"This is the most important and impressive collection of original research available on California's blanket primary. Its discussion of open primaries and crossover voting raises provocative issues which loom large. The findings are impressive." - Max Neiman, author of Defending Government: Why Big Government Works "Cain and Gerber have assembled a stellar cast of scholars to consider the impact of the blanket primary and important electoral change in California's politics. This is a very important book for anybody who wants to understand how institutions shape political incentives." - Bernard Grofman, author of Minority Representation and the Quest for Voting Equality "Cain and Gerber's Voting at the Political Fault Line is an intelligent compilation of work and assessments of the rumblings that followed and the longer-term consequences that are likely to be debated over the nature of primary elections. Its no-nonsense style and reliance on sophisticated empirical analysis highlight some counterintuitive results and illustrate highly creative applications of social science methods." - Max Neiman, author of Defending Government: Why Big Government Works
ISBN: 9780520228344
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 590g
384 pages