Research
Articles
Thomas M. Carsey, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
John C. Green, University of Akron
Richard Herrera, Arizona State University
Geoffrey C. Layman, University of Maryland
State Party Context and Norms among Delegates
to the 2000 National Party Conventions
Political scientists have increasingly viewed party activists as important catalysts for
party behavior and change in American politics. Understanding the decisionmaking
norms of these activists should help inform scholars' broader understanding of party
performance. We examine the norms of party decisionmaking expressed by a select
group of party activists: delegates to both parties' 2000 national conventions. We
focus on how state contextual factors shape the norms these activists hold regarding
the proper balance between ideological purity and the pragmatic pursuit of electoral
success. The contextual factors we consider include the rules for delegate selection, the
financial capacity of state parties, electoral competitiveness between the two parties,
party polarization, and state political culture. We find evidence that norms respond
as expected to some elements of state party context, but not to others.
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