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The President and Fellows of Harvard College
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
Olmec Colossal Heads as Recarved Thrones: "Mutilation,"
Revolution, and Recarving
Author(s): James B. Porter
Source: RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, No. 17/18 (Spring -
Autumn, 1989), pp. 22-29
Published by: The President and Fellows of Harvard College
acting through the Peabody Museum of
Archaeology and Ethnology
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22 RES 17/18 SPRING/AUTUMN 89
Figure 1. a, San Lorenzo Colossal Head 7, front; b, San Lorenzo
Colossal Head 7, right; c, San Lorenzo
Colossal Head 7, right detail.
2014 14:23:57 PM
Olmec colossal heads as recarved thrones
"Mutilation," revolution, and recarving
JAMES B. PORTER

It was in 1862 while visiting the region of San Andre's
Tuxtla, a town of the state of Veracruz, in Mexico; and
during some excursions I made, that I heard of a colossal
head which had been disinterred a few years before in
the following manner. At something like one and a half
leagues from a cane plantation in the western foothills of
the San Martin range, while making a clearing to farm, a
laborer of the aforesaid plantation discovered at ground
level what appeared to be the bottom of a great iron
cauldron with its mouth buried and notified the master of
the plantation. At his order they began the excavation and,
in place of the cauldron, they found the aforementioned
head. They left it in the hole they made to discover it but
did not think of moving it because (it seemed to be of
granite being two yards high and the other proportions
corresponding) they tried without effect. The thing remains
in the same state. They talked of the discovery, but without
giving it much importance. As I have mentioned already,
on one of my outings in search of antiquities, I arrived at
the aforesaid plantation and entreated the proprietor to
guide me to see it. We went and I
was left amazed. As

a work of art it is, without exaggeration, a magnificent
sculpture; as we can judge from the accompanying
photograph. But that which impressed me the most was
the Ethiopian type which it represented.
Melgar 1869: 292, author's trans.
When Jos? Mar?a Melgar y Serrano stood amazed
before the first of the famous Olmec colossal heads
more than 120 years ago, he could not have known the
bitter archaeological debates his discovery would fuel
and continues to feed to the present day. Various
authors have subsequently noted that sculptures such as
Melgar's colossal head are a primary defining feature of
the archaeological Olmec culture (de la Fuente 1973,
1975; Graham et al. 1979). This situation subjects to
often acrimonious debate such fundamentals as the
origin of the style; the historical relationships of Olmec
sculpture to other Mesoamerican sculpture traditions;
and the ethnic identity, linguistic stock, and social
organization of the producers of Olmec sculpture. Even
the name Olmec ? Aztec for "rubber people"

? is
borrowed from an unrelated people who occupied the
Gulf region during the sixteenth century. All that is
certain about the archaeological "Olmec" is that they
occupied parts of southern Mexico and Guatemala
during the last few millennia b.c. (map). Despite these
problems, there are a number of different facets of
Olmec sculpture that may be profitably examined. One
of these appears in a group of Olmec colossal heads
and "altars" that bear evidence of a set of
modifications, some of which also appear on other
Olmec sculpture types (Grove 1981). Although the
purpose of Olmec sculptural modification remains
unknown, direct examination of specific monuments
suggests that such modifications may shed light on a
complex pattern of Olmec sculpture reuse.
For several years I had been puzzled by two
modifications in the form of "arcs" carved above, and

partly through, the right ear of San Lorenzo Head 2
(Monument 2). During November 1988 I visited the
Museo de Antropolog?a in Jalapa, Veracruz, Mexico,
and noted two similar carved "arcs" above the
diminutive right ear of San Lorenzo Head 7 (Monument
53) (fig. 1). These "arcs" were clearly not natural
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To Professors Richard Adams, Beatriz de la Fuente, Munro

Edmonson, David Grove, and John Rowe, and to Rebecca
Gonzalez
Lauck, Jan McHargue, Mary Porter, J. C. Staneko, Thomas
Wakke,
and Harold Young, I offer my heartfelt gratitude for their
advice,
encouragement, suggestions, and assistance.
2014 14:23:57 PM
features of the boulders from which all colossal heads
were believed to be carved since they were quite
smooth and regular. They also did not fit any of the
previously identified standard modifications of Olmec
sculpture, such as coffering (the cutting of cubical
cavities, often misleadingly termed "slotting"), the
removal of surfaces, cupping (the grinding of circular
depressions, also termed "dimpling"), and grooving
(the grinding of trough-shaped depressions). Nor did

these "arcs" contribute in any way to the definition of
the heads themselves. Indeed, the paired "arcs" of both
monuments appear where the tops of the right ears
should be, if the ears had been carved in normal
proportions. Furthermore, the upper "arc" on Head 7
actually cuts the pinna of the right ear! These two
features suggest that the "arcs" were carved first and
that the diminutive proportions of the ears result from a
conscious, although not entirely successful, effort to
avoid the preexisting "arcs." If these "arcs" represent
an earlier phase of carving, then it is likely that both
San Lorenzo heads are recarvings of the same original
monument type.
To identify the original monument type represented
by "arcs" above the ears of these monuments, the
heads must be turned 90 degrees onto their backs.
When this is done, the carved "arcs" are seen to be the
upper edge of a niche framing the shoulders and armpit
creases of an effaced human figure. The upper edge of
the niche is interrupted by the remnants of the head

of the figure that once projected in high relief or half
round from the niche. The distance from the niche
figure's shoulders to the colossal head's flat back is
sufficient for the body of a complete niche figure. Large
flake scars on the right side of San Lorenzo Head 7
show where the niche figure's head, forearms, legs, and
lower body were broken away prior to recarving. The
niche figure's upper torso and the top of the niche
survived recarving because they were deeply carved in
sunken relief, which is harder to efface than raised
relief or sculpture in the round.
Niche figures such as these, while common in
Olmec art, are most prominent as the central feature of
the front of subcubical Olmec "altars." The sunken
relief shoulders and upper torso of these niche figures
are usually framed by an arched niche, while the head
projects from the niche in high relief or full round
carving. The presence of effaced niche figures centered
on one of the long sides of San Lorenzo Heads 1, 2,

and 7 reveals these sculptures to be "altars" that were
later recarved as colossal heads, whose previously
puzzling flat backs are now clearly seen to have been
the flat underside of the former "altars." The sculptural
stratigraphy represented by sequent phases of carving
on these three colossal heads reveals a pattern
suggesting the fascinating probability that many colossal
heads are also recarved "altars." Only Tres Zapotes
Head 2, Cobata Head 1, San Lorenzo Head 8, and
Abaj Takalik Head 1 (Monument 23) do not show the
rounded subcubical shapes that are consistent with
recarving from "altars."
Virtually every student of Olmec art has noted that
there are two forms of colossal heads: "round or
spherical" and "elongated." There are also two basic
forms of "altars": "square or cubical" and "elongated
rectangular." The "round or spherical" head derives
naturally from the "square or cubical" "altar," and the
"elongated" head from the "elongated rectangular"
"altar." The significance of this observation becomes

clear when it is noted that La Venta "altars" are
cubical, apart from the rectangular profile of La Venta
Altar 4, as are La Venta heads 1 and 4, while San
Lorenzo "altars" are elongated
? as are the San
Lorenzo colossal heads. The shape of Tres Zapotes
region heads was attributed by Howell Williams to
locally occurring spherical boulders. Tres Zapotes Head
2 and Cobata Head 1 do not have flat backs and they
may not be recarved "altars." Both these heads have
flat bottoms, however, suggesting the possibility that the
heads could have been carved from "altars" that were
not turned on their axes. Also, it should be noted that
Tres Zapotes Head 1 has the characteristic flat back,
which suggests a recarved "altar."
The side views of several "elongated" colossal
heads from San Lorenzo exhibit a distinctly trapezoidal
profile, with greater height to the front (facial) side than
to the back side. The recurrence of this head form has
been puzzling, since it is inappropriate for setting the

sculptures upright. If the head form, on the other hand,
merely results from the failure to completely remove a
broad projecting molding around the top of the "altars"
from which these heads were carved, it becomes
entirely understandable.
The subcubical shape of flat-backed colossal heads
suggests that "altars" were recarved into colossal heads
and the broken condition of extant niche figure "altars"
corroborates this suggestion (fig. 2). Virtually all
surviving niche figure "altars" were found with corners
and other angular edges broken off. Such removal of
corners and sharp edges is exactly what would be
expected if these monuments had undergone
2014 14:23:57 PM
Porter: Olmec colossal heads as recarved thrones 25
L?&aV&A

Figure 2. a, La Venta Altar 4, front; b, La Venta Altar 5, front;
c, San Lorenzo Monument 20, front; d, San Lorenzo
Colossal Head 2, right.
2014 14:23:57 PM
preliminary rounding and preparation for recarving as
colossal heads. La Venta Altars 1, which has no niche
figure, and 7, which has an atypical niche head, also
have corners and sharp edges removed. The broken
corner of an "altar," Monument 57, was found at Abaj
Takalik and suggests that "altars" were also recarved at
that site. Only Potrero Nuevo Monument 4, which has
no niche, has been found in an unbroken condition.
The evidence that the two small cubical "altars"
from Laguna de los Cerros were being recarved suggests
an interesting regional variation on the re-use pattern.
Colossal heads as such have not been found at Laguna
de los Cerros, although two large cubical grotesque
heads are known from the site. It is possible that these

two grotesques are the local equivalent of colossal
heads at other Olmec sites and were recarved from
small cubical "altars" similar to the two found at the
site. A similar situation may also exist at Cerro de las
Mesas (Monument 2) and Tres Zapotes (Monument 25),
where, although no "altars" are known, flat-backed
abstracted and masklike colossal heads have been
found. Indeed, the Tres Zapotes colossal head is clearly
unfinished and bears traces of a niche on its back
(Porter 1989: 135-137). If the grotesques at Laguna de
los Cerros and the Cerro de las Mesas and Tres Zapotes
heads were also recarved "altars," then the conception
of colossal heads as large, portraitlike human heads
does not strictly correspond to the actual Olmec
functional monument type. Therefore, a more accurate
designation of these sculptures might focus on recarving
from "altars" rather than on colossal size or portraitlike
naturalism.
Patterns in the appearance of standard sculpture
modifications also illuminate the recarving of "altars"
into colossal heads. Coffering appears on "altars" (La
Venta "Stela 1," La Venta Altar 4, and San Lorenzo

Monument 14) and on San Lorenzo Head 2, which was
once an "altar," suggesting that coffering was confined
to "altars." The half-effaced coffers on the curve of the
back of San Lorenzo Head 2, in what was the original
"altar's" bottom and front edges, further suggest that
coffering was added after obsolescence and before
"altars" were recarved as colossal heads. Also, a
lowered surface on the back of this head "may have
been purposefully carved, since in Monument 14 from
San Lorenzo [coffers] were carved in a new surface of
the head created after carefully chipping away earlier
decoration" (Clewlow et al. 1967: 79). However, the
presence of a small coffer on the otherwise unmodified
front of La Venta Altar 4 suggests that coffering may
have preceded the chipping away of earlier decoration.
Also, these modifications are clearly not "mutilation" in
the sense of defacement, since significant elements of
relief on both the La Venta and San Lorenzo "altars"
survive intact. Cupping is the most common

modification to the colossal heads and may have been
the final stage in surface modification. Grooving
appears on every kind of Olmec sculpture and is
therefore difficult to place within any consistent carving
sequence. Including coffering and other modifications,
evidence of six sequent stages of carving survives on
San Lorenzo Head 2: Stage 1 is the effaced niche figure
on the right side, Stage 2 is the coffering on the back
and right sides, Stage 3 is a lowered surface on the
back side, Stage 4 is the head itself, Stage 5 is grooving
on the right cheek and forehead, and Stage 6 is
cupping on the face (one cupping cuts into the groove
on the right cheek).
At Abaj Takalik and possibly at Izapa there are
notable contrasts to the foregoing sequence of
recarving from
"
'altar' to head." Abaj Takalik Head 1
(Monument 23), as noted previously, is almost certainly
not recarved from an "altar." It provides, instead, an
example of a colossal head (with cupping on the left
side) where the original head's facial features were

recarved into a seated niche figure. The recarving of
this head is quite clear, despite the claim in a recent
publication that the ears of the colossal head are
actually the "eyes" of an "open-jawed monster"
(Parsons 1986: 10, 19). Izapa Miscellaneous Monument
2 may also represent a flat-backed colossal head with
its facial features recarved into a squatting niche figure.
Grove provides a reasonable basis for explanations
of colossal heads as recarved "altars," in the only
plausible interpretation of Olmec "altars" yet proposed,
by suggesting that "altars" were actually thrones (Grove
1973). If his interpretation is correct, it is likely that
such thrones played a role in the careers of Olmec
leaders commensurate with their impressive appearance
as sculptures. Obsolescence following the inauguration,
jubilee, or other events for which the thrones were
carved would have made it possible to convert
these impressive monuments into another kind of
commemorative sculpture, such as the colossal heads.

Possibly these colossal heads are portraits or effigies of
the leaders for whom the thrones were carved, and they
may have been converted into mortuary monuments
following the leader's death. However, from the
2014 14:23:57 PM
existing archaeological and sculptural record it is
not possible to determine whether throne recarving
occurred before or after the leader's death.
The relative distributions of thrones and colossal
heads may also prove significant in this context. Two
thrones have been found at Laguna de los Cerros, three
at San Lorenzo, and as many as nine from the environs
of La Venta, all with features removed to commence
the process of recycling. This suggests the possibility
that more than one throne may have been used at one
time, or perhaps that multiple authorities were entitled

to official thrones. In-group change could also have
provided a motivation for recycling the thrones of
previous regimes. Only at La Venta do thrones
outnumber colossal heads. There is a scarcity of
surviving thrones at San Lorenzo, Laguna de los Cerros,
and Abaj Takalik, as well as an absence of thrones in
the existing sculptural corpus at Tres Zapotes. All of
these factors suggest that thrones may not have had a
long use life. Furthermore, comparison of the large
ratio of thrones (Altars 1-8 and "Stelae" 1 and 4)1 to
colossal heads (1-4) from the environs of La Venta with
the small ratio of thrones (Potrero Nuevo Monument 2,
San Lorenzo Monuments 14, 18, and 20) to colossal
heads (1-9) from the environs of San Lorenzo implies
that San Lorenzo's officials often endured long enough
to recycle their altars into colossal heads, while
La Venta's officials did not. Finally, differences in
sculptural practices at different times and sites, as well
as accidents of preservation and discovery along with
unusual historical events, may all have skewed the
extant monument sample.

Final resolution of all issues raised by the
observations and proposals presented here must await
further documentation of Olmec sites and sculptures.
Until such thorough records are available, only
preliminary hypotheses may be proposed to explain the
recarving of Olmec thrones as colossal heads, and a
broad perspective of alternative possibilities should be
kept in mind before embracing any single and simple
scenario for explaining the variety of Olmec sculptural
practices.
Previous examinations of Olmec sculpture have
been marked by an anthropological emphasis upon
economic and technological aspects of the
archaeological record, often to the exclusion of other
relevant factors. This theoretical bias frequently
results in a cavalier treatment of artistic issues in
anthropological studies of the Olmec and other
indigenous Mesoamerican civilizations.2 Indeed,
without accepting his diffusionism, I must agree with
Paul Schau's plaint that "visual illiteracy or, at best,
visual insensitivity [characterizes] the field of Olmec

archaeology" (Schau 1983: 337).
Mesoamericanists have traditionally treated flat
backed colossal heads and broken thrones as separate
problems. Flat-backed colossal heads have mostly been
treated as an aesthetic or as a technologically artistic
issue, while broken and "mutilated" thrones have
always been treated as a social-political issue. Stirling
(1955: 20) originally explained the flat-backed colossal
heads as resulting from the aesthetics of placement
against some structure. Clewlow (et al. 1967: 66-67),
however, noted the absence of such structures in the
archaeology of colossal heads and attributed the
flattened backs to unspecified "stylistic" motives.
Heizer explained the flattened backs of colossal heads
as an anticipation of the use of rollers and other
technological aids for transporting the heavy sculptures
(Heizer: personal communication). F?rst and F?rst
(1980) subsequently argued that the faces of colossal
heads were flattened to reduce breakage in transport.
Coe and Diehl (1980) carry this kind of economic
determinism to an extreme, asserting that the flat

"negroid" faces of Olmec colossal heads result from
a desire to save the labor costs entailed in carving "
'typical' American Indian" portraits. Yet the laborious
removal of what is calculated to be more than half the
mass of a subspherical natural boulder, to form first a
subcubical throne and finally again a subspherical
head, shows clearly the ethnocentric and materialist
na?vet? of such a judgment. Furthermore, the flattened
backs of Tres Zapotes Head 1 and Abaj Takalik Head 2
suggest they were also recarved "altars"; so recarving
of altars was not confined to sites where stone was not
readily available, Tres Zapotes being very near a source 1.
Gonzalez Lauck has identified Stirling's "Stela" 4 as an "altar"
form; she renames it "Altar 8" (Gonzalez Lauck 1988).
Gonzalez
Lauck's "Stelae" 1 and 4 are equally blocky and altarlike, but
renaming the well-known "Stela" 1 would only create more
confusion. "Stela" 4, Stirling's "Stela" 5, has been renamed (to
avoid
confusion with Gonzalez Lauck's recently discovered "Stela" 5)
and
is still under study (Gonzalez Lauck, personal communication).
2. Ironically, many of these economic and technological

explanations revolve around misapprehensions of some of
Marx's
social and economic theories, which are themselves based upon
earlier anthropological misunderstandings of native American
hunter
gatherers.
2014 14:23:57 PM
28 RES 1 7/18 SPRING/AUTUMN 89
of workable stone while at Abaj Takalik workable stone
actually occurs within the ruins. In any case, among
the most important motivations in the production of
monumental sculpture are the ostentatious display of
wealth, artistic ability, and religious/political power.
Since recycling impressive monuments in which a great
investment has already been made only decreases
the total inventory of monuments for display, it is
reasonable to look elsewhere for explanations.
Stirling, followed by Drucker et al., attributed broken

thrones to acts of iconoclasm by violent successors of
the Olmec (Stirling 1940: 334; Drucker, Heizer, and
Squire 1959: 230). Later, following Thompson's (1954)
interpretation of the Classic Maya Collapse as the result
of a class struggle, Heizer suggested violent revolution
as an explanation for broken Olmec "altars" (Heizer
1960: 220). Coe subsequently embraced Heizer's and
Thompson's evocation of Marx's social theories: he
too explains broken Olmec monuments as a result of
violent revolution (Coe 1967: 25; 1968: 63). Coe's
claim that a violent revolution at San Lorenzo is
evidenced by the "mutilation" and "burial" of
sculptures in alignments, "in one great act of
destruction" (Coe and Diehl 1980: 387), has
been widely accepted in texts and syntheses of
Mesoafnerican culture history. Indeed, some writers
have used it as a point of departure for even wider
ranging interpretations. However, this "revolution
hypothesis" stems from a misunderstanding of what

constitutes mutilation. A careful examination of the
undefaced niche figures of broken San Lorenzo thrones
should have amply signalled that recycling, rather
than "mutilation," was the intent. Nor does careful
examination of the final San Lorenzo report sustain the
claim for the simultaneous "burial" of the "mutilated"
sculptures (Graham 1989: 240-242, 244-246). Also
contraindicated is the recurring claim that Olmec heads
were carved off site (Coe and Diehl 1980: 297; F?rst
and F?rst 1980: 14). Finally, the recycling of Olmec
sculptures, not only at San Lorenzo but at La Venta,
Laguna de los Cerros, Abaj Takalik, and other sites
as well, clearly indicates a widespread tradition of
recarving through time.
Grove has criticized this "revolution hypothesis" in
the only previous study of broken Olmec monuments
that perceptively examines the monuments themselves.
He also departs from previous methodology by taking
a social anthropologist's approach. Grove interprets
broken monuments as protection from the supernatural

powers of dead rulers, through an ethnographic analogy
"drawn from the belief systems of present-day Indian
groups of tropical-forest South America" (Grove
1981: 67-68). His use of ethnographic analogy is an
interesting departure from the purely theoretical
approaches of his predecessors.
Archaeological facts useful for the interpretation of
art are scarce in Mesoamerican archaeology, and one
test of a significant discovery is the extent to which old
ideas, and even "facts," are rendered obsolete. The
foregoing discussions of flat-backed colossal heads and
broken thrones share an overreliance on economic and
technological interpretive approaches. They also rely on
superficial and incomplete visual examinations of the
Olmec sculptures themselves, despite the fact that some
of these have been available to study for more than fifty
years. Surely more fruitful results can be achieved
by critically reconsidering the sacrosanct status of
established archaeological reconstructions and basing
future explanations on the direct and detailed

observation of materials actually under examination.
The present study employs such a program in
identifying the flat backs of Olmec colossal heads as
the simple survival of a fundamental feature of the
original sculpted form from which the heads were
recarved. Broken thrones are similarly identified as
nothing more than corollary evidence of the actual
process of recarving itself. Future applications of the
same program may engender a new generation of
exciting alternatives for understanding Mesoamerican
remains.
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Oklahoma Press.
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1965 Sources of Rocks Used in Olmec Monuments in
UCARF-C 1.
2014 14:23:57 PM
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jspArticle
Contentsp. 22p. [23]p. 24p. 25p. 26p. 27p. 28p. 29Issue Table
of ContentsRES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, No. 17/18
(Spring - Autumn, 1989), pp. 1-212Front MatterL'Esthétique
engagée [pp. 5-14]Uranopolis or Somapolis? [pp. 15-21]Olmec
Colossal Heads as Recarved Thrones: "Mutilation," Revolution,
and Recarving [pp. 22-29]Transplanted Medicine: Colonial
Mexican Herbals of the Sixteenth Century [pp. 30-53]Ritual
Mutilation of Power Objects: The Case of Some Maori Feather
Boxes [pp. 54-67]Aletheia: The Iconography of Death/Rebirth
in Three Cups by the Sotades Painter [pp. 68-88]"The Motions
of the Countenance": Rembrandt's Early Portraits and the Tronie
[pp. 89-116]Khubilai's Groom [pp. 117-139]One View of a
Town: Prior Park and the City of Bath [pp. 140-157]Henry
Moore and Pre-Columbian Art [pp. 158-197]Mésaventures de
l'art: Premières impressions des Magiciens de la Terre [pp. 198-
207]Back Matter
The Forum
Volume 5, Issue 4 2008 Article 6
POLITICS OF PRESIDENTIAL SELECTION

Presidential Nominating Conventions: Past,
Present and Future
Costas Panagopoulos∗
∗ Fordham University, [email protected]
Copyright c©2008 The Berkeley Electronic Press. All rights
reserved.
Presidential Nominating Conventions: Past,
Present and Future∗
Costas Panagopoulos
Abstract
Few aspects of the presidential selection process have changed
as dramatically as nominating
conventions have over the past half century or so. Once the
epicenters of the proverbial smoke-
filled rooms that all but decided presidential nominations, some
argue that conventions are now
mainly superficial, perfunctory and even superfluous affairs.
These developments, influenced in
large part by the ways in which political parties have adapted to
institutional changes and growth in
mass media, have essentially transformed the nature and role of
conventions in modern campaigns.
But conventions remain key political events that motivate and
inform voters and that have the
capacity to influence the dynamics of presidential campaigns.
Conventions still matter and persist
as useful political institutions.

KEYWORDS: nominating conventions, presidential campaigns,
political parties
∗ Costas Panagopoulos is Assistant Professor of Political
Science and Director of the Center for
Electoral Politics and Democracy and the graduate program in
Elections and Campaign Manage-
ment at Fordham University. This article draws considerably on
material published in Panagopou-
los (2007a). The author is grateful to Byron Shafer and to Ray
La Raja for helpful comments and
support.
Few aspects of the presidential selection process have changed
as dramatically
as nominating conventions over the past half-century or so.
Once epicenters for
the proverbial smoke-filled rooms that all but decided
presidential nominations,
the conventions, some argue, are now mainly superficial,
perfunctory, and even
superfluous affairs. These developments, influenced in large
part by the ways in
which political parties have adapted to institutional changes and
growth in mass
media, have essentially transformed the nature and role of
conventions in modern
campaigns. Given these developments, and what we [think we]
know about the
relationship of these quadrennial events to contemporary
presidential campaigns,
do conventions still matter? Yes.

Perhaps the best evidence that conventions continue to matter is
that they
continue to exist, even in altered form. After all, why would
rational political
parties invest so heavily in events that are entirely useless and
ineffectual? Some
of the changes that conventions have undergone present
considerable challenges
to political parties, but others provide parties with
unprecedented new
opportunities. Political parties have adapted conventions to
maximize their goals,
suggesting at the very least that conventions must serve some
meaningful purpose
and offer parties even modest benefits. Nevertheless, the
manner in which
conventions have evolved within the context of new (and
sometimes hostile)
political and media environments has generated important
questions for political
observers.
Conventions in Historical Context
Every four years, at least since September 1831 when the Anti-
Masonic Party
held the first presidential nominating convention, the major
parties from each
state formally convene to nominate a presidential candidate to
represent the party
in the general election race that follows. The establishment of
national
conventions for the purpose of nominating presidential
candidates marked the

formalization of political parties in the United States, enabling
parties to gather
partisans from all geographic areas and to weld them together as
a cohesive unit
in pursuit of the quadrennial effort to elect a president.
For over a century, nominating conventions were lively and
animated events,
settings for intense candidate and policy debates that frequently
erupted in
volatility and excitement. At the 1912 Democratic national
convention in
Baltimore, Maryland, for example, it took 46 ballots for
Woodrow Wilson’s
supporters to break a deadlock and wrestle the nomination away
from fellow
contenders U.S. House Speaker Champ Clarke of Missouri,
Representative Oscar
Underwood of Alabama, and Governor Judson Harmon of Ohio.
Twelve years
later, after nine days of stalemate, delegates at the Democratic
convention in New
York voted 103 times before Wall Street lawyer John W. Davis
clinched the
1Panagopoulos: Conventions: Past, Present and Future
Published by The Berkeley Electronic Press, 2010
nomination as a compromise candidate between New York
Governor Alfred E.
Smith and Wilson’s Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo.
That was the hey-
day of nominating conventions, when fat cats in smoke-filled

rooms did battle
over contenders and the nomination was not a foregone
conclusion before the
convention even began.
The Growth of Television and the Rise of Staged Conventions
For over a century, national conventions remained the purview
of the select few
who attended the meetings and reveled in the enthusiasm. With
the growth of
mass media technologies, political conventions became
important national events.
In 1844, news of convention proceedings was transmitted by
telegraph for the
first time. By 1880, convention reporters used a “new gadget,”
the telephone.
And, on June 10, 1924, the Republican National Convention in
Cleveland, Ohio,
was the first to be broadcast on radio. Television coverage of
conventions quickly
followed. In June 1940, NBC’s experimental station W2XBS
became the first
television station to broadcast from a presidential convention
when it aired reports
from the Republican convention in Philadelphia, and the first
live convention
reports arrived on June 21, 1948, during the Republican
convention (Shafer
1988).
Television promised unprecedented access to convention
proceedings, and
networks initially provided Americans with nearly gavel-to-

gavel coverage. The
public tuned in to watch. As recently as 1976, the typical
household watched 11
hours of convention coverage on television (Patterson 2004).
Conventions were
exciting—and newsworthy—because nominations were
undecided and
convention proceedings were consequential and, relatively
speaking, interesting.
Few states held primaries to bind delegate decisions, and
conventions were
gatherings of party chieftains and activists from across the
nation who had no
legal obligations or commitments to designated candidates. In
the hey-day of
nominating conventions, free-wheeling delegates routinely
offered and withdrew
their support in exchange for concessions on platform planks or
promises of
future political payoffs, appointments, and patronage.
Television revolutionized conventions, almost instantly. After
watching the
first fully televised Republican convention in 1952, Democratic
Party officials
made changes in the appearance and layout of their own
conventions to better suit
their new audiences (Shafer 1988). By 1956, both parties further
amended their
convention programs to better fit the demands of television
coverage. Party
officials altered the length of the convention, dropped daytime
sessions, created
uniform campaign themes for each party, limited welcoming
speeches and
parliamentary organization procedures, scheduled sessions to

prime time so as to
2 The Forum Vol. 5 [2008], No. 4, Article 6
http://www.bepress.com/forum/vol5/iss4/art6
reach a maximum audience, and worked hard to conceal any
intra-party battling
(Shafer 1988).
Contemporary conventions are staged primarily as mega-media
events
designed to electrify the party faithful and to woo undecided
voters by dazzling
them. Scholars have demonstrated that support for the party’s
nominee is boosted
immediately after the convention, and the prevailing nostrum
seems to be: the
better the convention, the bigger the boost. Elaborate effort—
and resources—are
now lavished on the conventions by party leaders to orchestrate,
anticipate, plan,
schedule, rehearse, time, and script every detail of every minute
of the
convention—especially those proceedings that will be aired
during prime time
television coverage.
“No News Here”: Tuning Out the Mundane Conventions
Critics argue that choreographed conventions have become less
interesting and

mostly ceremonial. They are perceived simply as gatherings
held to ratify the
choice of the voters in the states rather than for bargaining,
because the candidate
who wins enough delegates from states primaries to earn the
nomination is
determined before the election (Shafer 1988). Since 1952,
nomination front-
runners have had to hold on to the coalition they built before
the convention rather
than continue to search for support at the convention itself.
With the nomination
typically assured on the first ballot, candidates now use the
conventions as a form
of extended advertising, introducing themselves to the
electorate in a favorable
light and projecting a desired image for the party to the viewing
audience in a
relatively uncontested format.
The nature of network coverage of convention proceedings has
also changed.
Television networks anxious about high ratings assign their
most important
anchors to cover the convention from overhead booths, and they
are assisted by
scores of reporters roaming the floor in search of fast-breaking
stories and
potentially interesting interviews. Researchers stand by ready to
explain what is
happening on the podium or the floor and a number of people
are assigned to flip
through books or make telephone calls so that the anchor can
talk intelligently
about the proceedings.

Television cultivates an illusion of action to maintain viewer
interest by
switching back and forth between events that are taking place at
the same time in
various locations, which can create a false sense of confusion or
disorder at the
conventions. Jackson argues that the place and deference
afforded to the media at
the conventions is in recognition of the surrogate role they play
as the eyes and
ears of the public at large, and the parties recognize that the
images and
impressions the media transmit, the themes they develop, and
the events and
personalities they decide to cover become the major window
onto the convention
for the public (Jackson 2001). Images and issues developed or
solidified during
the convention are crucial because they tend to carry over into
the fall campaign.
To be fair, the media has an agenda dedicated to enhancing its
own success,
maximizing viewer appeal, and building its reputation during
the conventions.
They look for conflict, controversial decisions, and power
brokering. They race to
be the first to learn and announce important decisions such as
the name of the
vice-presidential candidate or the new national party chair and

to project their
opinions about what it all means for the general election.
These developments have engaged parties and television
networks in an
interesting dance over the past five decades. As parties have
controlled
convention dynamics more and more, networks have
increasingly ignored the
events and withdrawn coverage. As a result, network coverage
of conventions has
dropped precipitously since the 1960s. Networks blame the
parties and believe
their drastic scaling down on coverage reflects the vast
majority’s lack of interest
in conventions, the fact that they have ceased to be a
compelling centerpiece of
presidential drama (Jackson 2001).
Scholars echo these notions. Jackson contends the networks’
declining
coverage has required parties to script conventions even more in
order to
maximize favorable coverage within the constraints of severely
limited exposure
(Jackson 2001). The 1996 Republican convention, for example,
was so highly
scripted because most networks carried only five hours of
coverage, leaving
convention managers with little choice but to carefully stage
events. Most
speakers were limited to ten-minute speeches, and the
Republicans made heavy
use of infomercial videos. ABC anchor Ted Koppel left early,
telling his viewers
that there was “no more news here.”

Institutional Reforms
Other key reforms over the second half of the 20th century have
impacted the way
conventions are executed. The McGovern-Fraser Commission,
appointed by the
Democratic Party after the tumultuous 1968 Democratic
convention in order to
address unfair and exclusionary practices in the delegate
selection process,
recommended a series of measures including the elimination of
restrictive fees
and petition requirements for delegate candidates, plus
restrictions on voter
registration, on the unit rule, and on proxy voting. The
commission also
recommended limitation to the influence of party committees in
the selection of
delegates, required written rules for governing the process,
demanded adequate
public notice of all meetings pertaining to delegate selection,
and called for
standardized apportionment. Scholars find that the guidelines
have had
considerable effects in that they substantially democratized the
system by opening
avenues for citizen participation and greatly reducing the power
of party leaders

(Euchner and Maltese 1997). The Republicans also made some
reforms to their
conventions during the 1970s, but they were not as extensive or
implemented as
deeply as the Democratic changes.
Both parties today follow complicated formulas for selecting
delegates. Since
1972, Republicans have followed a complex procedure that
includes 6 at-large
delegates, 3 delegates for each Congressional district and bonus
delegates
depending on how well the state is represented by Republicans
in Congress, the
state leadership, and the last presidential election. That year the
Democrats
instituted a system of apportionment based half on the voting
strength of the
state’s Democratic vote in the last three presidential elections
and half on the
state’s Electoral College votes. The number of delegates
attending conventions
has also increased greatly since the 1950s (Euchner and Maltese
1997). The
number of Democratic delegates increased from 1,642 in 1952
to 2,477 in 1956,
to 3,331 in 1980, and then up to 4,290 in 1996. The Republicans
also increased
the number of delegates at their convention from 1,348
delegates in 1972 to 2,277
in 1988. At the 2008 conventions, Democrats will seat 3,515
pledges delegates
and 852 super-delegates, while 2,488 delegates will attend the
GOP convention in

2008.
In recent years, delegates have been pledged in a growing
number of state
primaries and caucuses and thus have had little flexibility in the
choice of the
party’s nominee, although they still play a role in platform
debates and
establishing the image the party projects on television (Polsby
and Wildavsky
1999). If the delegates move to ideological extremes, they often
nominate
candidates who go on to lose badly in the general election.
Republicans learned
this lesson when they nominated Senator Barry Goldwater, and
Democrats
realized the same thing in 1972 when they nominated Senator
George McGovern.
Nevertheless, growing ideological polarization across both
parties’ convention
delegates has resulted in pressure to select nominees who share
the more extreme
issue preferences of the party elite rather than positions favored
by the majority of
voters (Costain 1980). Growing polarization along ideological
lines also creates
additional challenges for parties striving to present a moderate
image on
television in an effort to attract uncommitted voters.
The Mikulski Commission in 1973, which advanced the goals of
the
McGovern-Fraser Commission and required delegates to state
their presidential
preference in order to ensure that voter preferences would be
accurately reflected,

helped to change the way people wheel and deal at the
conventions. Polsby and
Wildavsky (1999) show that the candidates at the convention try
to perfect their
organizations and maintain communication with as many of
their delegates as
they can. In the old days, pledged delegations actively
supported their candidate
while bossed delegates negotiated for the disposal of their
votes. The role of the
negotiators has sharply diminished since most delegates come to
the convention
pledged to one presidential candidate, thus requiring little
bargaining.
Critics argue that the reforms enacted by both parties have
helped to transform
national conventions into mere ratifying assemblies. Some
contend delegates no
longer wield real power at conventions and that candidates and
parties do not
necessarily work as tirelessly as in the past to woo their
support. The 1960
Kennedy campaign, for example, started a card-file containing
information on
people who might be delegates and who might influence
delegates more than a
year before the convention. Individual coordinators were
assigned to each state at

the convention to keep an hourly watch on developments within
the delegations.
During contemporary conventions, party leaders monitor state
delegations but
primarily in order to assure that choreographed moments occur
without glitches.
Why Conventions Still Matter
Many critics contend that conventions have outlived their
usefulness, are largely
ineffectual, no longer control their central function, and are
hopelessly bogged
down with problems (Fiorina and Peterson 2003). Others
contend that the national
conventions persist because they are important for the parties
and produce
nominees and platforms that are viewed as legitimate, despite
the fact that
conventions are complicated and flawed (Jackson 2001).
Waltzer (1966) has
praised television coverage for reforming conventions and
politics. He credits
television for “initiating improvements in convention procedure,
purging politics
of the phony and charlatan, slaying the wild orator and one-
speech politician,
ending the reign of cabals in smoke-filled rooms, creating a
better informed
electorate, and transforming the national convention into a
national town
meeting” (Waltzer 1966). Old style conventions where party
bosses choose the
nominee behind closed doors are all but impossible with today’s
media scrutiny.

Steamroller tactics such as blatantly unfair rulings by the
convention chair or
forced recesses during roll calls to deflate enthusiasm for a
candidate and
mobilize opposition support are largely things of the past.
In addition to the claims described above, scholars identify
several other
reasons why conventions remain significant political events in
the presidential
selection process. A brief summary of empirical findings that
support this view
follows:
• Conventions retain the function of officially sanctioning the
nomination of
presidential and vice-presidential candidates. As such,
conventions launch the
general election period and serve to spark the attention of less
attentive voters
to the presidential campaign.
• A non-negligible segment of the electorate watches
conventions and makes
up its mind during these events. Admittedly, convention
audiences on network
television have dropped since the 1960s (see Figure 1), but
sizable portions of

the electorate continue to tune in to convention proceedings.
Moreover, even
as network coverage has dropped off, cable television and the
Internet have
stepped in partly to fill the void. Although the proportion of
voters that
reaches a decision about their presidential vote choice during
the conventions
has also declined, from about one-quarter of voters in the 1960s
to about one-
sixth in recent election cycles (see Figure 2), no fewer than one
in ten voters
now decide about which candidate to support during the
conventions. More
voters reach vote decisions during conventions than during any
other singular
political campaign event(s) (Panagopoulos 2007b).
• Public preferences and attention can change considerably
during
conventions. Scholars have consistently demonstrated that
nominees generally
benefit from a rise in public support in polls following their
parties’
conventions. This so-called “convention bump,” which has
averaged 12
percentage points between 1964 and 2004 (Panagopoulos
2007c), decays over
the duration of the campaign and is generally not sufficient by
itself to propel
nominees to victory, but part of the boost generated by
conventions can be
sustained through Election Day (Campbell 2000). Conventions
also help to
heighten voters’ attention to the campaign (Hagen and Johnston
2007).

• Conventions enhance the amount of campaign information.
Mass media
outlets devote comparatively greater coverage to presidential
campaigns
during conventions than during other campaign events
(Holbrook 1996;
Panagopoulos 2007d). This information is useful to voters in
making informed
decisions about vote choices. Studies also show that
conventions (as opposed
to debates) are the only formal, institutionalized, campaign
events that reliably
boost the level of campaign information.
• Conventions facilitate party-building. Nominating conventions
have been,
at least to some extent, giant political pep rallies. Delegates and
activists who
participate in convention proceedings are energized to embark
enthusiastically
in the general election battle that follows. Parties and nominees
accrue
benefits from this enthusiasm when activists return to their
respective states to
recruit volunteers, donors and supporters. In addition, the
convention podium
helps to introduce emerging party leaders to a national
electorate, as was the
case with Bill Clinton in 1988 (he introduced Michael Dukakis)
and Barack
Obama in 2004.

Figure 1: Convention Viewership (Audience Ratingsa), 1964-
2004
10
15
20
25
30
35
1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004
Year
A
ud
ie
nc
e
R
at
in

g
(%
)
Ratings (D) Ratings (R)
a Percentage of television households viewing the convention
during an average minute. Through
1988, based on viewing of ABC, CBS, and NBC; for 1992 and
1996, based on viewing the three
networks plus PBS and CNN (the 1996 Republican convention
also includes the Family Channel);
for 2000, includes the three networks, CNN, PBS, Fox News
Channel, and MSNBC; for 2004,
includes the three networks, CNN, Fox News Channel, and
MSNBC. C-SPAN viewing not
included. Source: Vital Statistics on American Politics (2007).
CQ Press.
Figure 2: Timing of Voting Decision, 1964-2004
41

35
45
34
40
52
32 33
47
42
55
25
24
18
21
18
18
29
16
15

10
15
30
40
50
60
70
80
1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004
Year
P
er
ce
nt
o
f V
ot
er
s
Before Convention (%) During Convention (%)

Source: National Election Studies
• Conventions remain useful political rituals. Pomper (2007)
argues that
conventions retain an important and useful function in the
United States even
if only as symbolic political rituals. “Politics,” claims Pomper
(2007),
“requires its rituals to enlist the labors and loyalties of
democratic citizens.
Convention delegates may no longer choose the actors of our
national election
drama, but they still are vital participating audiences, helping to
provide what
American and all other politics always needs: theatre.”
2008 and the Future of Nominating Conventions
The contours of the 2008 presidential nomination campaign
have inspired caution
even among the most skeptical observers about sounding the
death-knell for the
utility of conventions in the nominating process. Even as the
prospects of

brokered conventions are dim, at least at the time of this
writing, closely contested
battles for both major-party nominations in 2008, and an
abundance of campaign
funds in the coffers of multiple candidates, suggest that fierce
fights for the
nomination can still extend to the conventions for resolution.
Such a scenario
seems more likely on the Democratic side, where delegates are
awarded to
primary and caucus victors proportionally, but it can certainly
happen in the GOP,
too.
Parties and candidates may strive to avoid bloody and divisive
primary battles
by settling nominations well in advance of the convention, but
there is no
assurance of achieving this. Stubborn contenders have the
option to take their
fight to the convention floor where delegate commitments can
dissipate after
initial balloting rounds. In the extreme, even presumptive
nominees may stumble
seriously (or be otherwise imperiled) in the period between the
end of the
primaries and the convention, leaving only the delegates at the
convention to
respond.
The possibility alone of such developments implies conventions
retain, at the
very least, the capacity to serve as decisive and determinative
political events in
the process of presidential selection. Conventions continue to
evolve but not

necessarily towards irrelevance. Conventions are likely serve
useful purposes in
the future and to remain institutionalized features of
presidential politics.
Moreover, new and important roles for conventions may surface
at any time. It is
premature and hasty to dismiss conventions as obsolete.
References
Campbell, James. (2000). The American Campaign. Texas A&M
University
Press.
Costain, Anne N. (1980). Changes in the Role of Ideology in
American National
Nominating Conventions and Among Party Identifiers. The
Western Political
Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 1. pp. 73-86.
Euchner, Charles C. and Maltese, John Anthony. (1997).
Selecting the President:
From 1789 to 1996. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly
Inc.

Fiorina, Morris, and Paul Peterson. (2003). The New American
Democracy.
Alternate 3rd ed. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.
Hagen, Michael and Richard Johnston. (2007). Conventions and
Campaign
Dynamics. In Panagopoulos, Costas, ed., Rewiring Politics:
Presidential
Nominating Conventions in the Media Age. LSU Press.
Holbrook, Thomas. (1996). Do Campaigns Matter? Sage Press.
Jackson, J.S. (2001). The Politics of Presidential Selection. New
York: Longman.
Jarvis, S. (2004). Presidential Nominating Conventions and
Television. [Online].
Retrieved June 22. from the World Wide Web:
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/P/htmlP/
presidential/presidential.htm
Panagopoulos, Costas, ed. (2007a). Rewiring Politics:
Presidential Nominating
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______. (2007b). Introduction: Presidential Nominating
Conventions in the Media
Age. In Panagopoulos, Costas, ed., Rewiring Politics:

Presidential
______. (2007c). Follow the Bouncing Ball: Assessing
Convention Bumps, 1964-
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______. (2007d). Nominating Conventions, Campaign Events
and Political
Information. In Panagopoulos, Costas, ed., Rewiring Politics:
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Patterson, Thomas. (2004). “Election Interest Is Up Sharply,
But Convention
Interest Is Not.” Vanishing Voter Project: Harvard University.
July 21.
Polsby, Nelson and Aaron Wildavsky. (1999). Presidential
Elections: Strategies
and Structures of American Politics. 10th ed. New York,
Chatham House.
Pomper, Gerald. (2007). The New Role of the Conventions as
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Nominating
Conventions in the Media Age. LSU Press.
Shafer, B. (1988). Bifurcated Politics: Evolution and Reform in
the National
Party Convention. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Waltzer, H. (1966). “In the Magic Lantern: Television Coverage
of the 1964
National Conventions.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 30 (1),
33-53.
WHYPARTIESFORM 45
equilibrium the ordinary circumstance, there would be no
incentive
to form a party based on the social choice problem. But even
when an
equilibrium exists, the political party need not make its

members
worse off than without the parry; they can always choose to take
no
"partisan" actions. With PIEs generally considered impossible,
there
is a strong incentive for parties to form, precisely because of
the likeli-
1altves hood of disequilibrium. Riker's dismal conclusion turns
out to provide
a strong case for the formation of political parties.
The new institutionalism (e.g., Shepsle 1979) emerged in
response
to the ordinary absence of (pure) voting equilibria. Two points
discussed below and in later chapters are also relevant here.
First,
':ss transactions many different institutional arrangements can
be sufficient to yield
Wus making C (structure-induced) equilibria, such as committee
systems, agenda
designs, and even separated powers. None of these are
necessary—
l)ority coalition like parties, all yield possibility results.
Second, partisan institutions
cs" of C. Sup- are one of those sets of sufficient institutions.
• id B find more
sa. As Axelrod
nal conflict of .i
•nnected, hay-
COLLECTIVE ACTION AND ELECTORAL

coalition must
MOBILIZATION
A-B-D, in- The Problem of Collective Action in Elections
2-C or B-C-D,
cong C's ideal The Federalist and Jeffersonian Republican
parties began with the
government as a means of solving a social choice problem (see
chap.
ihere is an equi- 3). Such parties-in-government may also
become electoral parties.
ijine we should The most obvious motivation lies with the
minority. The examples
ci preferences, above demonstrated incentives for some majority
to form a party. If
Incentives to this happens, some or all of those excluded might
form a parry in reac-
he disequilib- tion, seeking to become the legislative majority.
Failing to reach major-
) has formed ity size, the minority would naturally turn to the
public, seeking to
2.1 sometime elect more of its members. That is essentially
what the Jeffersonians
agree on C's did when facing a Hamiltonian majority. Later
parties, notably the
n on this pol- Jacksonian Democratic party, formed more
directly for electoral pur-
e
would have poses (see chap. 4). The question for this section
and the next, then,
t Won at least is what set of incentives candidates for elective

office might have that
Presumably would lead them to form or join a political party. In
this section we
at of prefer- examine incentives that arise from attempting to
mobilize the elector-
ate. Mobilizing the electorate by definition is getting the public
to turn
that PIEs are out to vote for, or otherwise support, a candidate.
Examining the logic
Indeed, were of voting among citizens introduces the second
form in which prob-
46 Political Parties and Democracy
lems of collective action are studied, and in this case turnout is
the
quintessential example.
The Nature of Problem of Collective Action and Mobilization
Turnout is ordinarily seen as a problem in individual decision
making,
unlike the prisoners' dilemma. Both can be put in game theoretic
terms, but in the latter case, the strategic interaction between
the play-
ers is central. Both players have an immediate and direct impact
on
the outcome, and each player would be wise to at least consider
the
strategic possibilities of the other player. In large electorates
the out-
come depends on the actions taken by all, but strategic

interaction is
so remote that it can be effectively ignored: how one citizen
decides to
act has very little effect on the decisions of any others. Sheer
size all
but eliminates strategic interaction, reducing the problem to one
of
individual decision making.
The standard theory, called the "calculus of voting," employs
ex-
pected utility maximization (see Downs 1957; Riker and
Ordeshook,
1968, 1973). If there are two candidates, the calculus, like all
rational
choice models, predicts voting for the more preferred one. The
ques-
tion is whether to vote at all. The calculus for choosing whether
one
votes or abstains is
(2.1) R=PB+D—C.
R denotes the reward (expected utility) for casting a vote, and
one
votes if R is positive and abstains if not. P represents the
probability
that the vote will affect the outcome, roughly the probability of
casting
the vote that makes or breaks a tie)9 B represents the
differential bene-
fit the citizen receives from the election of the more preferred
candi-
date. The D. for duty, term measures any positive rewards
received
from the act of voting itself, which may include the satisfaction

of hav-
ing done one's duty as a citizen, the value of expressing support
for
the preferred candidate or party, and so on. Finally, C stands for
the
costs of voting, including the time and effort needed to register
and
go to the polls and the costs of decision making.2° C and D,
therefore,
come with the act of voting itself and do not depend on the
outcome.
Only B depends on the outcome, and it is discounted by the
impact
of P, the effect this one vote would have on determining that
outcome.
This calculus is a typical example of expected utility
maximizing.
It thus serves as a template for a large number of other expected
utility
maximization problems. One example is the "calculus of
candidacy"
WHYPARTIES FORM 47
that will be examined in the next section. It also serves as a
calculus
for political participation more generally. Olson (1965)
analyzed the
problem of collective action for participating in interest groups,
for
example, and his logic is effectively equivalent to this calculus.
The calculus is a model of individual decision making, but the
out-
come sought is a public good. The winning candidate is "jointly

sup-
plied," no one can be excluded from "consuming" the good, and
in-
deed no one can avoid consuming it, no matter whether they
voted for
or against the winner or did not vote at all. The question, then,
is
under what conditions it is rational for the individual to
contribute to
(or "cooperate in") the provision of this public good.
The collective action problem follows immediately from the
calcu-
lus and the observation that, in any large group, the P term is
almost
invariably very small. A near zero P makes the PB term tiny
unless B
is immense. Thus all those who share an interest in seeing a
candidate
elected nonetheless are motivated to act primarily on the D and
C
terms, that is, the intrinsic costs and benefits to voting, and very
little
in terms of their collectively shared interest in the candidate. If
we set
aside the D term for the moment (as Barry 1970 and others
argue
should be done), then one votes if PB> C. If P is effectively
zero, then
no one should vote. As in the prisoners' dilemma, the rational
citizen
should "defect" by abstaining.2'
The calculus of voting includes a second, prior "collective
action"
problem: becoming informed. A citizen concerned about the

electoral
outcome needs to determine what outcome is desired. Which
candi-
date, in other words, does the citizen want to see elected, and
how
important is the outcome—that is, how large is the B term? The
citi-
zen must expend decision-making costs to gather and process
infor-
mation to determine this, but if a vote has a negligible impact
on the
outcome, why should anyone pay these costs? Downs (1957) ex-
plained why it is rational for citizens to be ill informed except
as they
"accidentally" acquire information or obtain it for other reasons.
Incentives for Candidates in Electoral Mobilization
Candidates want to win elections. To do so, they need to
convince
more citizens to prefer them than prefer their opponent(s), and
they
need to convince these supporters to vote in greater numbers
than
their opposition. Citizens may not have incentives to turn out or
even
to ascertain their preferences over candidates. Candidates,
however,
do have strong personal incentives to solve these collective
action prob-
lems for citizens, if only for their supporters. Campaigns
therefore can

be understood as attempts to create supporters and get them to
turn
out in the face of these two collective action problems.
There are a number of ways candidates can generate supporters
and get them to vote, and these can be seen as attempts to
manipulate
terms in the calculus of voting. Most important are the common
efforts to lower the costs of voting, such as exhortations to
register
and vote and formally organized mobilization drives.
Candidates also
can lower decision-making costs for voters by providing as
much infor-
mation as possible in a readily available form, seeking to
"instruct"
voters that the candidate values what they do, thus also seeking
to
generate a favorable B term as well as lowering C. At the same
time,
"allocating emphasis," to use Page's term (1976), or even
outright ex-
aggeration, may make the B differential appear large.
Exhortations that all citizens should do their duty by voting
seek to
increase the intrinsic rewards of voting, while claims that
"everyone's
vote counts" seek to make the P term seem high. These claims
strike
everyone, however, opponents and supporters alike, so
candidates typ-
ically leave them to editorial writers and the League of Women
Voters.

But candidates do manipulate the P, B, C, and D terms more
selec-
tively. Thus candidates and parties focus their campaign appeals
and
mobilization drives on those they believe already are, or are
most likely
to become, their supporters.
Although candidates employ many particular tactics to make it
seem in their supporters' personal interests to turn out and vote,
the
general points are that candidates have private incentives to
seek to
overcome these collective action problems, and that these
tactics, to
be successful, must be chosen in light of the collective action
problems
facing the electorate. Implementing these tactics takes
resources. It is
probably not very expensive to generate the largely private
benefits
sufficient for overcoming the free riding incentives an
individual citi-
zen faces, but these small per capita costs become substantial in
a large
electorate. Yet as a great deal of empirical work has
demonstrated
(e.g., Patterson and Calidera 1983), wise expenditures of
resources
pays off in increased turnout.
Incentives for Party Affiliation for Candidates
That candidates have private incentives to reduce collective
action
problems among their supporters does not necessarily mean they

have
incentives to form a party. Today's elections are typically
described as
"candidate centered," and a large part of that claim is that it has
be-
come feasible for individual candidates to raise and expend
resources
WHYPARTIES FORM 49
on their own (see chaps. 6 and 8). So part of the answer must be
his-
torically contingent, but part must continue to apply, since
candidates
with any serious hopes are almost invariably partisan.
Affiliation with a party provides a candidate with, among other
things, a "brand name." In advertising, successful brand names
con-
vey a great deal of information cheaply: they cue an established
repu-
tation (see Downs 1957). Travelers, for example, know little
about a
local hamburger stand but know that McDonald's provides a
certain
type of product with standards for cleanliness, service, and so
on. A
party label can convey a great deal of information as well. The
Ameri-
can Voter popularized the view that political parties provide
cues and
partisan images (Campbell et al. 1960). Key (1966) referred to
party
identification as a "standing decision": partisans vote for their
pre-
ferred party's candidates until and unless given good reasons

not to.
The candidate's party affiliation therefore provides a very
inexpensive
way to infer a great deal: what a typical Democrat or
Republican is
like. To be sure, other sources of reputation could serve much
the
same as party affiliation. A reputation as a liberal or
conservative, for
example, is a similar cost-saving device for voters. The
empirical dom-
inance of party cues (and their not coincidental relation to what
is
popularly understood by "liberal" and "conservative") in the
public
suggests, of course, that the affiliation of a candidate with a
party has
proved useful. Thus the collective action problem for voters of
becom-
ing sufficiently informed to make a (possibly preliminary)
determina-
tion of whom they favor is greatly attenuated, given party
affiliation
and perhaps other reputational cues. This effect is exaggerated
to the
extent that voters' choices are correlated among candidates of
the
same party. The correlation is, of course, partially endogenous
to
the actions and the stances of a party's candidates (as well as to
institu-
tional features such as ballot forms that ease or hinder split-
ticket vo-
ting). Even today, however, many vote straight tickets, or close
to it,
and as Cox and McCubbins (1993) have shown, there is a

substantial
impact of party identification on even the highly candidate
(especially
incumbent) centered voting for Congress.
Affiliation with a party not only brings the candidate a "natural"
reputation, it also provides economies of scale. This is
especially im-
portant for turnout. Campaigns may reduce free riding
incentives in
the public, but they are costly for the candidates. The campaign
bud-
get imposes real constraints, especially at lower levels of office
and for
nonincumbents. A turnout drive by the party's presidential
nominee
reduces or eliminates the costs of getting partisans to the polls
for
other candidates of that party, for example. Once the voter is
there,
the additional costs of voting for remaining offices are very
small, es-
pecially if party-line votes are possible. Thus the tide of
partisans turn-
ing out to vote for president lifts the boats for all of the rest of
that
party's nominees.
The combination of office-seeking ambition and the very nature
of
electoral institutions generates incentives for candidates to

solve the
two collective action problems affecting voters: becoming
informed
and turning out to vote. Candidates have two kinds of incentives
to
affiliate with a political party, ameliorating both of the public's
collec-
tive action problems. Party affiliation provides an initial
reputation
that reduces decision-making costs and provides a core of likely
sup-
porters. Party campaign efforts, whether conducted by the party
or-
ganization itself or by its various candidates, provide economies
of
scale for all of the party's candidates as they seek to reduce the
costs
and increase the benefits for supporters to come to the polls. As
be-
fore, these incentives create the possibility that candidates
might want
to affiliate with a party. There are other means of reaching the
same
ends. Moreover, affiliation is not costless. The reputational
effects of
being a Democrat or Republican need not be entirely positive
and at
times can be quite negative. Until recently being a Republican
in the
South provided a reputation, but one that made winning all but
im-
possible. Any partisan image undoubtedly mixes positives and
nega-
tives for any candidate. Yet the ambitious politician seeking a
long and
successful career almost invariably affiliates with one or the

other ma-
jor parry, in part owing to reputational effects and economies of
scale.
One of the tensions facing partisan candidates is the need to
solve
another collective action problem, that of generating the many
activ-
ists needed to secure the labor and financial (and other)
resources
needed to achieve mobilization. This may yield tension, because
the
best appeal to activists may differ from what would best
mobilize vot-
ers. Resolution of such competing pressures depends in part on
the
activists' incentives. For example, political machines generated
selec-
tive incentives for securing activists' support that were largely
inde-
pendent of policy appeals to the public. The reduction of such
private
incentives is a substantial part of the forces that reduced or
eliminated
partisan machines. In place of the private benefit seekers of the
machine era are today's more policy-motivated activists. The
conse-
quences of such activists for inducing more divergence between
candi-
dates of opposing parties is developed and tested in chapter 6.
Page 1Page 2Page 3Page 4
POLS 4402 Final Paper

Instructions: Choose ONE of the following prompts and write a
5-8 page paper on that
subject. The prompts provided are broad and can be addressed
in several ways. Therefore, I am
not looking for a right or wrong answer to the question but
rather for you to think critically about
the American political party system. Each question is multi-
faceted which means that students
have the opportunity to write in both an expository and a
persuasive manner. While I encourage
you to incorporate current events and your own perspective into
the paper, note that this should
not be a pure opinion piece. Demonstrate that you’ve learned
from this class by clearly
referencing theories, concepts, and examples from the required
readings. Remember to cite all
sources, including those within the syllabus.
Paper formatting should be in the standard 12 point Times New
Roman font, double-
spaced, with normal margins. You may use any citation format
(e.g., MLA, APA style). Papers
should be uploaded to the Dropbox in D2L by 11:59pm Sunday
December 9, 2018.
1) Describe campaign finance laws in the United States (Module
11). What factors (historical,
political, social) were most influential in shaping the current set
of regulations? Explain your
position and provide relevant examples. Recent legislation has
opened the gates for private
donations, rather than taxpayer money, to finance presidential
nominating conventions (Module
10). Weigh the pros and cons of this change. Who benefits most
from nominating conventions:

the parties, mass media, or the people? Explain your reasoning.
Do PACs and Super PACs (i.e.,
independent expenditure committees) from special interest
groups (Module 13) undermine the
ideals of a representative democracy or are they instead a
shining example of it? Supply current
examples to back up your claims. What reforms of campaign
finance laws, if any, do you
anticipate in the future?
2) The strategic parties hypothesis (Module 9) states that
resources should be allocated to close
elections, where such efforts could mean the difference between
winning and losing. In what
ways did the strategic parties hypothesis succeed and fail in the
2016 presidential election?
Explain. How does negative campaigning (Module 9) alter
Downs’ calculus of voting (Module
5) both in primaries and the general election? Justify your
position. Identify the strengths and
weaknesses of the American primary system (Module 10).
Provide examples from recent
elections to support your arguments. To whom are primaries
most beneficial: national parties,
individual states, candidates, or voters? Why?
3) Explain the ways in which judges, both at the state and
federal levels, come to hold their
positions (Module 16). Do you perceive any conflict of interest
between these methods and the
theoretical guiding principles of the law (i.e., producing
unbiased rulings)? Why or why not?
Public opinion can either help or hinder the agenda of
government officials (Module 12). To
what extent does the appointment process of judges erode public
trust in the judicial branch?

Justify your opinion. Speculate on the changing nature of
Georgia’s electorate (Module 14). How
did shifting demographics, as well as partisan leanings (Module
6), influence the 2018 midterm
elections? Explain and cite relevant examples.
Note: To avoid plagiarism, students should rephrase information
in their own words and
students should cite all sources used. Students may not
collaborate with one another on this
assignment. Be aware that I will be checking for plagiarism as it
applies to both outside
sources and to within-class collaboration. Refer to the syllabus
for more information about
plagiarism and its consequences.
Grading Rubric
Critical Thought
(45 points)
Arguments within the paper display a great deal of thought by
the
student, student has contemplated the issues and has provided
deep
insight to the questions raised, inclusion of required and
supplemental
material is well-balanced with the student’s personal arguments

Amount and quality of
information provided
(30 points)
Sources used are appropriate and relevant towards the student’s
arguments, supplemental information provided is well
incorporated into
the overall position, direct quotations do not compromise the
length of
the paper
Organization
(10 points)
Addresses all relevant questions raised, presents material in a
way
which is easy to comprehend, arguments of the paper flow and
build
upon one another
Mechanics/Linguistics
(10 points)
Paper contains few grammatical errors, formatting guidelines
are
followed, student avoids the use of slang/abbreviations
Citation of sources
(5 points)
Sources are properly cited, student has been careful to avoid
plagiarism

K
i.-
,/.,
'
(I Q’
L‘s
L. N .
, How Parties
Choose Candidates
means of democratizing life, Americans invented primary
elections. In a
primary (more formally known as a direct primary), the party
electorate
chooses which candidates will run for office under the party’s
label. Then, in a
later general election, all voters can make the final choice
among the parties’

nominees for each office. To American voters neck—deep in
primaries during an
election season, this may seem like the “normal” way for parties
to nominate
candidates. But, in reality, it isn’t. Although the idea of a
primary election has
spread recently, candidates in most of the rest of the democratic
world are still
selected by party leaders, activists, or elected officials, not by
voters.1
These differences in nomination procedures help us understand
how
American party politics differs from those of other democracies.
The shift to
prim'aries forced the American parties to develop a different set
of strategies in
supportm‘g candidates, contesting elections, and trying to hold
elected officials
accountable than we would find in nations that do not hold
primaries.
The direct primary permeates every level of American politics.
The
great majority of states use it in all nominations. The other
states use it for
most elective offices. It dominates the presidential nominating
process (see
Chapter 10). Even though it is just the first of two steps in
electing public
officials, it reduces voters’ choices to a manageable number.
The selection of
nominees in the primary can affect the party’s chance of
winning the general
election. In areas where one party dominates, the voters’ only
real choice is

made in the primary. What led to the use of this two-step
election process?
How does it work and how well does it serve the needs of
voters, candidates,
and parties?
In addition to public opinion polls, drive-through restaurants,
and other
HOW THE NOMINATION PROCESS EVOLVED
For the first 110 years of the American republic, candidates for
office were
nominated by party caucuses and, later, by party conventions. In
both cases, it
was the leaders and activists of the party organizations who
chose the party’s
nominees, not the rest of the voting public.
173
—_J_—_—_———_—~m174CHAPTER 9 How Parties Choose
Candidates
gnaw-w
Nominations by Caucus
In the early years, as the parties began to establish local and
state organizations,
they held local party caucuses to choose candidates for county
offices. Caucuses
of like-minded partisans in Congress continued to nominate
presidential and
vice-presidcntial candidates. Similar party caucuses in state

legislatures chose
candidates for governor and other statewide offices. These
caucuses were
generally informal, and there were no procedures for ensuring
that all the
major figures of the party would take part.2
Nominations by Convention
As the push for popular. democracy spread, these caucuses came
to be seen as
an aristocratic elite—“King Caucus”—that ignored public
opinion. In 1831,
a minor party called the Anti-Masons held a national convention
to nominate
its presidential candidate, hoping to get enough press attention
to gain major
party status. The Jacksonian Democrats held their own
convention in time for.
the 1832 election. From then on, through the rest of that
century, conventions
were the main means of nominating presidential candidates.
These conventions
were composed of delegates chosen by state and local party
leaders, often at
their own lower level nominating conventions.
These large and chaotic conventions looked more broadly
representative
than the caucuses but often were not. Delegates were chosen
and the conventions
managed by the party leaders. Reformers denounced the
convention system
as yet another form of boss rule. By the end of the 1800s, the
Progressive
movement led the drive for a new way of nominating
candidates.3

Nominations by Direct Primaries
The Progressives suggested that instead of giving party leaders
the power to
choose, voters should be able to select their party’s candidates
for each office
directly. This direct, primary (or first) election reflected the
Progressives’ core
belief: The best way to cure a democracy’s ills was to prescribe
larger doses
of democracy. Robert M. La Follette, a Progressive leader,
argued that in a
primary, “The nomination of the party will not be the result of
‘compromise’
or impulse, or evil design [as he felt it was in a party-run
caucus/convention
system] but the candidates of the majority, honestly and fairly
nominated.”4
Some southern states had already used primaries at the local
level in
the years after the Civil War, to legitimize the nominees and
settle internal
disputes in their one-party Democratic systems. In the first two
decades of
the twentieth century, all but four other states adopted primaries
for at least
some of their statewide nominations. This was a time when one
party or the
other dominated the politics of many states—the most pervasive
one-party
rule in American history. It might be possible to tolerate the
poor choices
made by conventions when voters have a real choice in the
general election,
but when the nominees of the dominant party have no serious

competition,
those shortcomings were harder to accept. So the Progressives,
who fought
—_——————_J—TheCurrent Mix of Primaries and
Conventions I 175
economic monopoly with antitrust legislation, used the direct
primary as their
major weapon in battling political monopoly.
Although the primary was designed to democratize the
nominating process,
many of its supporters hoped that it would have the further
effect of crippling
the political parties. Primaries would take away the party
organization’s most
important power—the nomination of candidates—and give it
instead to party
voters. In fact, some states, such as Wisconsin, adopted a
definition of the
party electorate so broad that it included any voters who chose
to vote in the
party’s primary on Election Day.
Primaries were not the first cause of party weakness in the
United States.
If party leaders had been strong enough throughout the country
when
primaries were proposed, then they would have been able to
stop the spread
of this reform and keep control of the nominations themselves.
But primaries

did undermine the party organizations’ power even further.
Elected officials
who were nominated by the voters in primaries were unlikely to
feel as loyal
to the party organization as were officials who owed their
nominations to
party leaders. Because of the existence of primaries, party
leaders in the United
States have less control over who will receive the party
nomination than in
most other democracies. In some states, the reforms required
that even the
party organization’s own leaders be chosen in primaries; the
result was that
the parties risked losm'g control over their own internal affairs.
THE CURRENT MIX 0F PRIMARIES
AND CONVENTIONS
Although conventions are no longer common, they are still used
to nominate
candidates m' a few states and, most visibly, in the contest for
the presidency.
Because states have the legal right to design their own
nominating systems, the
result is a mixture of primaries and conventions for choosing
candidates for
state offices.
Every state now uses primaries to nominate at least some
statewide
officials, and most states use this method exclusively.5 In four
southern states,
the party may choose to hold a convention instead of a primary,
but only in
Virginia has the convention option been used in recent years, as
a means of

unifying the party behind a particular candidate. Other states
use conventions
for some purposes. Iowa requires a convention when no
candidate wins at least
35 percent of the primary vote. Three states (Indiana, Michigan,
and South
Dakota) use primaries for the top statewide offices but choose
other nominees
in conventions. Some (Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, New
Mexico,
New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, and Utah) hold
conventions to screen
candidates for the primary ballot, though in some cases,
candidates can bypass
the convention by filing a petition signed by party members.6
This variety
of choices reminds us again that, in spite of the national parties’
growing
strength, the state and local parties still hold a great deal of
independent
decision-making power.
—L————_—176CHAPTER 9 How Parties Choose
Candidates
TYPES OF PRIMARIES
States also differ in the criteria they use to determine who can
vote in
their primaries. There are three basic forms, although each has a
lot of
variations.7 In states with so-called closed primaries, only
voters who

have formally declared their affiliation with a party can
participate. This
makes it easier for party activists and identifiers to keep their
party’s choice
of nominees in their own hands. Voters in states with “open”
primaries
have more freedom to choose which party’s primary they want
to vote in.
And in a few states, Democratic and Republican candidates for
state and
local offices all run on the same primary ballot, so a voter can
select some
candidates of each party.
Closed Primaries
About a dozen states hold a fully closed primary, in which
voters have to
register as a Democrat or a Republican prior to the election.8
Then they
receive the primary ballot of only their own party when they
come to vote.
If they want to vote in the other party’s primary, they must
formally change
their party affiliation on the registration rolls before the
primary. States with
traditionally strong party organizations, such as New York and
Pennsylvania,
are among those that have been able to keep their primaries
fully closed.
In most other states, whose primaries are often called
semiclosed or
semiopen, voters can change their party registration at the polls,
or they can
simply declare their party preference at the polling place. They
are then given

their declared party’s ballot and, in a few of these states, are
considered to be
enrolled in that party. This allows independents and even the
other party’s
identifiers to become “partisans for a day” and vote in a party’s
primary.
From the point of View of the voter, these primaries are not
very different from
an open primary. The difference is important from the party’s
perspective,
however, because in many of these semiclosed primaries there is
a written
record of party registration that can then be used by party
organizations to
target appeals to the people who claim to support them.
Open Primaries
Citizens of the remaining states can vote in the primary of their
choice without
having to state publicly which party they favor.9 In these open
primaries,
voters receive either a consolidated ballot or ballots for every
party, and they
select the party of their choice in the privacy of the voting
booth. They can
vote in only one party’s primary in a given election. Many of
these states have
histories of Progressive strength.
Blanket Primaries
The state of Washington adopted the blanket primary in 1935. It
gives voters
even greater freedom. The names of candidates from all parties
appear on a

—_—__—————L‘WhyDoes the Type of Primary Matter? l
177
single ballot in the primary, just as they do in the general
election, so that in
contrast to an open primary, a voter can choose a Democrat for
one office and
a Republican for another. Alaska later adopted the blanket
primary as well.
California voters approved an initiative in 1996 to hold a
blanket primary.
Proponents said it would bring more voters to the polls and
encourage the
choice of more moderate candidates.10 Party leaders saw it
differently. They
claimed that the plan prevented the party’s loyal supporters
from choosing the
candidates who best represented their views. That, they said,
violated their First
Amendment right to freedom of association and kept the party
from offering
a clear and consistent message to the voters. In 2000, the U.S.
Supreme Court
sided with the parties and gave the right to decide who votes in
a primary, at
least in California, back to the party organizations.11
“Top Two” Primaries In 2008, Washington moved to a type of
blanket
prim'ary called a top two (or nonpartisan) system: Not only do
all candidates’
names appear on the same ballot, but the top two vote getters
for each office,
regardless of party, advance to the general election. The party

organization
can still' endorse a candidate, but if voters prefer (and they
often do), they can
select two Democrats, or two Republicans, to run against one
another in' the
general election. Califorru'a voters adopted a similar system
two years later.
Louisiana uses a version of this system for state and local
elections.-
If one candidate for an office wins more than 50 percent of the
votes in the
nonpartisan primary, he or she is elected to that office
immediately. If no
candidate for the office wins an outright majority in the
primary, then a runoff
between the two top candidates (again, regardless of party) is
held at the time
scheduled for the general election. Not surprisingly, major and
minor parties
oppose the use of a nonpartisan or top two system and prohibit
states from
adopting it in their presidential primaries.
When states shift" from one type of primary to another, it is
usually because
state party leaders are trying to protect that party’s interests in
the nomin'atm'g
process under changing political conditions. In some cases, a
state party has
attempted to attract independent voters by switching to an open
primary.
In others, party leaders have urged the legislature to adopt new
primary rules
that would advantage candidates the party leaders favor m' a
particular election

year. However, change has also been prompted by nonparty or
antiparty groups,
as was the case in California’s moves to a blanket and then a
top two primary.
WHY DOES THE TYPE OF PRIMARY MATTER?
These varieties of primaries represent different answers to a
long-standing
debate: Is democracy better served by competition between
strong and
disciplined parties or by a system in which parties have
relatively little power?
The closed primary reflects the belief that citizens benefit from
having clear
choices in elections, which can best be provided by strong,
internally unified
parties; therefore, it makes sense for a party’s candidates to be
selected by that
party’s loyal followers. By contrast, open and blanket primaries
are closer to
_L———————178CHAPTER 9 How Parties Choose
Candidates
the view that rigid party loyalties can harm a democracy, so
candidates should
be chosen by all voters, regardless of party.
Most party organizations prefer the closed primary in which
voters must
register by party before the primary. It pays greater respect to
the party’s right
to select its candidates. Prior party registration also gives the
parties a bonus—

published lists of their partisans. Further, the closed primary
limits the greatest
dangers of open and blanket primaries, at least from the
perspective of party
leaders: crossing over and raiding. Both terms refer to people
who vote in the
primary of a party that they do not generally support. They
differ in the voter’s
intent. Voters cross over in order to take part in a more exciting
race or to
vote for a more appealing candidate in the other party. Raiding
is a conscious
effort to weaken the other party by voting for its least attractive
candidates.
Studies of primary contests in Wisconsin and other states show
that
crossing over is common in open primaries. Partisans rarely
cross over in
off-year gubernatorial primaries because that would keep them
from having
a voice in other state and local—level party contests. But
independents and
partisans are more likely to cross over in a presidential primary
or when only a
few offices are on the ballot. In a 2006 Rhode Island Senate
race, for example,
more Democrats and independents voted in the open Republican
primary than
Republicans did. These crossover voters often support a
different candidate
than the party’s partisans do. In the Rhode Island race,
crossover voting led to
a victory for the more moderate Republican candidate, who was
closer to the
views of the Democrats and independents voting in the

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