The promise and challenge of party primary elections: a comparative perspective

"Political Parties use numerous terms, such as party, "primaries", "one-member-one-vote" contests, party "plebiscites" and "community pre-selections" to describe their system of electing leadership. Likewise, their election processes differ just as much: some parties invite all interested citizens to participate, others impose a membership requirement, others require prior party activism, and still others choose to share the voting authority among different party constituents through a complicated "electoral college" process. In The Promise and Challenge of Party Primary Elections: A Comparative Perspective the authors construct a meaningful comparative study of these party contests both within and across different party systems. The authors focus their attention on the party primaries of two relatively early adopters of primary elections: Canada and Israel. Through these case studies the benefits and challenges of organizing primaries in a fair and efficient manner are considered in depth."--