Political Parties and American Democracy Mini-Conference II: Scholars Assess and Reimagine the 2024 American Political Party Conventions

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Part of Mini-Conference

• Political Parties and American Democracy Mini-Conference II

Session Description

The Democratic and Republican political party conventions reappear in 2024 as in-person events after the COVID 2020 hiatus which provided a sharp global drop in collective action in-person organizing. In other changes, American politics has seen a rise in increased presidential/executive power, an insurrection attempt, and interested or “dark” money which skirts federal regulation following the United decision treating corporations as individuals and expanded use of the 501(c)4 IRS loophole that allows non-party groups to act like political parties. To what extent are American political parties undergoing backsliding and retrenchment? What is the current status of parties and interests from a democratic lens? Is this primarily a problem within one political party as some have maintained (e.g., Norman Ornstein/Thomas Mann; APSA 2023 Task Force Report) or are both American political parties susceptible to minority factions governing undemocratically? How do we define what is majoritarian and do we need to consider no parties or more parties (Jack Santucci) to answer these questions? In an era where national 501(c)4 groups like No Labels are nonetheless qualifying as political parties on state ballots, does the current combination of (private) political associations and the electoral college collide to create chaos in electing presidents? To what extent do both political parties require renovation and reimagination to better serve their democratic promise? Political scientists associated with the Research Collaborative on Studying Political Party Conventions and Meetings Comparatively who have conducted field research in 2024 and at previous conventions will discuss these issues from a variety of perspectives – party rules and governance, political money, group participation and advocacy surrounding the conventions and nomination processes, and protestors. Paradoxically, since the 1960s, American party conventions have been both described as undemocratic AND as a major party institution that expands democratic access, transparency and accountability. The political party reforms of the 1970s and 1980s dramatically expanded access to the party grassroots and opened up the nominating processes to both activists at the organizational levels and voters in party primaries. Yet increasing concerns about party responsibility was the impetus for the American Political Science Association Presidential Task Force appointed by John Ishiyama. The APSA Task Force issued its report in 2023 with an emphasis on electoral reforms of primaries intended to move the parties away from “extreme” views. This roundtable will extend this important debate by examining and reimagining the internal and external lives of political parties by focusing on political party conventions. Conventions are the only quadrennial national gathering of the political parties – a meaningful source of data and respondents – and an arena and institutional governance architecture for participation, governance and politicking that go beyond non-nomination party functions. Assessments of what Judith Parris has labeled as the “convention problem” also stress nominations over internal party democracy and governance. For example, other political scientists have decried the ability of political party conventions to provide democratic governance. Instead, conventions have been decried as a “bifurcated” (Byron Shafer) “combination carnival, Roman circus, and revival meeting (James Davis) of interest only to political insiders where ““prominent reporters have more influence… than do the delegates” who serve as “extras” (Costas Panagopoulos) and "register choices that have already been made" so that “national conventions have become to the nominating process what the Electoral College is to the electing process” (Austin Ranney). While there is rich body of delegate surveys telling us a great deal about who the delegates are, their attitudes, and where they came from, the significance of conventions as an institutional part of the party organization – or as a key stage in the nomination process – is less well understood. Seemingly wide disciplinary acceptance of the narrowly defined “convention problem” has led to a decline in participant observation and political ethnography of the conventions both inside and outside the hall while media accounts prevail. Can the media adequately cover the conventions or does political science have new things to add to the efforts to reimagine political parties and democracy? The risk is a “drunkard’s search” (looking where the light is) where political science as a discipline is understanding conventions and party meetings through the media rather than direct observation. This roundtable which includes scholars with diverse views will discuss these issues sharing “early returns” from both 2024 individual research projects as well as from the collaborative effort to address the U.S. convention problem.

Sub Unit

• Theme Panel

Chair

• Denise L. Baer Strategic Research Concepts

Presenters

• Robert G. Boatright Clark University

• Michael T. Heaney University of Glasgow

• Eric S. Heberlig University of North Carolina, Charlotte

• Caitlin E. Jewitt Virginia Tech

• Hans Noel Georgetown University

• Seth E. Masket University of Denver

• Karen Denice Sebold University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

• Linda Trautman Ohio University