My project looks at the development of ideological discourses in congressional primary elections and how these changing strategies mobilize potential supporters in both primary and general elections by fostering connection between voters and parties. My work challenges academic theories that claim the major parties in the US have become more ideologically homogenous as they have polarized, showing instead that they remain ideologically heterogeneous. My research shows that in the polarized era the nature of internal party competition, specifically in congressional primary elections, has become dominated by ideological factors at the expense of valence factors. My research interests include polarization, political parties, cultural divisions, primary elections and intra-party competition.

Education:

Teaching:

Intraparty Polarization?: Ideological Factionalism in Congressional Primaries (dissertation project)

Dissertation in Politics

Mentoring team:
First supervisor: Prof. Dr. Christian Lammert
Second supervisor: Prof. Dr. Sean M. Theriault
Third supervisor: Prof. Dr. Max Steinhardt

In recent decades, academics have been in broad agreement that elites in Congress have polarized. This has led scholars to argue that due to elite sorting, the parties have become ideologically homogenous, with evidence in roll call voting behavior and party unity in Congress. At the same time there has been renewed interest among voters in the congressional nomination process, with participation increasingly significantly over the past decade. This period also saw increased attention on questions about the ideological identity of each of the major parties, with specific focus on internal ideological division. The current literature on polarization, which suggests that the parties have become more ideologically uniform, is unable to explain either of these recent trends. In understanding parties as homogenous, we fail to understand the diversity of ideological preferences within the parties or the drivers of internal party competition, particularly in the congressional nomination process. This thesis utilizes an original dataset to show that during the period 2006-2018 these contests transformed into factional primaries; ideologically motivated competitions between organized factions. This represents a shift in the reason for intraparty competition, with races previously dominated by valence factors such as competence, prior experience in public office, or ability to win the general election for the party. As the parties have become more distinct, space has opened for intraparty ideological disagreement at an elite level. While intraparty differences were previously regional, party factions have now nationalized meaning this diversity is present within individual congressional districts. Structural changes including new groups entering the parties and participating in the nomination process have made ideology a more prevalent feature, suggesting that factional primaries look likely to be a long-term trend. This has been amplified by changes in electoral incentives for the parties, and tactical behavior on the part of candidates and voters alike.

In addition to demonstrating and explaining changes in the dynamic of congressional primaries, this thesis considers their role regarding elite polarization. Primary electorate polarization theory (PEPT), which claims an ideologically unrepresentative sub-set of the population nominate extreme candidates, is dominant in political science and in popular media discourse on the subject. This theory appears intuitive but is at odds with empirical data showing primary electorates ideologically aligned with parties’ general election voters. In continuing to follow the claims of PEPT, political scientists frequently recommend solutions to polarization which focus on expanding voter participation in the nomination process. This thesis compares the ideological position of candidates nominated via primaries with different electorates, utilizing the natural occurring experiment of congressional primaries which happen simultaneously with higher turnout presidential contests. Due of minimal ideological distance between congressional and presidential primary voters, there is no difference in the ideological position of nominees. This challenges PEPT and counters the idea that expanding primary selectorates will result in the nomination of less extreme candidates for Congress.

Finally, this thesis considers the outcomes of changes in the dynamic of congressional nomination contests in both primary and general elections. Since the mid-20^th century there have been debates about the impact of competitive primaries on general elections. The divisive primary hypothesis claims that close contests harm the party in November election. In recent years a body of work has emerged countering this argument, with the idea that a competitive primary can mobilize potential supporters. Both claims however have been focused primarily on data from presidential nominations, which have different structures and receive different attention than congressional equivalents. Additionally, they use competitiveness to determine which primaries are divisive, this thesis reconsiders this problem using the metric of ideological distance between candidates in congressional races. Primaries which feature ideologically distinct candidates receive higher turnout as they draw from a wider ideological pool of partisan voters. In general elections too, candidates who earn the nomination via factional primaries perform better than candidates who earn the nomination either without a primary or in non-factional competitions with factional primaries mobilizing potential party voters.

Publications:

Cowburn, Mike. (2020). ‘The Transformation of the Congressional Primary’ in Mobilization, Representation and Responsiveness in The American Democracy. Palgrave Macmillan.

Conference Papers:

12/2019, Communicating the United States: British Association for American Studies Postgraduate Conference 2019, British Library

Paper: "Communication in Congressional Primaries: The Rise of Ideology in Intra-Party Contests"

11/2019, The Corrosion of the Liberal Democratic Order? Transatlantic Perspectives in Perilous Times: Annual Meeting of the Political Science Section of the German Association for American Studies, Heidelberg University

Paper:  "Democratic Re-Engagement? The Ideological Foundations of Growing Primary Participation"

06/2019 Threatened Democracies: Interdisciplinary Conference in North American Studies, University of Göttingen

Paper: “Fractured Parties and Factional Nominations”

06/2019 Intra-Party Politics in Times of Crisis: Party Congress Research Group Annual Meeting, University of Strathclyde

Paper: “Intra-Party Factionalism and Ideological Competition in US Congressional Primaries”

11/2018 Annual Meeting of the Political Science Section of the German Association for American Studies, Universität Passau

Paper: “Mediators of Faction: The Transformation of the Congressional Primary”