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About the Lecture: Primary elections are commonly said to contribute to partisan polarization in Congress, yet those who vote in them have been shown to be non-ideological. This talk explains how the process through which candidates run for Congress fundamentally changed in the twenty-first century.TThese changes contributed to party transformation in Congress. Primaries are commonly said to drive polarization because of the people who vote in them DDr. Cowburn shows instead that the nomination process exacerbates polarization through the influence of elite party actors incentivizing candidates to adopt more ideological behavior.

About the Speaker: Mike Cowburn is a Postdoctoral Researcher of Digital Democracy at the European University Viadrina. His research interests include intraparty factions, candidate nomination systems, and political communication. His forthcoming book, Party Transformation in Congressional Primaries: Faction and Ideology in the TwentyFirst Century, will be published in 2024 by Cambridge University Press. For more information see www.mikecowburn.com