Abstract
Countries around the world have increasingly opted for the primary as a candidate selection method (CSM). Not surprisingly, the spread of the primary has stimulated much new research, though ambiguities persist in how to define and classify systems of primaries. In this article, I review recent studies on primaries, focusing on how primaries democratize CSMs. I employ a variety of interesting recent cases to highlight the institutional variety one finds in practice; in turn, this variety reveals gaps in our theoretical understanding of primaries. The case of the Australian Labor Party illustrates how party competition may be related to the introduction of primaries. The cases of Taiwan and California show how the imperative to open up the CSM can bring some seemingly strange developments. Finally, mandatory primaries in Nigeria and Argentina indicate how primaries can affect party systems as a whole, when the primary is legally required of all parties.
