Candidate emergence and the first party era, 1789-1816

Abstract

My dissertation evaluates the development of candidate in the early republic, 1788-1816. The creation of nomination procedures to structure candidate emergence informs our understanding on the development of political parties and American democratization. I investigate federal and state-level candidate emergence in four states: New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Ohio. I study these states because of their variation in regional political culture, electoral systems, and electoral competition. My primary data are obtained from period newspapers. These detail candidate emergence and nomination methods used in state legislative and congressional elections. Building on extant theories of party development, I present my own theory to explain the development of candidate emergence and compare development patterns across states. I find political parties developed clear procedures that were relatively durable over time to structure candidate emergence. This is a key indicator of party development. Further, these procedures generally provided for meaningful grassroots participation making them effective agents of democratization.