Inside Parties
(Forthcoming in Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics, Cambridge University Press)
Politicians must reconcile a number of competing interests from different constituencies when making policy decisions in office. How and how well they do so determines the quality of a democracy's representation. Although we know that political parties play a critical role in tying politicians to voters, we have a poor understanding of the internal processes that lead some parties to be more successful than others at adopting attractive policy commitments and winning elections.
This book investigates the internal party rules that shape representation, participation, and electoral outcomes. While there is extensive research examining electoral structures and institutions at the country-level, very little work makes systematic comparisons of the rules within parties that govern how parties select their candidates, nominate their leaders, or write their platforms, and allocate resources. Focusing on these three areas, I examine how members’ control over party decisions shapes participation and party responsiveness.
The book is based on original research on party organizations in 65 parties from 20 parliamentary democracies. I collected and coded official party documents -- namely, party statutes and bylaws -- and I conducted over a hundred in-person and telephone interviews with party officials around the world.
Articles
Kernell, Georgia and PJ Lamberson. 2023. “Social Networks and Voter Turnout” Royal Society Open Science 10:230704..
Lin, Xiaofeng, Georgia Kernell, Tim Groeling, Jungseock Joo, Jun Luo, and Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld. 2022. “Mask Images on Twitter Increase During COVID-19 Mandates, Especially in Republican Counties” Scientific Reports 12(1).
Böttcher, Lucas and Georgia Kernell. 2022. “Examining the Limits of the Condorcet Jury Theorem: Tradeoffs in Hierarchical Information Aggregation Systems” Collective Intelligence 1(1),
Kernell, Georgia and Samuel Kernell. 2021. "Monitoring the Economy" Journal of Elections, Public Opinion, and Parties 31(2): 199-219.
Yang, Vicky Chuqiao, Daniel M. Abrams, Georgia Kernell, and Adilson E. Motter. 2020. "Why are U.S. Parties So Polarized? A ‘Satisficing’ Dynamical Model” SIAM Review 62(3): 646-657.
Kernell, Georgia, PJ Lamberson, and John Zaller. 2018. "Market Demand for Civic Affairs News" Political Communication. 35(2): 239-260.
Kernell, Georgia and Kevin J. Mullinix. 2018. "Winners, Losers, and Perceptions of Vote (Mis)counting" International Journal for Public Opinion Research.
Kernell, Georgia. 2016. "Strategic Party Heterogeneity" Journal of Theoretical Politics 28(3): 406-430.
Kernell, Georgia. 2015. "Party Nomination Rules and Campaign Participation" Comparative Political Studies 48(13): 1814-1843.
Kernell, Georgia. 2014. "Australia Divided: the 2013 Parliamentary Election" Electoral Studies 34: 357-361.
Kernell, Georgia. 2013. "Political Party Organizations, Civic Representation, and Participation" in Representation: Elections and Beyond, University of Pennsylvania Press, edited by Jack Nagel and Rogers Smith.
Kernell, Georgia. 2009. "Giving Order to Districts: Estimating Voter Distributions with National Election Returns" Political Analysis 17(3): 215-235.
Huber, John D., Georgia Kernell, and Eduardo Leoni. 2005. "Institutional Context, Cognitive Resources and Party Attachments Across Democracies" Political Analysis 13(4): 365-386.
Works in Progress / Under Review
Kernell, Georgia and PJ Lamberson. “Information Aggregation in Multiplex Networks”
Akçakir, Gülşah, Georgia Kernell, John Lang, and PJ Lamberson. “Exploration versus Exploration in Team Collaboration Networks”
Carter, Benjamin, Hilary Izatt, Georgia Kernell, Alister Martin, Katherine McCabe, James McCann, and Yinlu Zhu. “A Healthy Democracy”