The supposed role of national political conventions is to promote unity within a particular party. Instead, new research conducted in part by DU political science Professor Seth Masket during the 2008 Democratic National Convention (DNC) found caucuses may have hurt, rather than helped, party unity.
The study, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), says delegates who participated actively in caucuses were more supportive of their candidate and less supportive of the eventual nominee. Also, people who had greater experience in the Democratic Party tended to be more supportive of the eventual nominee.
“We were looking to see what factors caused [Hillary] Clinton delegates to become more or less accepting of [Barack] Obama as the nominee, and also what factors caused Obama delegates to become more or less accepting of the role played by Clinton supporters at the convention,” Masket says.
Researchers found that Clinton’s speech endorsing Obama mainly affected his supporters, making them more accepting of the role played by Clinton delegates, but did not make Clinton delegates any more supportive of Obama. In contrast, Clinton delegates surveyed after the speech were neither more nor less supportive of Obama as the nominee than they were before the speech.
The research team included Masket, Joanne Miller and Dara Strolovitch, associate professors of political science at the University of Minnesota, and Michael Heaney, assistant professor of political science at the University of Florida. The four assembled a team of 19 surveyors who questioned 449 pledged delegates at the 2008 convention, 227 Obama delegates and 222 Clinton delegates.
The researchers also found that among Clinton delegates, having a higher proportion of close friends who supported Obama related to a higher satisfaction with him as the nominee.
A working copy of the paper can be found at: http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/pn_wp/15/