THE IMPACT OF PRIMARY ELECTIONS ON DEMOCRACY: THE AMERICAN MODEL AND ITALY

The analysis of the American political analyst, Professor of Government at Harvard University since 2010, underlined first the benefits of primaries, which reduce the power of managers and the party machinery, also leading to the selection of candidates of higher value, without forgetting how the competition focuses on concrete facts and not on ideologies. According to James M. Snyder, the primaries also help electors to get rid of outgoing candidates of little worth, allow some transversal issues to be solved democratically and ensure that battles between internal factions in parties are sorted out through fair competition. This helps to avoid splits within the party. However, Snyder also emphasised the potential problems of primary elections: "According to many", he explained "primaries weaken ‘responsible' parties and promote personal politics at the expense of political planning. There is also an aspect of polarisation of positions, with candidates who move to the extremes to gather the votes of the most radical voters. Furthermore, one can note that primaries often prevent compromises within the party, when for example the ideology of the candidates and the voters in primaries tends to be similar, meaning that factors other than ideology can have an important impact on voting choices. Vice-versa, in general elections, when the candidates tend to be more distant at ideological level and when the differences in political orientation are clear, ideology and derision can dominate in voters' choices". Turning to Italy, a nation in which this system has only begun to take on concrete form in the last ten years or so, according to Snyder our country also has the potential to increase competition at local elections through the system of primary elections. -