On The Non-democratic Nature Of The Primaries In The Democratic Party Of The United States

Franklin D.Roosevelt(1941)gave the third inaugural address,“democracy alone,of all forms of government,enlists the full force of men's enlightened will.Democracy alone has constructed an unlimited civilization capable of infinite progress in the improvement of human life.” As a state with such a high degree of democracy around the world,the political system of the US has been widely concerned by both domestic and foreign scholars and ordinary individuals.In particular,US presidential elections have become the focus of people's attention and discussion in the world.Therefore,in order to deeply identify and learn American electoral democracy,this dissertation will pay much attention on an early stage of the election,presidential primaries,with the instance of Sanders' failure,and try to analysis the current undemocratic problems within the Democratic Party's primaries.Overall,the core research question of this dissertation is why Sanders failed in the2016 Democratic Party's US presidential nomination.And such a research question was generated based on the fact that increasing number of scholars have recognized that several undemocratic problems have been existing in the process of presidential primaries under the Two-Party system in the US.In this sense,Schattschneider's argument has been confirmed,that it seems like more difficult to seek the idea of democracy in the parities than between the parties.Therefore,this essay will analyze the reasons for Sanders' failure in the Democratic presidential primaries in 2016.This dissertation is divided into six parts.The first part is an introduction,which summarizes the background of its core research question,and does a review in termsof the procedure and outcome of US presidential primaries.Then the second part and the third part focus on relevant theoretical analyses.Specially,the second part defines the connotation of “democracy” mentioned in this dissertation.In other words,such part pays much attention on the standard of “democratic election”,which includes three aspects: majority principle,freedom principle and equality principle.And the main reason is that this dissertation aims at exploring the undemocratic manifestation of the US presidential primaries within the Democratic Party.Importantly,it is worth noting that election and democracy are two completely different concepts,that is to say,countries with electoral procedure do not mean that such countries must establish democratic political systems.Thus this dissertation points that unless these three principles can be met,the election would be treated as democratic.The third part explores both the selecting and voting mechanisms of all delegates,including pledged delegates and superdelegates,and understands political roles of the mass media during the primary-election campaign.Next the forth part and the fifth part will confirm the prior theoretical analyses combining with specific case study,in order to verify the undemocratic nature of the current US democratic primaries,which essentially causes Sanders' failure.The fourth part mainly reviews the 2016 democratic presidential nominating process by respectively narrating such an election situation and its voting results.The fifth part analyzes four key causes for Sanders' failure in the 2016 Democratic primaries.In the end,the dissertation concludes that although a considerable number of grassroots people have the right to vote in presidential primary elections after the reform of the US Democratic Party's presidential caucuses,individuals' voting behaviors are greatly controlled by strong party's leaders' power in the actual presidential nominating process.From this view,the Democracy presidential primary needs to achieve more democracy with the help of necessary reformation.