News Archive

Professor Kenneth Mayer from the University of Wisconsin-Maddison visited the UWA Albany Centre to present a public talk ‘The Presidential nomination process: Is it a rational system?'. Hosted by the Friends of UWA Albany, the talk attracted a small but interested crowd who were delighted to hear the intricacies of the process explained.

The method used to select major party presidential candidates in the US is long, difficult, and exhausting for both candidates and voters.  It can also hurt the eventual nominees, because of the attacks that their co-partisans make during the struggle to obtain the nomination.  This is a unique system among industrialized democracies.  Prof. Mayer discussed the history of nominating systems in the US, the origins of the current primary system, and talked about the 2012 process.

Professor Mayer's teaching and research interests are in American government and institutions (especially Congress and the Presidency) and campaign finance. With many publications under his belt, such as With the Stroke of a Pen: Executive Orders and Presidential Power (Princeton University Press, 2001) and The Dysfunctional Congress? The Individual Roots of an Institutional Dilemma (Westview Press, 1999, with David T. Canon), he was well informed to comment on the process.

Professor Mayer was the inaugural Fulbright ANU Distinguished Chair in American Political Science at the Australian National University in 2006 and has a strong understanding of the Australia political process as well, so provided some interesting parallels and contrasts.

Media references

Michael Sinclair-Jones (UWA Public Affairs) 6488 3229 0400 700 783

Paula Phillips (UWA Albany Centre) 9842 0810