I want to get there by asking you, why is it that parties generally have moved away from more traditional top-down hierarchical candidate selection methods towards decentralization? more decentralized methods where anybody who wants to become a party member can have a say? What is the thinking? Why are party leaders done this?

Yeah.

So the systems I'm studying, like I said, there's 20 countries.

16 are in Europe and then also Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Japan.

So they're all parliamentary systems.

They've all seen massive reductions in party membership.

And party members are the resources that they need on the ground to run a campaign, to knock on doors, to stuff envelopes, to get people to the polls on Election Day.

so in this case...

So, uh, can you take us back to the moment that sparked this project? What led you to look inside political parties to venture, as you put, into the secret garden of party organization? And what convinced you that these internal rules deserve much greater scholarly attention?

Yeah.

Uh, so my interest in parties' internal organizations, uh, stems back way before Brexit, um, at least this most recent Brexit successful vote.

[chuckles] Um, I was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, and I had taken some courses on-- I had taken a class on political parties with Henry Brady, and I really loved the class.

Um, and I had realized that I really liked studying countries outside of the US.

I went to undergrad not knowing much about how things worked outside of the US, and the more I took on comparative politics, the more interested I was.

And that parties course, I think we compared party systems in five different countries, and I found it to be so exciting to see that parties don't look the same in countries outside of the US, and that still is the case today.

So could you talk us through that relationship? How does the balance of power between leaders and members shape the way parties are organized? And what does your model tell us more about the role of membership that plays in shaping party policy?

So, uh, can you take us back to the moment that sparked this project? What led you to look inside political parties to venture, as you put, into the secret garden of party organization? And what convinced you that these internal rules deserve much greater scholarly attention?

Yeah.

Uh, so my interest in parties' internal organizations, uh, stems back way before Brexit, um, at least this most recent Brexit successful vote.

[laughs] Um, I was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, and I had taken some courses on-- I had taken a class on political parties with Henry Brady, and I really loved the class.

Um, and I had realized that I really liked studying countries outside of the US.

I went to undergrad not knowing much about how things worked outside of the US, and the more I took on comparative politics, the more interested I was.

And that parties course, I think we compared party systems in five different countries, and I found it to be so exciting to see that parties don't look the same in countries outside of the US, and that still is the case today.

Uh, so could you talk us through that relationship? How does the balance of power between leaders and members shape the way parties are organized? And what does your model tell us more about the role of membership, um, that plays in shaping party policy?

So, uh, can you take us back to the moment that sparked this project? What led you to look inside political parties to venture, as you put, into the secret garden of party organization? And what convinced you that these internal rules deserve much greater scholarly attention?

Yeah.

Uh, so my interest in parties' internal organizations, uh, stems back way before Brexit, um, at least this most recent Brexit successful vote.

[chuckles] Um, I was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, and I had taken some courses on-- I had taken a class on political parties with Henry Brady, and I really loved the class.

Um, and I had realized that I really liked studying countries outside of the US.

I went to undergrad not knowing much about how things worked outside of the US, and the more I took on comparative politics, the more interested I was.

And that parties course, I think we compared party systems in five different countries, and I found it to be so exciting to see that parties don't look the same in countries outside of the US, and that still is the case today.

So could you talk us through that relationship? How does the balance of power between leaders and members shape the way parties are organized? And what does your model tell us more about the role of membership that plays in shaping party policy?

Yeah, so I went to

graduate school to study parties in Latin America, and I thought maybe Mexico would be my main case because I had learned about it and I loved the work that we had done or that I had helped him with, which probably wasn't that much.

I don't know if I helped him that much, but I loved what I did.

And and so I went to graduate school and I I started by taking classes as everybody does.

And I worked with my advisor on a cross national project that was not really about it was about partisanship.

It wasn't about party organization, but it was looking at lots of different countries.

And that was very exciting, too.

So could you talk us through that relationship? How does the balance of power between leaders and members shape the way parties are organized? And what does your model tell us more about the role of membership that plays in shaping party policy?

So, uh, can you take us back to the moment that sparked this project? What led you to look inside political parties to venture, as you put, into the secret garden of party organization? And what convinced you that these internal rules deserve much greater scholarly attention?

Yeah.

Uh, so my interest in parties' internal organizations, uh, stems back way before Brexit, um, at least this most recent Brexit successful vote.

[chuckles] Um, I was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, and I had taken some courses on-- I had taken a class on political parties with Henry Brady, and I really loved the class.

Um, and I had realized that I really liked studying countries outside of the US.

I went to undergrad not knowing much about how things worked outside of the US, and the more I took on comparative politics, the more interested I was.

And that parties course, I think we compared party systems in five different countries, and I found it to be so exciting to see that parties don't look the same in countries outside of the US, and that still is the case today.

Uh, so could you talk us through that relationship? How does the balance of power between leaders and members shape the way parties are organized? And what does your model tell us more about the role of membership, um, that plays in shaping party policy?