Different adjustment to new institutions: The case of Uruguayan primaries

Participation in the Uruguayan primaries proved to be lower than turnout in other elections. This is not surprinsing because primaries are not mandatory. However, each political party reacts differently to these new electoral instances. Some parties show high levels of political mobilization which leads them to get, comparatively, more votes than in the national elections, while others remain quiet and vote far behind their performance on the presidential election. In this paper, we explore different explanations to these differences: the nature of the electoral rules, the role of political parties,  and the influence of surveys. We use data from a national survey and a series of focus groups specially designed to explore the topic.