ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how and why different meanings of the term "primary" or "primary election" developed over time, both within the United States and in other democracies. Unlike some American inventions, such as basketball, the original American model was subject to further modification once it was "imported" by other countries. Many changes had occurred within the United States itself before the use of primaries elsewhere. A simplified account of the emergence of primary elections would be that they developed from three sources during the 1830s. By the later nineteenth century caucuses, primaries, and primary elections were merely different names for the same activity. In virtually all democracies parties are subject to some forms of legal control, as indeed are most organizations in any society. When asking the question "what precisely is a direct primary?" it is important not to try to answer it by discussing instead the characteristics of direct primaries in America.
