Incentives and Task Performance Among Party Precinct Workers

Abstract

OLITICAL parties in the United States originated to serve as a link between the newly created mass electorate and groups of politicians in the government. With the development of a mass electorate, a means of organizing voters to support particular politicians or groups of politicians became necessary. The lower level of the party organization evolved to perform organization, mobilization, and service functions. If parties are to be an important linkage mechanism in American politics, they must be more than convenient labels under which candidates seek public office. One element of that more than label role is the effective performance of various functions at the local level. However, the research focusing on local level task performance has been limited. Two questions must be considered. To what extent does the precinct worker perform the requisite tasks? What factors influence the degree of task performance which occurs? A simple model of party worker task performance is as follows: