Local Parties and Political Recruitment

Abstract

One of the central functions of local parties is the recruitment and selection of candidates for political offices – for offices on the local level such as candidates for councillors and mayors, and also for the local constituencies of regional and national legislators. However, in recent years, the recruitment function of political parties is challenged (e.g. due to decreased party membership, changes in the local party system due to the emergence of local lists) or under profound changes (e.g. changing modes of political participation, increased volatility, introduction of directly elected mayors, democratization of selection methods). As a result, both supply and demand of local recruitment (Norris 1997) is questioned. While there has been research on intra-party selection and recruitment for offices on the regional and national level, only a few studies have analyzed these processes for the local level. Therefore, in this panel the focus is on the comparative view of local parties and the recruitment of candidates for political offices. Central questions are: How do local parties recruit and select the candidates for local offices? What are central selection criteria? Who gets selected and why? How do local parties respond to these current challenges and changes? How does this affect the intra-party selection processes and the recruitment of candidates for local political offices? How do local parties respond to supply problems of aspirants? The panel welcomes both conceptual and empirical papers.

Title	Details
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