Candidate Selection in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

In representative democracy, elections are supposed to enable citizens to select their representatives with the goal of maximizing the impact of their political preferences in the political process. However, the degree to which such an optimal selection is possible depends not only on the parties competing in an election but also on qualities and characteristics of candidates standing for office. There is a long tradition of research on how certain electoral systems allow for more or less direct selection of candidates by voters – for example, depending on district magnitude or the type of lists used. Obviously, this selection process occurs after a first step of selection has already taken place: In most democracies, candidates are nominated by parties or by different procedures organized and controlled by parties. As a result, voters do not chose from the universe of potential candidates but from a restricted universe defined by candidate selection mechanisms and this is supposed to have a major impact on the quality of representation and the working of democracy. Unfortunately, even 30 years after Gallagher and Marsh described this first step of selection as the ‘secret garden of politics’, research on selection procedures, its determinants and its consequences are scarce. In this panel, we have assembled different perspectives on candidate selection including comparative work and single-case studies which look at different aspects on different electoral levels. Taken together, the papers are able to significantly increase our understanding of candidate selection in comparative perspective.