In closed party list settings like the German Bundestag election, candidates’ electoral winning chances are widely pre-determined by their party list position. Beyond the sheer selection of candidates to party lists, party selectorates further decide how hopeful candidates are nominated and by that, pre-structure the composition of the German Bundestag in far-reaching ways. A majority of candidates already know prior to the election whether they will become MPs or whether they will fail to enter the parliament. Despite the high relevance of candidates’ party list position, the placement of candidates in closed PR systems is still an under-researched topic. Though relevant factors for the recruitment of parliamentary candidates are widely established in the literature on political careers and political recruitment, it was rarely tested how these individual and party-related factors influence candidates’ placement on closed party lists in a next step. By focusing on the German Bundestag election of 2013, the proposed paper seeks to fill the above-mentioned research gap. It asks what individual and party-related factors influenced parties’ list ordering in the German Bundestag election? To address this research question, I will rely on an original candidate survey from the German Candidate Study 2013 which is a component of the German Longitudinal Election Study. The survey includes sociodemographic variables and information on recruitment patterns of candidates running on a party list – irrespective of whether candidates were finally elected into the German Bundestag or failed to win a seat. By using rank-ordered logistic regressions, it is tested what individual and party-related factors determine the final list order of political parties.
