Party Organisational Change and Leader Effects on Voting Behaviour: Intra-Party Democracy, Leadership Strength and the Electoral Impact of Leaders

Recent studies indicate that changes in party organisation have been leading to more internally democratic parties, where more participatory and deliberative methods are being progressively implemented, particularly with regard to the appointment of party leaders. In parallel, research also highlights that political parties have become more presidentialised, with an increasingly prominent role of the leader within the party. This paper analyses the impact of these recent trends in party organisation – intra-party democracy and increasing leadership power – on the extent to which leaders have an effect on voting behaviour. In doing so, it analyses the interconnection between the electoral and the partisan consequences of the personalisation of politics thesis. First, it examines the relationship between the candidate selection method and the impact of voters’ evaluations of party leaders on voting behaviour. Specifically, is focuses on the possible moderator role of the candidate selection procedure on the leader’s electoral impact. It explores the hypothesis that in parties with more open candidate selection procedures (e.g., open to all party members; open primaries), where leaders are selected by a broader selectorate, which empowers them and provides them with a broader support base among the electorate, leaders’ electoral potential is enhanced. In addition, the relationship between the leadership power, as granted by party statutes, and leader effects on voting behaviour is explored. In particular, it is analysed to what extent a stronger formal power within the party organisation corresponds to stronger leadership effects on voting behaviour. The paper is a comparative study on Western democracies, combining individual-level data from the Comparative of Study of Electoral Systems with contextual data recently made available by the Political Party Database Project.