The Impact of Democratizing Candidate Selection on Political Parties: Implications and Challenges for Legislative Behavior

This paper proposes to assess internal party functioning from the perspective of democratizing candidate selection and to focus on the resulting behavior of legislators and thus on the challenges it presents for political parties who decide to walk down this path. More precisely, the legislative performance of political parties is directly influenced by particular factors in their candidate selection methods – those who choose primaries will encounter implications concerning the distribution of power within the organizational structures of the party as well as the behavior of their representatives who will be elected to parliament. It is important to acknowledge that candidate selection methods are becoming more inclusive than before, moving many parties towards what is commonly known as “party primaries”. While this phenomenon is recognized in the research literature, its political consequences – the patterns of behavior of the legislators, i.e. the actual implications of democratizing candidate selection methods on legislative behavior – are still in need of systematic evaluation. This paper argues that different candidate selection methods have distinct consequences – that is, a change in candidate selection methods towards party primaries will have a direct impact on politics in general and on legislative politics in particular. This paper suggests that the broader institutional context of candidate selection produces institutionally-induced incentives and obstacles that shape the attitudes and behavior of both prospective and current legislators, thereby influencing the legislative performance of the political parties.