Parliamentary party coherence or factionalism: a consequence of candidate selection methods? A comparative study.

In the context of the literature devoted to phenomena of organization and competition for power, much attention has been dedicated to political parties as unitary actors performing legitimate function for the polity. However, parties “are not monolithic structures but collective entities in which competition, divided opinions and dissent create internal pressures” (Boucek, 2009: 55). Though not directly observable, factions are in most parties formed as consequences of these pressures; and are therefore an important aspect of the political arena. But factions are different in nature, organization, structure and permanence across political parties. While parties do not display identical type of factions or sub-groups, all of them might be evaluated in terms of degree of coherence as opposed to factionalism. This paper proposes to analyze in a systematic and comparative way the consequences that candidate selection methods might have on the intra-party dimension, particularly on the degree of party factionalism or coherence. The paper is divided into two main parts. The first part addresses the difficult issue of defining, classifying and finally measuring factions and factionalism. The paper reviews past and present methods used to identify factions in case studies, then suggest new ways of thinking about factionalism in cross-sectional studies. The concept of factionalism is here defined in terms of party coherence or “the degree of congruence in the attitudes and behavior of party members” (Janda 1980: 118) that results both from cohesion and discipline. The paper then focuses on the behavior of a particular group of party members: the parliamentary party candidates. Factionalism is thus observed only in terms of parliamentary party coherence (Epstein 1956:360). In order to measure MPs’ coherence in behavior, the paper will rely on a new type of datasets: cross national comparative candidate surveys. The second part of the paper begins with reviewing previous literature on candidate and leadership selection methods and on the recent trends towards a democratization of these procedures. Since this democratization has been said to have an impact on party unity (Hazan and Rahat 2011), we look at the arguments which have been developed, in order to test them afterwards. Mainly, scholars have looked at the impact of the selectorate on party unity (Hazan and Rahat 2011), arguing that a more inclusive selectorate could be a threat to party cohesion. In this paper, we also develop hypotheses as far as other dimensions are concerned: the exclusiveness/inclusiveness of candidacy, the degree of centralization or decentralization of the process and the extent to which candidates are nominated through a voting procedure or rather by a pure appointment system (Rahat and Hazan 2001). The rational assumption behind theses hypotheses states that the behavior of elected representatives is led by their wish to be re-selected (Rahat and Hazan 2011:3). Consequently, parliamentary candidates respond differently to distinct sets of incentives: from extreme party loyalty towards very individualistic behavior. The paper concludes by presenting the main findings of the research. Then, it points out the theoretical and methodological problems and limits revealed by the analysis. Finally, the paper suggests how could be improved the study of the causes of party factionalism.