In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in legislative candidate selection. This newer research provides improved candidate selection typologies and essential empirical information regarding parties’ selection processes. The literature on parties also elucidates the important effects of candidate selection procedures. However, we know little about why certain selection methods are adopted, particularly in new democracies; and how they interact with the democratization process to shape political behavior and party institutionalization. This paper helps fills these gaps by analyzing why particular legislative candidate selection procedures are adopted in nascent democracies. It contends that within transitional systems distinct contexts differently constrain choice and bargaining, and condition party adoption of legislative candidate selection procedures. In particular we posit that the relative levels of uncertainty about the installation and continuance of democracy, strategic complexity of the electoral system, and party leadership autonomy, conspire to create incentives for the adoption of more or less inclusive procedures. We test the explanatory value of these determinants using the parties in the nascent democracies of Spain, Argentina and Chile. Our findings are based on newspaper reports, secondary sources, party documents and numerous interviews with party officials in Spain, Chile, and Argentina, in the spirit of process-tracing analysis. While the analysis of the major state institutions in democratizing polities has advanced in recent years, research on the determinants and effects of internal party processes and institutions in new democracies is less advanced. We hope to contribute to this research agenda.
