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Which Candidate Selection Method is the Most Democratic?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2013

Gideon Rahat
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Abstract

This article suggests guidelines for identifying the ramifications of central elements of candidate selection methods for various democratic dimensions – participation, competition, representation and responsiveness – and analyses their possible role in supplying checks and balances. It proposes employing a three-stage candidate selection method: in the first stage a small committee appoints candidates to a shortlist; in the second stage a selected party agency may add or remove candidates using a special procedure (absolute majority vote, for example) and also ratify the re-adoption of incumbent candidates; and, finally, party members select candidates for safe seats or safe list positions among the proposed candidates. The article also recommends employing moderate requirements for candidacy; the use of a non-majoritarian voting method; and allowing the national centre a say in candidate selection.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , 2009 , pp. 68 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2009.

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Footnotes

1

The author wishes to thank the members of the Center for the Study of Democracy of the University of California, Irvine and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant 390/05).

References

2 Reuven Y. Hazan and Gideon Rahat, ‘Candidate Selection’, in Richard Katz and William Crotty (eds), Handbook of Party Politics, London, Sage, 2006, pp. 109–21. An exception is Cross, William, ‘Democratic Norms and Party Candidate Selection: Taking Contextual Factors into Account’, Party Politics, 14: 5 (2008), pp. 596–619.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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7 On the four dimensions that distinguish candidate selection methods, see ibid. For other classifications, see: Ranney, ‘Candidate Selection’; Michael Gallagher, ‘Introduction’ and ‘Conclusion’, in Michael Gallagher and Michael Marsh (eds), Candidate Selection in Comparative Perspective: The Secret Garden of Politics, London, Sage, 1988, pp. 1–19, 236–83.Google Scholar

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14 Miki Caul-Kittilson, Challenging Parties, Changing Parliaments, Columbus, Ohio State University Press, 2006; Matland, Richard E. and Studlar, Donley T., ‘The Contagion of Women Candidates in Single Member and Multi-Member Districts’, Journal of Politics, 58: 3 (1996), pp. 707–33;CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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17 Hazan and Rahat, ‘The Political Consequences of Candidate Selection for Parties, Parliaments and Governance’; Hazan and Rahat, ‘The Influence of Candidate Selection Methods on Legislatures and Legislators’; Gideon Rahat, ‘Entering Through the Back Door: Non-Party Actors in Intra-Party (S)electoral Politics’, in David Farrell and Rudiger Schmitt-Beck (eds), Competitors to Parties in Electoral Politics: The Rise of Non-Party Actors, Baden-Baden, Nomos-Verlag, 2008, pp. 25–44; Rahat, Gideon and Sheafer, Tamir, ‘The Personalization(s) of Politics: Israel 1949–2003’, Political Communication, 24: 1 (2007), pp. 65–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar There is disagreement concerning the influence of the exclusiveness of the selectorate on legislative behaviour. There are scholars who argue, on the basis of the cartel party perspective and the Canadian experience, that inclusiveness is actually a recipe for party cohesion because it frees representatives from the pressures of (the more orthodox) party activists, i.e. those who are likely to populate selected party agencies. See Peter Mair, ‘Party Organizations: From Civil Society to the State’, in Richard S. Katz and Peter Mair (eds), How Parties Organize: Change and Adaptation in Party Organizations in Western Democracies, London, Sage, 1994, pp. 1–22; Others see inclusiveness as a recipe for a decline in party cohesion and discipline. See William Crotty, ‘Party Origins and Evolution in the United States’, in Katz and Crotty, Handbook of Party Politics, pp. 25–33; Hazan and Rahat, ‘The Influence of Candidate Selection Methods on Legislatures and Legislators'; Svanur Kristjansson, ‘Iceland: From Party Rule to Pluralist Political Society’, in Narud, Pedersen and Valen, Party Sovereignty and Citizen Control, pp. 107–66; For the sake of this article, it would suffice to adopt the view that different selectorates make different pressures more or less relevant for the candidates. These are not necessarily expressed in decline in party cohesion.

18 See, for example, William Cross, ‘Candidate Nomination in Canada's Political Parties’, paper presented at the IPSA World Congress, Fukuoka, 2006.Google Scholar

19 On these phenomena, see: Carty, Kenneth R., ‘The Politics of Tecumseh Corners: Canadian Political Parties as Franchise Organizations’, Canadian Journal of Political Science, 35: 4 (2002), pp. 723–45;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Byron Criddle, ‘MPs and Candidates’, in David E. Butler and Danis Kavanagh (eds), The British General Election of 1997, London, Macmillan, 1997, pp. 187–209; Lynda Erickson, ‘Canada’, in Pippa Norris (ed.), Passages to Power: Legislative Recruitment in Advanced Democracies, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 33–55; David M. Farrell, ‘Ireland: Centralization, Professionalization and Competitive Pressures’, in Katz and Mair, How Parties Organize, pp. 216–41. Gideon Rahat and Reuven Y. Hazan, ‘Political Participation in Party Primaries: Increase in Quantity, Decrease in Quality?’, in Thomas Zittel and Dieter Fuchs (eds), Participatory Democracy and Political Participation, London, Routledge, 2007, pp. 57–72. In addition, as Weldon demonstrates, quantity – measured as the number of party members – leads to lower member activism, measured as the percentage of active members.

20 Pippa Norris, ‘Recruitment’, in Katz and Crotty, Handbook of Party Politics, pp. 89–108.Google Scholar

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23 There is always the question – who selects the selectors? The detailed answer to this is beyond the scope of this article, and deserves a detailed analysis of its own. This question seems to be most critical when thinking about the small nomination committee. In that case, it might be a good idea to create a small group of randomly selected rank-and-file party members and conduct their choice of a shortlist in the spirit of deliberative democracy. Or, a party may prefer a mixed group of such randomly selected members with appointed activists who represent trends in the party, and with several former politicians.Google Scholar

24 Caul-Kittilson, Challenging Parties, Changing Parliaments; Matland and Studlar, ‘The Contagion of Women Candidates’.Google Scholar

25 Like the debate on the impact of inclusiveness on cohesion and discipline, there is also a debate on the impact of decentralization on cohesion and discipline. Some argue that the more decentralized system allows for lower cohesion and discipline. See Faas, Thorsten, ‘To Defect or Not to Defect? National, Institutional and Party Group Pressures on MEPs and their Consequences for Party Group Cohesion in the European Parliament’, European Journal of Political Research, 42: 6 (2003), pp. 841–66;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Others claim that decentralization does not lead to lower discipline. See Carty, ‘Parties as Franchise Systems’; Leon. D. Epstein, Political Parties in Western Democracies, Piscataway, NJ, Transaction Books, 1980; Gallagher, ‘Conclusions’; Obler, ‘Candidate Selection in Belgium’; Austin Ranney, Pathways to Parliament: Candidate Selection in Britain, London, Macmillan, 1965; Austin Ranney, ‘Candidate Selection and Party Cohesion’, in William J. Crotty (ed.), Approaches to the Study of Party Organization, Boston, Allyn and Bacon, 1968, pp. 139–57.

26 Gallagher, Michael, ‘Candidate Selection in Ireland: The Impact of Localism and the Electoral System’, British Journal of Political Science, 10: 4 (1980), pp. 489–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 On women's quotas, see Dahlerup, Drude, Women Quotas and Politics, Oxford, Routledge, 2006.Google Scholar

28 It is not impossible, however, to ensure territorial representation through the use of quotas, or the representation of women through designing district(s) for women.Google Scholar

29 Rahat and Hazan, ‘Candidate Selection Methods: An Analytical Framework’, pp. 306–9.Google Scholar

30 There are further options that should be considered, such as the use of preferential systems (rather than categorical ones) and possibly sophisticated systems of vote counting.Google Scholar

31 Taagepera, Rein and Shugart, Matthew S., Seats and Votes, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1989, pp. 47–57.Google Scholar

32 Riker, ‘Electoral Systems and Constitutional Restraints’.Google Scholar

33 Cross, ‘Democratic Norms and Party Candidate Selection’.Google Scholar

34 This is, of course, a normative standpoint. There is a debate about whether parties should be highly regulated (as in the USA) or left on their own. While governments often regulate certain aspects, such as funding and – since the 1990s – the issue of quotas for women, it seems that in most countries, the dominant approach is (still) that of seeing parties as voluntary associations. For a discussion of the more specific question of party internal democracy and its regulation/enforcement, see Mersel, Yigal, ‘The Dissolution of Political Parties: The Problem of InternalDemocracy’, International Journal of Constitutional Law, 4: 1 (2006), pp. 84–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Some would argue that in the age of the cartel party, when parties become semi-state agencies, they must be regulated. On the cartel party, see Katz and Mair, ‘Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy’. Others may prefer to give the party a chance ‘to bring society back in’. See