Constituting the List Amid Time of Personalisation of Politics: The Balance of Congruent and Popular Candidates in Belgian Political Parties

Dodeigne, Jérémy; Meulewaeter, Conrad; Lesschaeve, Christophe

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-96460-7_8

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Both aspirants were randomly assigned a low or high socioeconomic status (SES), and one of two profiles with personal information and policy stances were randomly distributed between them (see Supplementary Material). Aspirants’ SES is used by party selectors to make inferences about their political qualities (Carnes, 2018), and aspirants’ ideological policy stances affect parties’ willingness to select aspirants (Dodeigne et al, 2019). To ensure that the two policy profiles were highly similar, a pre-test was conducted among university students in which they were asked to evaluate different profiles of policy stances.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As party memberships are often composed of ideologically congruent party members and ideological misfits (van Haute and Carty, 2011), party selectors are likely to be confronted with aspirants with diverging ideological profiles. The selectorate will try to seek out those aspirants whose ideological position is perceived as close to their own (Dodeigne et al, 2019) because when they do not, parties will appear internally divided, which will affect their electoral success (Greene and Haber, 2015). When party selectors are not yet acquainted with the aspirants, they will make inferences about their ideological position based on heuristics, including the aspirants’ ethnicity.…”

Section: Party Selectors and Ethnic Biasesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Candidate selection and ethnic minority aspirants: Exploring the effect of party selectors’ biases in a PR system

Trappen

2021

Party Politics

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This study examines whether ethnic majority party selectors’ ethnic biases (e.g. beliefs about the political traits of ethnic minority aspirants) impede the selection of ethnic minority aspirants in a proportional representation system. To this end, a quasi-experiment was conducted among local party chairs in Flanders (Belgium). The participants were asked to evaluate both a hypothetical ethnic minority aspirant and an ethnic majority aspirant. When the participants were negatively biased against the ethnic minority aspirant, the selection chances of the ethnic minority aspirant vis-à-vis the ethnic majority aspirant declined. Additionally, the quasi-experimental data were linked to an analysis of the real-life candidate lists composed by the participants for the 2018 local elections in Flanders. The participants’ ethnic biases could not predict the percentage of ethnic minority candidates on the real-life candidate lists. Instead, the presence of ethnic minority voters, aspirants and co-selectors determined the diversity of the lists.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Party Selectors and Ethnic Biasesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Candidate selection and ethnic minority aspirants: Exploring the effect of party selectors’ biases in a PR system

Trappen

2021

Party Politics

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“…André and colleagues have been calling for interview-based research on “the strategic choices [parties] make balancing conflicting demands” (2017: 598). Some studied the trade-off between popularity and partisanship (Crisp et al, 2013; Dodeigne et al, 2019) or between partisanship and competence (Galasso and Nannicini, 2015). Conjoint experiment research assessed selectors’ preferences, but among a broader set of characteristics including socio-demographics (Berz and Jankowski, 2022; Rehmert, 2022).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Failing on one criterion must be compensated by meeting the other one. Parties could indeed be willing to pay the price of unity by selecting popular candidates from whom they accept dissidence, to pursue electoral victory (Crisp et al, 2013; Dodeigne et al, 2019). But candidates without strong electoral assets have at least to prove their loyalty towards the party, for the sake of party unity.…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

The why of candidate selection: How party selectors handle trade-offs between party goals

Vandeleene

2023

Party Politics

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While the knowledge on how candidate selection happens is flourishing, remarkably little attention has been paid to the selection criteria. Why do selectors prefer some candidates? This study investigates the intricated trade-offs party selectors face when having to compromise between the pursuit of three core party goals: unity, policy, and victory. When candidates score lower on one goal, do selectors favour candidates following the party line, skilled for politics or able to garner votes? Relying on 23 in-depth interviews with party selectors from three Belgian francophone parties (Social Democrats, Greens, and Liberals), this research offers insight into how selectors balance their choices between candidates in a PR list context where the group equilibrium is almost as important as individual assets. I point out the interconnections selectors consider between selection criteria, and hence the need to regard the full picture instead of criteria on their own when studying intra-party competition at the nomination stage.

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“…Recently, Passarelli (2020) confirms that preferential voting in Belgium, although clearly gaining importance since 2003 (Wauters and Weekers, 2008), is no important contributor to incumbents' turnover between subsequent elections. Nevertheless, the number of preferential votes in previous elections are used by selectorates to take decisions regarding list positions in future elections (André et al, 2017;Dodeigne et al, 2019), incentivizing Belgian candidates to run personalized campaigns (De Winter and Baudewyns, 2015).…”

Section: Case Selection: the Importance Of Candidate Selection In Fla...mentioning

confidence: 99%

A longitudinal analysis of party level candidate turnover drivers in the flexible-list PR system of Flanders (Belgium) (1987–2019)

2022

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This article identifies the party dynamics that drive candidate turnover, yielding crucial insights in the recruitment behaviour and nomination strategies of political parties. Inspired by the seminal demand and supply model of political recruitment, we contend that several dynamics trigger or discourage parties to renew their lists and increase or decrease the availability of candidates. A 'selectoral opportunity structure' consisting of these dynamics could imply discontinuity in the candidate selection process.Multilevel survival analysis is applied to estimate the odds of selectoral career termination for 11,678 candidates running for parliamentary election in Flanders (Belgium) between 1987 and 2019. The results suggest substantial career termination differences between political parties, driven by multiple aspects of the selectoral opportunity structure: electoral swings, party members and transformational party events. Our results attest to the importance of including party level characteristics and further exploring system level effects when studying candidate turnover in future research.

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Constituting the List Amid Time of Personalisation of Politics: The Balance of Congruent and Popular Candidates in Belgian Political Parties

Cited by 5 publications

References 58 publications

Candidate selection and ethnic minority aspirants: Exploring the effect of party selectors’ biases in a PR system

Candidate selection and ethnic minority aspirants: Exploring the effect of party selectors’ biases in a PR system

The why of candidate selection: How party selectors handle trade-offs between party goals

A longitudinal analysis of party level candidate turnover drivers in the flexible-list PR system of Flanders (Belgium) (1987–2019)

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