Political professionalization, subnational style: Political insiders and the selection of candidates for regional premiership in Spain

Astudillo, Javier; Martínez‐Cantó, Javier

doi:10.1080/13597566.2019.1632295

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…As a consequence of such a monopoly of representation, political parties in this context become political gatekeepers, politicians becoming agents of the extra-parliamentary organization. Therefore, individuals aspiring to certain political positions need to hold various positions of increasing responsibility and authority in public administrations and within a party (Astudillo and Martínez-Cantó 2019).…”

Section: The Effect Of Country Size On the Individual Professionaliza...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Polity Size Matters? The Effect of Country Size on Politicians' Professionalization

Paneque

2023

Gov. & oppos.

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This article examines the effect of country size on the professionalization of politicians in six European micro-states and a large-scale democracy – Germany – since 1980. The article revisits an ongoing debate about the extent to which either country size or government size are causal factors in the individual professionalization process. Using an original dataset consisting of 6,940 parliamentary mandates – 2,809 individuals – in national parliaments, the article shows that country size is a determinant of the degree of politicians' professionalization. The article further demonstrates that political parties' gatekeeper role is the key causal mechanism explaining the influence of population size on politicians' professionalization.

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Section: The Effect Of Country Size On the Individual Professionaliza...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Polity Size Matters? The Effect of Country Size on Politicians' Professionalization

Paneque

2023

Gov. & oppos.

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“…Territorial level (national level): In general, regional positions are traditionally considered political positions with a lower degree of power and prestige than holding positions at the national level (Astudillo and Martínez-Cantó, 2020). This may reduce the desirability of such offices for ambitious male politicians, leaving them available to women.…”

Section: Multivariate Analysis: Are Party Primaries Really a Stumblin...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Do party primaries punish women? Revisiting the trade-off between the inclusion of party members and the selection of women as party leaders

Astudillo

Paneque

2021

Party Politics

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This paper examines the effect of party primaries on women’s chances of winning a leadership contest in eight Western parliamentary countries since 1985. By doing so, we revisit an ongoing debate about a possible trade-off between the democratic values of ‘inclusion’ of party members and ‘representation’ of excluded groups that this type of selection method may involve. Using an original data set consisting of 608 candidates who participated in 168 leadership mixed-gender contests at the national or regional level, we show that female candidates perform worse under party primaries. This finding holds even after controlling for the type of candidate competing. We therefore sustain the argument that this leadership selection mechanism, in its current format, involves a trade-off between ‘inclusion’ and ‘representation’.

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“…Although some studies seek to explain how chief executive characteristics are partly a function of the institutions of political systems (Samuels and Shugart, 2010), or how the personal backgrounds of chief executives can influence their behaviour in office and the policy decisions they take Neumeier, 2012, 2014). However, very few studies explore the selection of candidates for the executive office, and those that do are mostly restricted to concrete dimensions, like gender or selection method (Astudillo, 2015;Grimaldi and Vercesi, 2017;Verge and Astudillo, 2018;Astudillo and Martínez-Cantó, 2019). One of the reasons behind this lack of research is the conceptual confusion between top candidates and party leaders in parliamentary democracies.…”

Section: Who Are the Top Candidates?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the context of top candidates, parties cannot alter the value of the office they receive. Although some political offices could become more attractive over time, depending on the evolution of the political system (Astudillo and Martínez-Cantó 2019), generally these positions already represent one of the most attractive political offices a politician can aspire to. The attractiveness of the prime ministership has important implications on the supply-side of candidate selection.…”

Section: Chaptermentioning

confidence: 99%

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Party soldiers: The selection of electoral leaders in parliamentary democracies

Cantó¹

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The selection of candidates for public office is one of the pivotal functions political parties perform in liberal democracies. Many works have studied the nomination of candidates for the legislative branch. Few studies have looked into the nomination of candidates for the executive branch in presidential democracies. However, very few works have looked at candidates' nomination for the executive branch in parliamentary democracies, who have been called electoral leaders or top candidates. This dissertation contributes to filling this gap by exploring three main research questions. First, what criteria do political parties use when nominating a top candidate? Second, to what extent do political parties nominate their top candidates on electoral considerations? Third, under which conditions is electoral competition more likely to shape party decision-making? I consider that political parties hold two criteria when nominating a top candidate. First, based on top candidates' electoral and campaigning function, parties seek to nominate electable top candidates likely to achieve more votes. Second, considering that top candidates may become prime ministers after the election and perform a series of post-electoral functions, parties will seek to nominate more reliable candidates who stay close to their party’s preferences. Building on the literature on party organization change, this dissertation proposes a new theoretical framework for understanding how different incentives can drive parties to nominate top candidates closer to one or the other criterion. In particular, this dissertation studies four factors: the party’s screening and recruitment capacity, internal demand, external demand, and the type of selectorate. To test the influence of these four factors, this dissertation presents a novel dataset of more than 2500 sub-national top candidates in Canada, Germany and Spain. There have been collecting information about the personal, partisan and political background of top candidates, which been complemented with information about the type of selectorate, the party’s internal structure, and the electorate's state. The main results are summarized as follows. First, parties are heavily dependent on their access to public institutions to recruit and train new members and produce top candidates with high degrees of reliability. Second, the results show that political parties are more reactive to changes in their internal coalitions' composition than to changes in the overall electorate. Finally, the results show that party primaries tend to differ from party conferences and party elites when the party has experienced some environmental change regarding the type of selectorate. This dissertation contributes to the understanding of the role of top candidates in parliamentary democracies and academic knowledge about party organizational change and adaptation.

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Political professionalization, subnational style: Political insiders and the selection of candidates for regional premiership in Spain

Cited by 9 publications

References 40 publications

Polity Size Matters? The Effect of Country Size on Politicians' Professionalization

Polity Size Matters? The Effect of Country Size on Politicians' Professionalization

Do party primaries punish women? Revisiting the trade-off between the inclusion of party members and the selection of women as party leaders

Party soldiers: The selection of electoral leaders in parliamentary democracies

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