Democracy within parties: Electoral consequences of candidate selection methods in Tanzania

2021 ◽  
pp. 135406882110410
Author(s):  
Consolata R Sulley
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Selection Methods ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
Selection Processes ◽  
Voting Procedures ◽  
The Media ◽  
Selection And Appointment ◽  
Significant Attention

A large body of literature exists around the study of elections. What often goes unnoticed, however, is that elections take place between and within parties. While the former has received significant attention, the latter has not. This is true of African elections generally, and Tanzanian elections specifically. This study examines one important aspect of intra-party democracy – the process of candidate selection. Particular attention is paid to the electoral outcomes of selection methods in two purposively selected political parties in Tanzania, the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) and the opposition Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (CHADEMA). Based on an examination of party nomination rules, electoral observation reports, the media, and stakeholder interviews, I argue that candidate selection methods in both parties are, by design, undemocratic. Non-restrictive candidacy requirements, exclusive selectorates, centralised selection and appointment, rather than democratic voting procedures, dominate selection processes. Undemocratic candidate selection has affected the share of votes and seats received by both parties in elections.

scholarly journals Introduction

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (04) ◽  
pp. 746-748 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meryl Kenny ◽  
Tània Verge
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Gender And Politics ◽  
Social Bias ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Selection Processes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Recruitment ◽  
The Secret Garden

Twenty years ago, Pippa Norris and Joni Lovenduski published the classic workPolitical Recruitment: Gender, Race and Class in the British Parliament(1995), one of the most comprehensive accounts of legislative recruitment thus far. Seeking to explain the social bias evident in legislatures worldwide, Norris and Lovenduski focused on the central role of political parties, arguing that the outcome of parties’ selection processes could be understood in terms of the interaction between thesupplyof candidates wishing to stand for office and thedemandsof party gatekeepers who select the candidates. Indeed, in most countries, political parties control not only which candidates are recruited and selected, but also are the central actors involved in adopting and implementing candidate selection reforms such as gender quotas. Yet, two decades later, systematic studies of the “secret garden” of candidate selection and recruitment have been few and far between in the gender and politics literature. It therefore seems a particularly appropriate time to revisit the core preoccupations, puzzles, and challenges that remain in the field of gender and political recruitment.

Primaries, Conventions, and Other Methods for Nominating Candidates

2019 ◽  
pp. 432-451
Author(s):  
Gilles Serra
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Primary Elections ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Selection Methods ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
The World ◽  
Long Time

The way political parties select their candidates should be considered a fundamental topic in political science. In spite of being profoundly consequential in several regards, candidate selection methods were understudied for a long time in the academic literature. A renewed awareness of the implications of different nomination rules, along with an increased use of primary elections around the world, has accelerated this research in the last two decades. This chapter reviews the main areas of inquiry regarding candidate selection as reflected in contemporary research. It surveys the most recent literature asking four broad questions about candidate selection methods: What types are there? What consequences do they have? What are their origins? What questions can be formulated for future research? The chapter aims to convey that research on candidate selection is important, growing, and full of open questions.

scholarly journals Servants of two (or more) masters: Accounting for the complexity of intraparty candidate selection methods

2022 ◽  
pp. 135406882110606
Author(s):  
Or Tuttnauer ◽  
Gideon Rahat
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Comparative Studies ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
The Political ◽  
Continuous Measure ◽  
Selection Methods ◽  
Large N ◽  
Coding Strategies ◽  
Cross National

Intraparty candidate selection methods are the drivers of many topics of interest to political scientists. Their operationalization, however, is made complicated because they tend to involve multiple selectorates that differ in their levels of inclusiveness and centralization and that play various roles within the process. This complexity poses a challenge for large- n comparative studies. Drawing on the Political Parties DataBase Round Two to analyze candidate selection methods in 184 parties from 35 democracies, we highlight the inadequacy of the currently available measures to correctly account for this complexity in large- n studies and offer improvements on this front. Specifically, we propose a continuous measure of inclusiveness that better captures the complexity of candidate selection methods and a new measure of complexity to facilitate future analyses into this feature. We recommend that scholars in other cross-national projects consider adopting similar or improved coding strategies in order to better capture these complexities.

Kandidatenaufstellung zur Bundestagswahl 2017. Untersuchungen zu personellen und partizipatorischen Grundlagen demokratischer Ordnung

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-211
Author(s):  
Suzanne S. Schüttemeyer ◽  
Anastasia Pyschny
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political System ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
The Political ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Selection Processes ◽  
Research Gap ◽  
Bundestagswahl 2017 ◽  
German Bundestag ◽  
The Stability

The political parties represented in the Bundestag have about 300 .000 active members, from whom all elected officials, from local councils to the European Parliament, are recruited . Due to the ongoing membership decline in parties the pool of eligible candidates is also reduced . In spite of this worrying development and the outstanding importance of the parties’ recruitment function for the stability and functioning of the political system, for the last five decades the candidate selection processes for the German Bundestag have neither been analyzed extensively nor systematically . Hence, the Institute of Parliamentary Research (IParl) addressed this research gap and studied the candidate selection before the German parliamentary elections of 2017 by asking who selects whom in which way and for what reasons in the constituency or for the party lists as candidate for the German Bundestag . The results underline the worrying situation: Not only the personal but also the participatory basis of democracy has been shrinking over time . Although the parties hold membership conventions more often, in 15 years the participation of the electorate from CDU, CSU and SPD declined by 46 percent . Thus, inclusive participation offers are not a universal remedy . Rather, the parties have to make sure that such offers are really used comprehensively .

scholarly journals Candidate Selection Methods, Cooperation and Legislative Effectiveness

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 46
Author(s):  
Osnat Akirav
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Selection Methods ◽  
Cooperative Strategies ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Party Support ◽  
Legislative Effectiveness

This study investigates whether differences in candidate selection methods and/or the changes in the Israeli political system affect cooperation between parliament members and whether such cooperation explains legislative effectiveness. To examine these issues, we discuss different types of cooperative strategies using a scale we devised that defines three options for cooperation: 1) uncooperative, 2) cooperation within the party and 3) cooperation between parties. Then, we categorize the various methods that Israeli political parties have used to select their candidates since the establishment of the state, creating four categories of a variable we call the effect of the primaries. Additionally, we consider differences in four periods of changes in the Israeli party system. Finally, we assess the results of cooperation in light of our dependent variable, legislative effectiveness, using data from 1949 to 2015. Our findings indicate that the majority of bills passed without cooperation, but when cooperative strategies were used, they usually involved inter-party rather than intra-party support. Furthermore, the adoption of primaries reduced the probability of passing bills. In addition, when one party was dominant, 68% of the representatives initiated legislation alone, while during the multi-polar fragmented period 41.9% cooperated with legislators from other parties.

Gender Quotas in Ireland

2021 ◽  
pp. 576-594
Author(s):  
Fiona Buckley ◽  
Mary Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
General Election ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Single Transferable Vote ◽  
Selection Processes ◽  
The Law ◽  
Gender Quota

This chapter considers the implementation and effect of legislative gender quotas in the 2016 general election, a first for Ireland and a first for the proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote electoral system (PR-STV). It focuses on political parties and examines how they integrated the formal gender quota law into their candidate selection processes. Particular attention is paid to whether the law changed existing candidate selection practices, many of which are guided by informal candidate selection norms, such as a preference for incumbents and those exhibiting localist traits. The chapter concludes that the gender quota law did engender change in the candidate recruitment, selection, and election of women, but, as scholars of feminist institutionalism would describe, the change was ‘nested’ and ‘bounded’ within existing practices surrounding candidate selection, thereby denting but not dismantling the gendered norms of this process.

Political Parties and Candidate Selection

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gideon Rahat ◽  
William P. Cross
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
The Body ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Selection Methods ◽  
Relative Level ◽  
State Laws ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Country Level

Candidate selection is about the decisions political parties make regarding who to put forward as candidates under their label for general elections. Beyond being the function that differentiates parties from other political groupings (especially considering the decline in parties’ performance of their other traditional functions), candidate selection is crucial for understanding power relations within parties, the composition of parliaments, and the behavior of elected officials. It also has an impact on the quality of democracy, especially with regard to the values of participation, competition, responsiveness, and representation. Candidate selection methods vary according to certain parameters. The two most important ones are the level of inclusiveness of the selectorate(s) (the body or bodies that choose the candidates) and their relative level of centralization. Beyond the few cases in which state laws define the process, the nature of candidate selection methods is influenced by various country-level factors, such as the electoral system and national political culture, as well as by party-level characteristics, such as party ideology. Reform of candidate selection methods occurs as a result of general developments, such as party change or personalization, party system developments, such as electoral defeat, and intraparty struggles. Although candidate selection is no longer “the secret garden of politics,” research still faces various obstacles. Consequently, the level of scholarly development is less advanced than the parallel study of electoral systems and their political consequences.

Women in Political Parties

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jana Morgan ◽  
Magda Hinojosa
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Gender Issues ◽  
State Funding ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Descriptive Representation ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Selection Procedures ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
Selection Processes ◽  
Organizational Ties

Jana Morgan and Magda Hinojosa examine women’s representation within parties as leaders, candidates, and officeholders and find that these positions are increasingly accessible to women. They argue that candidate selection procedures are important for women’s presence within parties, while gender quotas and ideology matter less than we might expect. They also evaluate whether parties advocate for women’s issues or employ strategies to articulate women’s concerns. They find that even as descriptive representation has advanced, parties rarely offer substantive linkages for women. As a result, women are less likely to identify with parties than men. To improve women’s descriptive representation in parties, they argue for better candidate selection processes, candidate training programs, and increased state funding for female candidates. To advance substantive representation, they advocate for parties to craft policy and organizational ties with women and to align gender issues with existing partisan divides, thereby integrating rather than isolating gender issues.

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