Looking for a Healthy Mix? The Relation between Selection Methods and Candidates’ Characteristics: The Case of Political Experience
(2016) 24th World Congress of Political Science — Location: Poznan (23.July.2016)
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- Political parties in Belgium are free to decide on their methods of candidate selection. Hence, one could wonder whether the way parties draft their electoral lists may impact the kind of candidates running for office under the party banner. This paper aims at uncovering to what extent intraparty features may be relevant to features of the political elite at large, and in particular to the extent to which candidates are experienced in politics (both in campaign and in elected office). For doing so, this research analyses the mechanisms of candidate selection in eleven Belgian political parties. These parties selected no less than 4319 candidates who were rank-ordered on 189 electoral lists submitted for the triple regional, federal and European election of May 2014. Witht the aim of running a quantitative analysis of candidates’ characteristics substantiated by a qualitative analysis of party selection processes, the paper draws on party statutes, interviews with selectors in parties and descriptive and career data on all electoral candidates. This paper demonstrates the significance of candidate selection mechanisms not only for themselves but also for the entire political process. When political parties determine their type of selection procedures, they may also indirectly determine the type of candidates who will run for office – more or less experienced in politics, and accordingly the kind of representatives who will pass the laws – outsiders or insiders to our representative democracies’ systems.
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Vandeleene, A. (2016). Looking for a Healthy Mix? The Relation between Selection Methods and Candidates’ Characteristics: The Case of Political Experience. 24th World Congress of Political Science, Poznan. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/34886