Party Leadership Selection: Beyond the Formal Rules

Abstract

In many established democracies, party leaders are among the most important actors in political decision-making. Evidently, their selection is a crucial decision with large implications. In the last few decades, numerous political parties have opened up the selection procedure of their leaders to all party members or even to all (party) voters (Quinn, 2010; Cross & Katz, 2013; Pilet & Cross, 2014; Sandri, Seddone & Venturino, 2015). Most research has focused on mapping this evolution (e.g. Pilet & Cross, 2014) and on analysing the processes leading to the introduction of changes in the selectorate (e.g. Lisi, 2010; Wauters, 2014; Gauja, 2017). Two aspects of leadership selection have been underexposed, however: the actual functioning of (inclusive) leadership selection procedures, and their effects (e.g. on the attractiveness of these parties to voters and future members). The study by Pedersen & Schumacher (2015) about the effect of inclusive leadership selection procedures on the electoral performance of particular parties, and that by Shomer, Put & Gedalya-Lavy (2016) on voters’ levels of trust in parties in general, are notable exceptions. We would like to tackle these lacunas in this panel by discussing papers that deal with the actual functioning of party leadership selection procedures. We welcome papers that could give an answer to the following questions: do inclusive procedures really empower the rank and file? How democratic are inclusive leadership procedures? How do members/voters make their choice in such intra-party contests? and Do parties benefit from organising inclusive leadership contests?

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