Democratising Party Leader Selection Primaries: Challenges and Opportunities Beyond Intra-Party Democracy

Abstract

One of the frames that is often cited by literature as offering a possible explanation to the increasingly crucial role played by party leaders in contemporary democracies is the personalisation (or presidentialisation) of politics. The underlying idea is that individual politicians and party leaders in particular are becoming more important in politics at the expense of traditional social and political groups. These dynamics are also related to the recent spread of inclusive methods for selecting party leaders, such as (open or closed) primaries. The involvement of a wider selectorate in party internal elections is generally thought to be aimed, on the one hand, at developing a more open and democratic image of political parties and, on the other hand, at reinforcing the role and powers of the leadership through their legitimisation by very inclusive selection bodies. The main research question that is raised here is thus the following: Which are the rationales that lead parties to the adoption of more inclusive methods for selecting their leaders? Which are the main impacts and challenges of these inclusive procedures? The literature often shows an association between the dimensions of inclusiveness and competitiveness of party leaders’ selection methods (Kenig, 2008). The panel aims at developing the analysis on the electoral (in terms of primary elections’ turnout and parties electoral performances in subsequent general elections) and organisational effects (in terms of leadership autonomy dynamics, of the role of members and supporters and of the internal relationships between members, leaders and middle level elites) of the adoption of primaries for the selection of party leaders. We encourage in particular comparative papers and empirically informed papers dedicated to a specific theme or analytical dimension among those described above.

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