Political parties in Germany have adopted various quotas and proportionality rules for composing the state party lists for the German Federal Elections. These intra-party quotas vary vastly between the political parties both regarding quantity and type of quota. In addition, quotas are deeply controversial within the parties, even after their introduction, and their legitimacy is constantly questioned. Intra-party quotas and the debates surrounding them reflect the specific ideas about representation and equality held within a political party. In addition, they are highly relevant since they have – due to the crucial role of the political parties as gatekeepers within the candidate selection process – a great impact on the composition of parliament.
Despite this high relevance, there is little current research on the overall impact and effects of these rules and quota for the German case.
Therefore, the proposed paper asks: Which types of quota and rules do the political parties adopt when composing the state party lists for the Federal Elections 2009 and 2013? Which concepts of equality and representation of the political parties are reflected in these rules and the debates leading to their adoption? For the analysis, a combination of different methods – participant observation, face-to-face interviews, document and media content analysis – is used.
