Different factors are cited in order to explain minority underrepresentation in parliament: the political system (legal regulations, type of electoral system), the supply of the applicants, the demands of the gatekeepers (selectors, electorate) and the legislative recruitment process itself. Norris (1997) defines parties as the “main gatekeepers to elected office”. This holds in particular true for Germany where it is almost impossible to enter parliament without party affiliation. Several political scientists point to the relevance of parties and particularly the process of candidate selection regarding the incorporation of ethnic minorities in the political system (e.g. Bird 2005; Caul-Kittilson/Tate 2006), but only few analyze this dimension in a detailed manner.
That is why this paper focuses on minorities as candidates for legislative office. Our central research question is: do parties can be considered as an obstacle regarding minority representation? We will examine this question for the case of Germany. By a detailed media analysis, we analyze all party nomination meetings (of those parties that have a chance to get a seat in parliament) for the German legislative elections in 2013 in order to identify the number of minority candidates. In a second step, we will additionally have a closer look on the aspirants who have failed to get nominated by their party. In our analysis we will also take into account the mixed nature of the German electoral system. Doing so we aim to identify if there are differences regarding the success or failure of minority candidates depending on the electoral system (research has shown evidence that proportional systems are more favorable to minorities than majoritarian systems). Finally, we will investigate the factors that are supposed to have an impact on the selection of ethnic minority candidates (e.g. socio-structural characteristics of the constituencies, open race or incumbent seeks renomination).
