The last two decades have seen an increasing number of political parties in Western Europe introduce organisational reform that widens the internal franchise for leadership selection. This steady democratisation of selection is especially pronounced in the case of Britain and Ireland, where it is nearly universal among all major parties (Cross & Katz, 2009: 20; cf. Kenig, 2009: 241). Despite the interest in these two cases, there has been no scholarly scrutiny of the procedures adopted by the political parties in Northern Ireland. Drawing on a range of sources, including data collected from interviews with party elites, this paper provides a comparative analysis of the leadership selection procedures adopted by the five main Northern Irish parties. Given the region’s status as a fully-functioning consociational democracy the paper also considers the impact power-sharing has on the internal organisation of the political parties and, more specifically, the position and security of party leaders vis-à-vis other internal party actors. The paper should, therefore, be of value to those interested in intra-party organisation in other consociational democracies. The study reveals how the parties have widened their selectorate at different rates. While some parties have witnessed substantial democratisation, others have enacted no reform of their procedures in their lifetime. Furthermore, the paper provides a commentary addressing the rationale employed by parties when accounting for their choice of selection method. This involves a discussion of the relationship between inclusive or exclusive selection and wider intra-party organisational dynamics, highlighting such issues as the growing predominance of party leaders; the alleviation of centre-periphery tensions; and the competing pressures of grassroots involvement and elite management under power-sharing conditions. Ultimately, the paper’s chief aim is to focus our attention on a realm of elite recruitment which remains chronically under-researched in the case of Northern Ireland, and consociational democracies more generally.
