Candidate Recruitment Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Candidate recruitment refers to the rules employed by political parties through which possible candidates for elected office appear on the official electoral ballots (be it in list as well as in nonlist systems). Thus, the term has a more precise meaning in political science than recruitment to the legislature, which includes parties’ rules for drafting elections as well as other factors operating in accession to parliamentary functions such as the legal rules governing eligibility or the electoral system. The recruitment of independent candidates, for instance, does not fall under candidate recruitment as political scientists study it.

Candidate recruitment is both a matter of who appoints candidates to run for elections and the effect of candidate recruitment procedures on who actually appears on the ticket. Within the former, political scientists analyze how many people are involved in the selection process and how much power the centralized authority wields. In respect to the latter, scholars have paid attention to two elements: the effect of candidate selection on the composition of parliaments, and its impact on the flourishing or wilting of party mobilization and cohesion, that is, on intraparty life.

Inclusiveness And Power In Candidate Recruitment

In recent political science literature, Reuven Hazan and Gideon Rahat propose the most comprehensive work on candidate recruitment in their 2001 work in Party Politics. The authors isolate two main questions to address when studying where lists are made within a party. The first element taken into account is the inclusiveness of the procedure, which distinguishes parties according to the number of persons involved in the candidate selection process. On that variable, parties may be ranged on a continuum going from very exclusive to totally inclusive (see Figure 1, p. 186).

The most exclusive way to select candidates is for the whole process to be controlled by one person, most of the time the party leader or the party president. Few examples of this logic can be found; it exists only in parties dominated by a charismatic and authoritarian leader, such as extreme right parties (Front National in France, Vlaams Blok in Belgium). From that extreme point, procedures involve more and more participants. Slightly less exclusive is a system in which an oligarchy is in charge of drafting electoral ballots. Making the procedure more inclusive, candidates may be selected by party delegates designated by party members. More rarely, party members may also be directly involved, as in the recently founded Italian Democratic Party. Finally, the most inclusive

system associates the electorate to the procedure, as is the case in the United States with primary elections. In Western democracies, the most frequent procedure to select candidates is to have party delegates in charge of candidate selection.

Figure 2. Inclusiveness Of Candidate Selection

The recent dominant trend is to open the procedure to party members. In all Western democracies, there is growing pressure for more transparency and participation. Political parties are facing this demand and are adapting through opening their procedures, and in particular by making the way they select their leaders and their candidates more open. Many parties have, for example, abandoned recruiting candidates via selected party agencies and opted for full members’ vote systems, or at least for giving their members a bigger say. Examples include the French Parti Socialiste or the British Labour Party. The impact of the democratization of candidate recruitment procedures is still unclear.

Apart from the degree of inclusiveness, the second element relevant to the study of candidate recruitment is the level of power wielded by those in charge of drafting electoral ballots. For this variable, one extreme is a system entirely controlled by the national party organs who select the candidates running in each constituency. Canadian parties function very much like this; the national party leader imposes some candidates in constituencies that have a chance to be won. On the other extreme, the party in the district with no veto power for national organs recruits the candidates. Between the two extremes are systems that have various rules involving both levels of power and differ on which level has the final word. In practice, in most Western parties, decentralized bodies usually dominate candidate selection; the national party organs usually have only a consultative role.

Composition Of Parliaments And Party Health

Numerous studies about candidate selection have demonstrated that electoral ballots are still far from being mirrors of society. Candidate recruitment is not equally open to all citizens. Michael Gallagher and Michael Marsh’s 1988 study, Candidate Selection in Comparative Perspective: The Secret Garden of Politics, made clear that some members of certain categories have greater chances to become candidates and to enter parliament than others, beginning with incumbents who are more likely to be renominated than first-time candidates. Furthermore, candidates tend to have a stronger educational background and to be wealthier than the average. Thirdly, in lists systems only, parties usually try to have geographically balanced lists covering the whole constituency. Finally, ethnic minorities and women are underrepresented on electoral lists. The recent trend toward a more open system of candidate selection has, in this respect, not proven able to unlock the access to parliamentary mandates. On the contrary, a more open system has even reinforced some bias, in favor of incumbents and of men. This trend is balanced, however, in some countries due to mandatory gender equality (e.g., French law imposes gender parity among candidates).

Some scholars have explored the impact of reforming candidate selection on intraparty life. The major line of interest on this issue splits into two opposing camps. Some contend that more inclusive procedures are potential sources of internal divisions. Others believe that more inclusive rules allow national leaders to enhance their control of party candidates and, as a consequence, the cohesion of their party. The first thesis is supported, among others, by Hazan, who judges in his 2002 work “Candidate Selection” that “candidates who are chosen by inclusive selectorate owe their loyalty to their voters in the candidate selection process, and not only to their party. [ . . . ] Democratizing candidate selection thus produces dual sources of legitimacy for candidates—party legitimacy and selectorate legitimacy” (119). As a result, intraparty discipline becomes weaker; party leaders lose control over their ministers of parliament and their potential candidates by transferring candidate selection to party members. By contrast, Richard Katz and Peter Mair believe democratizing candidate selection increases leaders’ control. In their cartel party model, the top of the party could enhance its autonomy through the empowerment of the party basis. The core idea in their reflection is that party members are less ideological and more controllable than party activists. In that respect, attributing candidate selection to party members has not resulted in reducing the control of party leaders. On the contrary, it even strengthens their command by setting party activists aside.

Conclusion

Candidate recruitment has evolved significantly in the last twenty years. Since the early 1990s, political parties in established democracy have decided to open up the procedures for deciding who is going to stand for the party on the electoral ballot. Party members in particular have gained influence in the process, and in some cases voters have also been involved through open primaries copying the U.S. primary system. The change would be trivial if it was not expected to impact the quality of democracy and representation. Recent studies have shown that these changes have slightly affected the profile of candidates. Incumbents and well-known figures from outside politics have been more successful in convincing party members to select them. Party leaders have lost their ability to impose new faces on the ballot. Yet the party leadership is adapting quickly, and the changes provoked by democratizing candidate recruitment should not be overestimated.

Bibliography:

Bille, Lars. “Democratizing a Democratic Procedure: Myth or Reality?” Party Politics 7, no. 3 (2001): 363–380.
Gallagher, Michael, and Michael Marsh. Candidate Selection in Comparative Perspective: The Secret Garden of Politics. London: Sage Publications, 1988.
Hazan, Reuven Y. “Candidate Selection.” In Comparing Democracies 2: New Challenges in the Study of Elections and Voting, edited by Lawrence LeDuc, Richard G. Niemi, and Pippa Norris, 108–126. London: Sage Publications, 2002.
Hazan, Reuven Y., and Gideon Rahat. “Candidate Selection Methods: An Analytical Framework.” Party Politics 7, no. 3 (2001): 297–322.
“The Influence of Candidate Selection Methods on Legislatures and Legislators: Theoretical Propositions, Methodological Suggestions, and Empirical Evidence.” Journal of Legislative Studies 12, nos. 3–4 (2006): 366–385.
Katz, Richard S. “The Problem of Candidate Selection and Models of Party Democracy.” Party Politics 7, no. 1 (2001): 277–296.
Katz, Richard S., and Peter Mair. “Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party.” Party Politics 1 (January 1995): 5–28.
Norris, Pippa, and Joni Lovenduski. Political Recruitment: Gender, Race, and Class in the British Parliament. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Scarrow, Susan, Paul Webb, and David Farrell. “From Social Integration to Electoral Contestation: The Changing Distribution of Powers within Political Parties.” In Parties Without Partisan: Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies, edited by Russell J. Dalton and Matthew P. Wattenberg. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.